The story of Jesus’s encounter with the Canaanite woman in Tyre and Sidon is one of the more controversial events in His ministry. On the face of it, He is being disgustingly rude to a foreign woman who is seeking His help. I want to encourage you, however, that this is a wonderful story about the persistent love of a mother and a great example of true faith and persistent prayer.
Genuine Christian prayer means pestering the Lord day and night until we both get what we want.
Calling a woman ‘a dog’ must surely be a gross insult in any culture and for Jesus to have called a woman ‘a dog’ seems outrageous especially as this event chronologically follows a clash with religious teachers on the subject of the impurity of the human heart.
Both Matthew and Mark record this event and place the encounter with this woman pleading for her daughter occurred after Jesus’s Galilean ministry which we have studied over the past few weeks. It precedes the point where He begins to reveal all that will happen to Him as He finally enters Jerusalem to face the Cross.
You will recall that since arriving in Galilee Jesus has been pursued relentlessly by the crowds seeking healing, His teaching and demanding favour. Having learned of the tragic death of John the Baptist He withdraws with His disciples to a quiet region overlooking the Sea of Galilee to mourn and escape the public eye, but even there the crowds find Him. Surely if they retreated to a non-Jewish pagan region they would get the respite they so badly needed, but no, even there they encountered this woman who blew their cover.
The region they entered was the coastal, Greek speaking Phoenician region of Tyre and Sidon in what is today the country of Lebanon. It was historically Canaanite territory who together with their Egyptian allies were the cultural enemies of the Jews. The Jewish Roman historian Flavius Josephus writing in his ‘Antiquity of the Jews – Against Apion Chapter 1 comments in particular about the antagonism expressed by the people of Tyre toward Israel. This seems hardly the kind of place a band of devout Jews would wish to take their R&R and a most unlikely location for their leader to be acclaimed as “Lord and Son of David.”
The Phoenecians were great sea traders and so it is possible that the news of Jesus had spread along trade routes especially along the Roman trade route Via Maris the ‘Way of the Sea.’ Whatever the means, Jesus’s identity as a great healer and prophet preceded Him and this gentile pagan woman knew of His reputation. She, however, makes a huge cultural jump by calling Jesus by an honorific Jewish Messianic title. Could it be that she was a genuine seeker after the faith or was she simply using complimentary Jewish titles of honour to curry favour? It was for this very reason that Jesus decided to test the genuineness of her faith and need.
At first Jesus appears dismissive to the point of being zenophobic. His attitude seems no better than the Pharisees with whom He crossed swords with so regularly over their petty superiority, but right from the outset Jesus instructed His disciples to be highly focussed in their mission to God’s own people, the Jews. This woman would be amongst a number of non-Jews that Jesus encountered like the Samaritan leper, and the Roman centurion for whom His grace and healing was extended, but the specific gentile mission was not going to take effect until the conversion and commissioning of St Paul.
Jesus told the woman that He has come first and foremost to His own people the Jews and that it was not right to cast such precious bread to their dogs. Surely Jesus crossed the line here?
Jesus used a similar metaphor earlier in the Sermon on the Mount in Matt 7: 6 “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces”, but referring to anyone pagan or otherwise as ‘a dog’ is unacceptable in today’s polite society. In mitigation, however, it is highly likely that He made this seemingly racist comment with a smile, because the Greek word used is not of the common street cur, but the diminutive form of a household pet κυνάριον (kynarion) in other words ‘puppies.’ “Ah” says the woman shrewdly, “But even the puppies are pleased to gather the crumbs of bread which fall from the Master’s table.” That was enough. The woman had passed Jesus’s test. She showed herself to be a dedicated mother determined to help her daughter who though a gentile pagan recognised something that the religious teachers in Jesus’s own community had failed to do so. She could have taken huge offence at Jesus’s attitude, but she demonstrated her true seeking faith in persistent prayer and petition with good humour. Jesus didn’t get the peace and quiet He sought, but instead found a genuine believer in hostile spiritual territory.
This story is as much a story about prayer as it is about a mother’s desire for her daughter’s healing and deliverance from evil. Persistent faith filled prayer recognizes Jesus for who He really is and keeps on praying until we both get what we want, He, a genuine disciple and us the answer to our prayer. The woman would not give up and neither must we. Intercessory prayer is in itself an indication of just how much we care.
In some ways like the story of this woman teaches us that we should not take ‘no’ for an answer! We should keep on asking because it shows our dedication and is an indication of how much we want something for someone. Bill Hybels, author of the book ‘Too busy not to pray’ encourages us to practise persistent prayer. He argues that God always answers prayer, but the answer will be ‘NO’ if the request is neither right for us nor in accordance with His will. The answer may be ‘SLOW’ if the request is right, but the timing is wrong, but if the timing is right and the request is right He will say ‘GO.’
Genuine Christian prayer means pestering the Lord day and night until we both get what we want.
Amen