A Retelling of Matthew 15:21-28

I am going to tell you a story, in which great faith was able to change a heart, and overcome the walls that divide us, one from another.

Jesus was teaching in Galilee to the people, and he was arguing with the Teachers of the Law who came to him from Jerusalem. People from all over the region came to him, bringing the sick and begging for healing, even to grab his cloak. And so, after some time of this, Jesus left Galilee and traveled to the area of Tyre and Sidon, a foreign area, a Gentile area.

Jesus wanted to remain unrecognized—perhaps to spend some time alone with his followers, so much to say to them; perhaps to have some time to himself, to think and to pray. So Tyre and Sidon would be natural places to lay low, away from the conflict and troubles in Galilee. The people there wouldn’t know much about his work, the crowds, or disputes he had.

Yet there was a woman from Tyre, a Canaanite, a Gentile—she might have been rich, and she might have been poor, we don’t know. This woman’s daughter was ill, seemed tormented by a demon. Somehow, this woman recognized something about Jesus—maybe she’d seen him before, maybe she’d heard Jesus talking with his disciples about what had happened in Galilee. And so, for her daughter’s sake, she took the chance— she a Gentile and he a Jew— and she shouted at Jesus: “Have mercy on me, Son of David! My daughter is horribly tormented by a demon!”

But Jesus ignored her, didn’t answer her at all. But she persisted, again and again: “Have mercy; take pity on me; heal my daughter!” And finally, the disciples said to Jesus: “You’ve got to send her away. She’s shouting at us, she’s drawing a crowd.”

So finally, Jesus turned to the woman and said: “My mission is only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. Go from me.”

The woman threw herself at his feet and pleaded: “Help me, Rabbi. Heal my daughter.”

And Jesus answered her: “It’s not right. It’s not right to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

“True, Rabbi,” she replied. “But even the dogs get to eat the scraps that fall from the table.”

There was a pause. By now a few people had gathered, and looked to Jesus for an answer.

And Jesus said: “Yes, woman, you are right. You have great faith, and your wish will be fulfilled.”

And at that very moment, the Canaanite woman’s daughter was healed.

Something changed after Jesus’ encounter with this woman. He healed again in the area, and eventually great crowds came, largely Gentile crowds. And as he had done, back in the land of Galilee, he fed these thousands, with bread in the desert, not scraps from a table, but abundant loaves and fishes.