Women, Great Is Your Faith!
Isaiah 56:1, 6-7; Romans 11:13-15, 29-32; Matthew 15:21-28
What is going on in today’s Gospel? Is this the same Jesus who repeatedly throughout the gospels reaches out to welcome, teach, heal, and eat with the outcasts, the sinners, the women and all the others who were marginalized in his society?
The Gospel reading for today gives us what, to my mind, is certainly one of the strangest images of Jesus in all of Scripture. He seems to be completely out of character. It is not the picture of the compassionate openness that usually radiates from the Scriptural image of Jesus. In fact, He even seems, at first, to be outright offensive. Jesus is approached by a woman whose daughter is ill. And she, as hundreds of others had done, asked Jesus for His help, to cure the girl. And usually, this kind of a request brought an immediate response from Jesus. But in this instance He totally ignores her. He says nothing at all. And when his silence is finally broken by the Apostles, all they have to say is, "Send this woman away. She is bothering us." And in fact that is what Jesus seems about to do, and callously so.
He says to the woman, "My concern is not with you. Only with the people of Israel." But the woman does not give up, she presses her plea. And then Jesus says something that seems very harsh. He says, "It would not be right for me to take something that belongs to God's chosen people, the Jews, the sons and daughters, and throw it to the dogs, to someone like you."
But the woman doesn't seem to be put off by that, she doesn't even seem to be particularly offended. It is almost as if she was used to that kind of treatment. And in fact, that may well have been the case. She had two things working against her, after all, two things that would make the Apostle's brush-off a pretty natural reaction. First, she was a woman. And in those days, that was a pretty hard role to have. Women were not taken very seriously. But Jesus had long since demonstrated that He did not accept that attitude, and the Gospels make quite a point of the fact that Jesus counted among His closest friends, Martha, and Mary and Mary Magdalene.
And the second, and really the greater thing that this woman had against her was that she was a Canaanite, a member of one of the tribes that the Jews had conquered when they took over the Promised Land. You see, throughout their history, the Hebrews had a sense of being chosen by God, which gave them a sense of identity, a sense of purpose that was really unique in human history. They were a people who very much and very rightly saw themselves as set apart by God, as a nation really very different from the rest of the world. This sense of being chosen was so strong, in fact, that it often made the Hebrews a very narrow and intolerant people, a prejudiced people. And that ugliest of human emotions, outright prejudice, was the force at work in this Gospel scene. In the minds of the Apostles, the woman was not one of the chosen people, she was not "one of us", and as such she had no right to even make a request of God, let alone assume that he would do anything about it. And so Jesus' attitude, the role that He seems to be playing, was really much more directed toward the Apostles than it was toward the woman. By Himself being so much a man of His time and culture, by recognizing, even verbalizing the prejudicial attitude of His followers, Jesus sort of picks up this intolerance, and holds it up in front of their faces, and then, by His final loving acceptance of the woman, condemns it, contradicts it, and begins to turn it around.
But despite everything the woman has going against her, she believes that Jesus can help her and she is persistent and she is humble in her belief. This woman doesn't plead for a special exception but simply asks Jesus to treat her with the grace and the love, the compassion and the healing power that she knows he has given to others. She doesn't come looking for proof of His messiahship or divinity, she doesn't speak to Jesus on behalf of her virtues, but simply appeals to his goodness and demands that he be who she knows him to be, the Loving Lord.
The woman holds onto her faith in Jesus in the face of obstinacy.
- She holds onto her faith even though she does not hear an answer from him right away.
- She holds onto her faith despite the barriers raised by others.
- She holds onto her faith even in the face of apparent insult and rejection from the one she believes in.
And in the end she receives the reward of faith. Jesus blesses her, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish."
Here lies the key to the whole story. It is her faith that makes the difference. "Great is your faith" -- compare this to the words we heard addressed to the apostle Peter in last week's Gospel: "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?" Peter was a Jew, Jesus' friend, and one of the chosen twelve; yet this Canaanite woman had shown greater faith than Peter. And her faith is rewarded.
We’ve probably all had the experience of asking for something and hearing the words, "The answer is no, and don't ask me again!” But this is not how it is with God. Jesus teaches us through his encounter with the Canaanite woman that we should ask for whatever we need, and ask for it again, and ask for it again.
"It" may be a greater measure of faith, will-power, self-discipline.
"It" may be a sense of peace, in your workplace, in your home, in our world.
"It" may be justice for the oppressed.
"It" may be healing--of your body, mind, spirit, a relationship.
"It" may be an upswing in your finances, employment, success in your business.
"It" may be a dream, a goal, a desire you've always wanted but haven't realized yet.
“It” may be what ever else weighs heavy on your mind, in your heart, or upon your soul.
But often, we give up too easily. We are more afraid of seeming foolish than we are hungry to receive God's blessing. But great faith comes by throwing ourselves at his mercy, deciding that we have no hope anywhere else - great faith comes when we leap into his arms, trusting that they will hold us. For you see, risk is exactly what great faith requires. The Canaanite woman’s faith was nothing more than her firm confidence, until the contrary was proved, that Jesus could and would help her. And she held to that faith above all else, and was willing to press it to the limit.
Great faith is the faith of the child who comes to the father, even when they know that they must be punished, because they see the tears in their father's eyes, and know that they still rest in his love. Great faith is the child that comes to the mother with a skinned knee, even though they know that she will put iodine on it and it will hurt, because they trust that she would not do anything to hurt them that did not need doing, for their own sake. Great faith is seeing God through the cross, and deciding that he is truly for me, that he loves me as he said he does, and then holding to that faith until all of the evidence is in, and it is proven wrong. That is precisely what makes that faith so great - because there isn't enough evidence in the whole world to prove that kind of faith wrong. On the contrary, the one with that kind of faith will find their faith proved out: again, and again, and again. It will be strengthened constantly.
"Woman, great is your faith." The Canaanite woman claims her place in the kingdom based on faith. In fact, the kingdom of God depends exactly on this kind of faith, rather than the particular family or ethnic group to which we belong or the socio-economic status we might have attained. "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David," was the cry of this pagan woman whose prayer was heard and whose faith was rewarded. And so, today and everyday, let us echo her prayer, whatever our needs might be: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of David, Son of the Living God, have mercy on us.
