She Knew that Jesus Was Lord – Matthew 15

A text – Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28

15:10 Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand:
15:11 it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.”
15:12 Then the disciples approached and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?”
15:13 He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted.
15:14 Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.”
15:15 But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.”
15:16 Then he said, “Are you also still without understanding?
15:17 Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?
15:18 But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles.
15:19 For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander.
15:20 These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”
15:21 Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon.
15:22 Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.”
15:23 But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.”
15:24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
15:25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.”
15:26 He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
15:27 She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”
15:28 Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

A reflection:

Jesus has a conversation with his disciples about what makes a person unclean – it isn’t eating an un-Kosher meal. It is whatever evil that lies in the heart that defiles a person and causes them to speak or act in an unclean way.

Shortly after that conversation, a Canaanite woman (to the Jews, “unclean”) comes calling after them: “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David.” Her heart is clean, since from her mouth comes her profession of true faith: Jesus is Lord (and King as well if he is the Son of David). She is more pure of heart, more clean, than the disciples for whom it took Jesus’s walking on water to make them profess Jesus was truly the Messiah.

Jesus does not answer her right away. The disciples want Jesus to send her away. He does not do that either. Then he answers her in the way a Pharisee or perhaps even his disciples might: “I did not come to heal unclean Canaanites.” But the woman kneels before Jesus as before a king and begs for help, withstanding his protests once more. Jesus must have looked around at his followers to see if they noticed her faith in him, her behavior toward him as Lord, and her willingness to be understood even as a lowly dog in order to get what she needed for her daughter. At last Jesus respectfully pays tribute to her faith and heals her daughter.

Jesus seems to be playing a kind of hard-to-get game with this faithful woman, and that is unsettling to us. But might he have been teaching his disciples, at her expense, about who in the world he had come to heal and save? Was it fair? Not really. But did it teach them something? We don’t know, but we might guess that it did. In the very next chapter, Peter will make his confession that Jesus is the Son of God.

A prayer:

Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for the story of the Canaanite woman who persisted, knowing Jesus could help her, and hanging in there until he did. Help us, too, to be willing to go the distance to receive our blessing, like so many others before us. Help us to learn from that persistence how others feel when their wait for help is long.   Amen,