A Canaanite woman has come to Jesus with a request for help with her demon-possessed daughter. Jesus has responded very uncharacteristically – first with silence, then with a comment about being only for Israel. “The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said. He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.””
It is highly derogatory to call someone a dog just because they are Gentile. To do so to someone’s face – especially when they are in great distress – is insulting in the extreme. The whole thing seems totally out of character for the Jesus that Scripture reveals to us. Unless of course, Jesus was actually doing something else. Something left off the direct pages of Scripture but nevertheless hinted at by the context.
Don Richardson pointed out that you can well imagine that He was looking at the disciples when He responded to her. You can imagine that there was something in His demeanor when He told her He was sent only to Israel – something in His look that encouraged her to continue petition. If you understand Jesus to be focused on how His disciples would respond, you can see why Jesus would say what He said, and why she would reply with confidence, “Yes, Lord,” she said, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” This reality is reinforced with Jesus’ sudden return to His normally generous self, “Then Jesus answered, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.”
Making disciples is not simply a matter of teaching lessons, because truly teaching is more than speaking, demonstration and activity. Like teaching, making disciples calls for testing. So Jesus tests His disciples. He tests them to see if they will apply what He’s taught them so far to overcome their internal prejudice to reach the unclean people of the Gentile world.
Unfortunately, they fail the test. If they had been able, they would’ve come to the woman’s aid. After all, they had no problem interrupting Jesus with their own opinions and desires at the Transfiguration, or even when He walked on the water during the night storm. It wouldn’t have taken much effort to say something in her defense. Yet they are silent.
While they fail the test, the woman in question does not. Her faith and willingness to approach Him as Lord – and her persistence in doing so in spite of His seeming indifference – is richly rewarded. Jesus graciously delivers her daughter from demonic possession, and that at a geographic distance. Which is something He did not do even among the Jews in Israel. It is the height of irony that a Gentile woman living in an overtly Gentile land can overcome her prejudice to approach a Jewish rabbi she’s never met before for help, while the disciples who Jesus personally mentored all this time cannot overcome their prejudice to so much as speak to their friend about an ‘unclean’ stranger in need.
May the Lord grant that we do better.
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
APPLICATION: Intentionality
When was the last time you stood up for a stranger?