“Why not?” the woman asks Jesus.
First, Jesus ignores her. So she gets louder. Which makes his disciples beg him to send her away. He turns to his disciples and tells them that his mission is for ‘other’ people. More deserving people.
Finally, she gets close enough to make her petition to Jesus directly. In the language of those other, more deserving people, she kneels at his feet and humbly asks for his help.
Before we go on with the dynamics of this interaction between Jesus and the woman, let’s pause for a moment to notice context.
After feeding the 5,000 men plus women and children, Jesus sent the disciples ahead in a boat and went up the mountain to pray. Then there was a storm and the disciples were in trouble, so he walked on the water to save them. Safely ashore in Gennesaret, the healings continue.
Then, at the beginning of this chapter, the Pharisees have come to find Jesus and engage him in a legal debate about washing before eating and other purity laws. Jesus turns the debate into a teaching moment about how keeping the letter of the law can lose the spirit of it.
He then leaves that debate and goes much further north, into the historic Promised Land of Abraham and Sarah, near the coastal cities of Tyre and Sidon. Matthew doesn’t specify why Jesus travels this far from home, though his reputation for healing clearly goes with him.
Traveling in a foreign land, the home of Jacob who became the father of the 12 tribes of Israel, Jesus brings with him an assumption, based in ancient prophesy, that his work and ministry is to bring good news of God’s remembrance ONLY to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel.” This woman, a foreigner to Jesus, who is ironically a foreigner in this context, does not fit Jesus’ preconceived idea of his ministry audience.
So he ignores her, hoping she will go away. But she persists. SHE believes in him. People have been healed by touching the hem of his garment. She refuses to be dismissed, dehumanized, or gaslit into believing that God’s generosity of healing grace does not include her daughter.
She believes in the kingdom Jesus has been preaching about when he isn’t healing or feeding people everywhere he goes. A kingdom where there is justice and release from oppression, health and peace, bountiful harvests and great rejoicing. And why wouldn’t that kingdom include her?
Her persistence as she counters Jesus’ rebuff about throwing the children’s food to the dogs recalls Jesus’ conversation with the Pharisees in the preceding passage. Is a narrow historical interpretation of the prophecy getting in the way of the spirit of the good news?
I wonder how long the silence stretched on as the disciples (who were never far away) watched and wondered at her chutzpah to talk back to Jesus. As Jesus considered her words. As she continued kneeling at his feet, in humility, desperate for her child’s life and health. Was it 2 breaths? 10 breaths? How long did Jesus wrestle with what he understood from tradition and this overt challenge to live into the spirit of his own teaching?
Embodying the grace and generosity of a God who desires wholeness, healing, fullness of life for every person, could he continue to say the Good News was for only some people?
I imagine that, after a tense silence, he draws a deep sighing breath, and with some admiration for her shrewd argument, proclaims, “Woman, great is your faith!” She believed that Jesus could recognize the limitations of his own thinking and live into the spirit of grace and generosity that his ministry demonstrated in other places. After this story Jesus returns south to his home territory around the Sea of Galilee.
How often do we get caught up in the letter of something and forget to consider the spirit behind it?
Jesus, as the power-holder in this situation, could have reacted very differently. He could have continued to hold rigidly to his preconceived limitations, stepped over the prostrate pleading woman, and continued on his way. Instead, He chooses vulnerability. He chooses to hear and consider her counter-argument.
He chooses an awkward, and grace-filled, position. He chooses the spirit of the Good News of God’s kingdom of justice and peace and abundance.
It’s risky and vulnerable to choose to live into God’s kingdom. It challenges us to open ourselves to uncertain and scary possibilities. What if those ‘other’ people hear how great this place is and they want to come here? What will happen to our known community if a bunch of strangers show up and expect to be treated like they belong here? We might not be able to do things the way we always have? How will we survive?
So much uncertainty. So much possibility. It’s hard to imagine breaking out of the safety of the letter of things. And that’s the moment of faith in God’s promise to be with us, to extend healing and hope to ALL people, to empower us to ministry as a welcoming community of justice and love.
As we head into this fall, Trinity is looking at how to invite more neighbors to join us on this journey of faith, how to grow deeper in our own faith and share the good news of abundance that we know from our own lives. It will be risky, and vulnerable, and awkward at times. We will undoubtedly try some things that don’t go as expected. We will learn and try again. Our only failure will be to not try, to not extend ourselves in faith that God is with us as we share the good news of God’s generous grace and love with every person.
Let us pray.
Living God, you let the Gentile woman subvert your plans; give us the faith that comes from the heart and walks beyond our boundary posts that we might be surprised by outrageous grace; through Jesus Christ, son of David and light of the world. Amen.
