Matthew 15:21-28
21 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.” 23 Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” 24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” 25 The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said. 26 He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” 27 “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” 28 Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment. (Matthew 15:21-28)
How many of you feel that Jesus seems a little rough and tactless in this situation? Let’s be honest. The woman comes to him begging for her daughter’s healing, and Jesus answers her negatively three times. First, Jesus “did not answer a word” (v. 23). Then Jesus refused her with the words, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” And finally he “rebuked” her with the words, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” Yet in spite of all these refusals of his, the Syrophoenician woman kept worshiping him and pleading with him and asking him to meet her need. But let me explain what is actually happening at this moment. Among other things, in this situation we see once again that Jesus is the greatest teacher who ever lived. This account shows very clearly his brilliance and his perfection as a teacher. A good teacher’s methods are very often not clear and not understood by his students. Yet the effect of his teaching is undeniable. Here we see how Jesus, as a teacher, teaches both his disciples and the Canaanite woman at the same time. He builds and provokes faith in her. As a teacher, Jesus often used this particular method of deliberately introduced confusion into the minds of his disciples. Following him, they were very often shocked by his words and actions and simply did not know what to say or how to react. Left without words and without breath in a situation with no way out, they grew in faith. For example, once they came to him and said, “Lord, look, the crowds are tired and hungry.”… What did Jesus tell them? “You feed them! — You give them something to eat!” (Matthew 14:16; Mark 6:37; Luke 9:13). But how could they feed five thousand men, besides women and children, when they themselves did not have enough food even for themselves? The disciples could not have imagined that Jesus would multiply the bread and the fish. But Jesus showed them that nothing is impossible for him. Another time he put them in the boat, lay down at the back of the boat, and fell asleep. But a storm broke out, and they cried, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” (Mark 4:38). Yet Jesus showed them that they could silence the waves. He got up and said to them, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” (Matthew 8:26). In the same way Jesus builds us too — he puts us in situations that are hard and impossible for us, situations in which we simply do not know what to do. But in fact these are tests. James says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance” (James 1:2-3). God wants to build our faith. And in our text we see that this Canaanite woman’s faith was built. In practice, through her Jesus showed the disciples what they ought to be in their persistence and zeal and determination in their prayers to God. And through her he shows us as well — what we ought to be in our faith and trust in God: not to take “no” for an answer. To pray and to press on to the end — then God will surely answer us. That is why I have called this teaching “a double test” — because on the one hand we have a test of the Canaanite woman’s faith, and on the other hand we have a test of the disciples’ mercy and of what they will do.
THE FIRST ROUND FOR THE CANAANITE WOMAN: “BUT JESUS DID NOT ANSWER A WORD”
But let us return to our text.
21 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.” (Matthew 15:21-22)
This woman comes to Jesus like a beggar. She cries out to him with the traditional beggar’s cry: “Have mercy on me! Have mercy on me!” Who else in the Gospels cried out like this? Blind Bartimaeus, who cried out in the same way: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (Mark 10:47-48). This was the traditional beggar’s cry with which the Canaanite woman called out to Jesus and pleaded for healing. But she does not only beg and cry, “Have mercy on me!” In addition she calls him “Lord” and “Son of David,” which shows that although she was a foreigner, she had some knowledge of Judaism. In fact, by calling him “Son of David,” she is addressing him as the Messiah. Her prayer is absolutely right and correct.
“Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.” (Matthew 15:22)
There is nothing wrong with this prayer, is there? It is right, spoken in faith… Yet Jesus does not answer her anything. And notice, too, that she is not praying for herself — she is interceding for her daughter! Her daughter is suffering from demon-possession, and she has taken her daughter’s problem as her own. That is why she cries, “Have mercy on me!” — because she is praying for her daughter as though for herself.
23 Jesus did not answer a word. (Matthew 15:23)
Further on we see that Jesus actually would answer her. But the first time “Jesus did not answer a word.” So we need to know that perhaps in our own lives there will be occasions when we pray rightly, when we intercede, when we plead… but we do not get an immediate answer to our prayers. Perhaps God wants to teach us something through that delay. This woman’s daughter was suffering terribly. So she humbly, with reverence and awe, brings her request to Jesus, and he reacts as if he were not even there at the moment. Picture the scene. Jesus is at the table with his disciples, and at the table there may also be some children eating together with the grown-ups. Perhaps there are also some household dogs lying about, waiting for their masters to finish their meal. There is food on the tables. They are eating and talking at the same time… And then suddenly this pagan woman appears and begins to cry out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me, my daughter is suffering terribly from a demon!” And Jesus does not react in any way — he behaves as if he were not there at that table, as if he does not hear the cry of the poor mother. His reaction can be described as indifference and rejection. What would you do if you asked something of someone and he simply kept silent and answered you nothing? In law this is called a “silent refusal.” If you received such a silent refusal, perhaps you would take offense and say, “He is not answering me — then that is the end of our relationship, I will never speak to him again.” Perhaps this is how we act toward God. When he does not answer our prayers immediately, we too take offense and say, “I will not pray anymore!” And notice that the evangelist Matthew does not try to hide Jesus’ offensive treatment of her. On the contrary, he draws our attention to it, because he knows what we still do not know — namely, that what is happening is in fact a test, and Matthew wants us to be put under this test as well and to see what we will think as we read all of this. At this moment the woman could have turned and left. Faced with Jesus’ silence, she had to answer some questions for herself:
- How badly do I want my daughter to be healed?
- How much am I willing to trust and rely on Jesus?
- If he is silent — will I give up, or will I keep going?
And we too must ask ourselves this question. When we pray for something and get no answer… will we give up? Or will we keep asking God even when he is silent? What do you say? We will not give up, will we? We will not give up! Even Elijah, though he was God’s prophet, when he prayed for rain the first time — no cloud was to be seen. So what did he do? He went and prayed again, and so on, up to seven times (1 Kings 18:42-45).
42 So Ahab went off to eat and drink, but Elijah climbed to the top of Carmel, bent down to the ground and put his face between his knees. 43 “Go and look toward the sea,” he told his servant. And he went up and looked. “There is nothing there,” he said. Seven times Elijah said, “Go back.” 44 The seventh time the servant reported, “A cloud as small as a man’s hand is rising from the sea.” So Elijah said, “Go and tell Ahab, ‘Hitch up your chariot and go down before the rain stops you.’” 45 Meanwhile, the sky grew black with clouds, the wind rose, a heavy rain started falling and Ahab rode off to Jezreel. (1 Kings 18:42-45)
We see that the Syrophoenician woman was determined to get an answer to her prayer. She would not take “no” for an answer, and so she passed the “first round” of her test — she prays, Jesus does not answer her, and what does she do? She keeps praying.
THE TEST FOR THE DISCIPLES: “I WAS SENT ONLY TO THE LOST SHEEP OF ISRAEL”
That was the first part of her test; she passed it, but the second part of her test was only beginning. Yet let us leave her for a moment and look at the disciples. In the text we see that there were tests not only for her but for them as well.
So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” (Matthew 15:23)
And what about the disciples in this case? Brutes! Instead of having compassion on her, of pitying her and interceding for her before Jesus — “Lord, we beg you, help this woman! For you nothing is impossible!” — instead of doing that, they look to get rid of her annoying presence as fast as possible: “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”
24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” (Matthew 15:24)
Jesus said exactly what his disciples expected to hear. This was their theology. At the same time, hearing Jesus’ answer, the woman goes through the second part of the test of her faith. Because first he “did not answer a word,” and now he tells her, “I am sorry, daughter, but you are a pagan, and I have been sent only to the Jews. You are an outsider. I am the Son of David, and I have been sent to the Israelites. You are not part of my mission. I am doing my work. Why should I bother with you, serve you, and answer you?” I want you to understand that this was a test — a test both for the Canaanite woman and for Jesus’ disciples. When we are tested, our tests contain traps. The fact that in a given test something seems true does not always mean that it is true. Perhaps in the same way we too sometimes think and say that God does not answer the prayers of unbelievers. “I am sorry, but you are an unbeliever, and therefore God will not answer you.” Does God answer the prayers of unbelievers or of non-Christians? He does answer them. In this case the disciples’ theology was that the Messiah had been sent to serve and to bless only the Jews. Was Jesus sent “only to the lost sheep of Israel”? Remember the golden verse of the Bible (John 3:16). “For God so loved… the world…” Is the world only Israel? “that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever… believes in him… shall not perish… but have eternal life.” Of course Jesus was sent, at that moment of his ministry, right there to that place, but in fact his mission was far more global. By saying these words, he spoke aloud the thoughts of his disciples. And they agreed with it. They were glad to hear these words. Perhaps they said to themselves, “Often what our teacher says is complicated and confusing to us, but this time… this time, unlike other times, he speaks quite clearly and plainly. He was not sent except to the lost sheep of Israel. Amen. What an elegant way to get rid of this annoying woman.” But the question in the Canaanite woman’s test is: “Is her concern for her child so deep, and her confidence in Jesus’ compassion so strong, that she will keep insisting on an answer even when it seems there is no hope at all and she herself seems unwanted?” Because at these words, if we had been in her place, perhaps we would have felt offended and left. But she had nowhere else to go. She knew that salvation could come only from Jesus Christ. She believed in him alone, and her faith was complete. So instead of leaving, instead of taking offense, she knelt on the ground in a gesture of honor and humility.
25 The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said. (Matthew 15:25)
The Canaanite woman kept on asking. Even though the disciples would have said the same thing as their teacher — “Jesus was sent only to the Israelites, and you are not an Israelite…” — still, when they saw all that she was doing, something inside them was touched by the actions of this foreign woman, and they were stirred. This cry of a desperate mother for her only daughter is in fact a physical and spiritual agony. And in fact the question they had to ask themselves was: “Is it possible that God is better and greater than their own theology?” Because sometimes, with our theology, with our understanding of God, we put God in a box and say, “God helps only these people and those people…” But this text shows us that even if (to put it in orthodox terms) “Jesus was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel,” did he listen to this woman? Did he answer her? So he was not sent “only to the lost sheep of Israel,” but to all who believed in him. Because he ministered not only to this foreign woman, but also to that centurion of whom he said, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith” (Matthew 8:10). So in fact the ones to whom Jesus came to minister were those who have faith. So let us have this understanding. And let us not limit ourselves and say, “God works only this way… God only like this… God only otherwise…” But let us know that for God nothing is impossible. For him there are no “hopeless cases.” God loves everyone. Can God save a murderer? He came for them. Can someone with a strange hairstyle and makeup, or tattoos and a bright green punk mohawk, be saved? Let us be more open and more broad-minded, because this is exactly what God wanted to teach the disciples in this case. And they saw it, and they were amazed. Jesus went on:
26 He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” (Matthew 15:26)
Look. First, he is silent. She — keeps pleading with him. Then he says, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” That is, he hinted to her — but quite firmly — that “I was not sent for you…, so you had better clear off and disappear.” But she went on kneeling before him and said, “Lord, help me!” And Jesus now tells her a third time, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” These are very interesting words. Their meaning is perfectly clear. The “children” in this case are the Israelites, and the “dogs” are the pagans, and more specifically this woman. Dogs at that time and in that part of the world were despised creatures. They fed on carrion and rummaged through the garbage. They were treated with almost as little regard as pigs. And to be called a “dog” was an insult. And the Jews called the pagans “dogs.”
But what Jesus is doing here is that he is making the disciples look at themselves and examine their own attitude and their own hearts. In effect he is telling them this: “You want me to push this woman away, to get rid of her? You want me to keep my ministry only for Israel? Fine, I will do as you wish, but then you deal with this woman. If I do not help her, then you watch her suffer, you listen to her cry, you think about the suffering of her demon-possessed daughter!” At the outset, with his words Jesus articulates — formulates and expresses — the theology of Israel and their attitude toward the pagans. But it is one thing to feel contempt for someone who is far away from you, and quite another to see him before your eyes and at the same time to hear your own thoughts spoken aloud and your feelings openly exposed when you are standing face to face with the person you despise and you see that he too, like you, is God’s creation. So in fact Jesus told them what they expected to hear: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” And their attitude was, “Amen! Amen!” He said, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” And this too was an expression of their attitude. But how did these disciples feel at that moment, when they saw the woman’s agony and heard her cry, “Lord, help me!”? In fact, what Jesus wanted to see in this case was whether any of his disciples would have compassion on this woman, whether any of them would intercede for her. Would any of them show Christian love and concern for her? But no — not one of them did, not on that day. We do not see any of the disciples say, “Lord, it does not matter that she is a pagan. So what if she is a pagan? Look, she has an enormous need that cannot be met by any human means; look, she honors you as the Son of David and the Anointed One; she has faith; for you nothing is impossible…” They could have supported her, couldn’t they? Yet they had within themselves this attitude that the pagans are simply “dogs” — rejected by God and excluded from his plans. And Jesus told them, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” In this way he wanted to test them and to see whether they would say “Amen” to his words. And they did. So in this case the disciples failed their test, while the woman passed hers.
THE THIRD ROUND FOR THE CANAANITE WOMAN: “IT IS NOT RIGHT TO TAKE THE CHILDREN’S BREAD AND TOSS IT TO THE DOGS”
Because even when he said this, Jesus is divinely delicate. Although he expresses the attitude of his disciples, Jesus gently softens his language toward the woman. He tests his disciples, but at the same time he is careful not to offend the woman, and so he does not use the word “dogs,” but says the word “little dogs” (puppies). Jesus uses a diminutive that warms the heart, because who does not love animals when they are tiny? While they are little, all animals are sweet. Do you like little puppies? Everyone loves animals while they are small. But if it is a big street mongrel that goes rummaging through the garbage, that barks, bites, and carries disease — do you love such a dog? Not much, right? But everyone loves the little sweet puppies that are clean and childishly harmless, silly and playful. And here in Greek a special word for “little dogs” is used, which means exactly the little sweet puppies that live in people’s homes, and not the big street dogs that rummage through the garbage, eat carrion, bite, and carry disease. Jesus uses the word “dogs” for the sake of his disciples, but at the same time he softens it and makes it a diminutive for the sake of the woman. And in fact what he says — “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs” — is the hardest part of her test. Because she could have said, “What, puppies? He is calling me a ‘dog’ (not to say what comes after that, right)?” She could have said to herself, “I am turning around and leaving, since he treats me this way.” She could have said, “What a heartless Lord!” and begun to speak against him and to revile him, couldn’t she? “I went to him as a person, I pleaded with him, I bowed down to him, and he talks about dogs…” But this woman did not act that way. She was simply… incredible…, simply… an example for us. She was humble, and this helped her endure not only the first part of the test, but the second and the third part as well. Because this was the third part of the test. The first was that Jesus did not answer her; then he told her, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel” — the second part of the test. She kept on pleading with him. And the third part of the test: “Is it right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs?” — that was the third part of the test. Would she leave, or would she stay? She could have decided that all of this was not worth the effort she was putting in. She could have given up and handed in her test unfinished. But her love for her daughter proved so strong, so intense, that she was ready to endure even being humiliated for her sake — even though Jesus did not say these words to humiliate her, though she could have understood them that way. Her faith and trust in Jesus and in his power and ability to heal proved so deep, her faith in Christ’s mercy so strong, her devotion to Jesus so unshakable, that she would not give up for anything in the world. May God help our faith in Christ’s mercy to be stronger than our desire to give up. May God help our devotion to Jesus to be so unshakable that we never give up. May our faith and trust in Jesus to heal be so deep that we do not take “no” for an answer and keep on asking God to answer our prayers for healing. Because, among other things, this is an example of a prayer for healing — and not an ordinary healing, but deliverance from an unclean demon. And it says that in answer to her prayer and her faith, “her daughter was healed at that moment”! Glory to God! But see this too — that the Canaanite woman’s answer to Jesus’ words, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs,” was incredible.
27 “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” (Matthew 15:27)
To grasp the full meaning of this text, we must understand how lively, colorful, and vivid the conversation between Jesus and the Canaanite woman is. What she does is that she seizes on the diminutive word for puppies that Jesus uses — in Greek “kunarion” (“κυνάριον”) — and, as I told you, these are household puppies, not street dogs. And by seizing on this word, since these are household puppies, and they are fed from their master’s table, and not from the garbage bins, the Canaanite woman admits that this word could apply to her. But even while humbling herself so far as to agree that she is a puppy, she also softens the language: instead of the word “leftovers” — because even the “puppies” feed on leftovers, right — she does not say “leftovers,” or the even stronger word, “scraps” (because that is exactly what dogs eat), just as Jesus uses a diminutive for dogs, so she too uses a diminutive for leftovers — “little crumbs,” in Greek “psichion” (“ψιχιων”). Literally her words could be rendered like this: “Yes, Lord, I am a ‘little dog,’ but even the ‘little dogs’ eat the ‘little leftovers’ or the ‘little crumbs’ from their master’s table.” The Canaanite woman answers Jesus with persistence, with determination, with grace, and even with ingenuity and wit. It is as if there is a contest of outwitting between Jesus and her. Jesus says, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs,” but she, in a sense, out-argues him, or, to put it in slang, she “corners” him. She says, “Yes, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” What is Jesus to say next? There is nothing more to say. And Jesus likes this. There is a certain special element of playfulness on her part as she argues with Jesus. She says, “All right, Jesus, if we are going to spar with words, then let us go all the way. I am sure that if we are going to play at something, there will be a prize for me too.” So she simply does not give up.
THE TEST OF THE ENDURANCE OF FAITH
This is what can be called the test of the endurance of faith. The Canaanite woman comes to this test and passes it. Perhaps today some of you are going through this test. Something is happening in your life — something hard, something painful, and you do not know whether you will ever be able to find relief and deliverance. But that is not all. You pray, you kneel, you beg, and yet you do not understand God’s answer. God seems silent, seems indifferent… It may even seem to you that God is hostile. But we must know that every choice we have to make in life ultimately comes down to a choice between hope and despair. And as Christians and people who know God, we must know that there is meaning, and that it is always worth choosing hope. So choose hope! Choose to keep believing that God will answer your prayer. “Christ answered this woman’s request in four different ways: first, he remained silent; then he refused her; then it seems that he rebuked her; but in the end he rewarded her faith.”[1] Some of you perhaps face the test of faith every day. The question is: “Will you keep going even when you do not know why, even when you do not know whether at all, or when, you will receive help?” Because incredible things happen in our lives. We can go through especially heavy trials. Trials in which we begin to ask the question, “Why?” or even, “Where is God in this situation?”; “Why does he not intervene?” “What am I to do now?” When you receive no answers that take away your pain, will you keep saying even then, “My God!”? Will you keep calling him “Lord” even when you cannot understand his ways and his manner of working? Because even when she did not understand him, this woman kept calling him “Lord” — she said, “Yes it is, Lord…” — even though he did not answer her right away and kept refusing her, she kept her respect for Jesus and kept calling him “Lord.” Will you keep believing that God is good and kind even when, from your point of view, he does not seem to be? Will you keep moving forward with all the grace and persistence and faith you can gather within yourself, hoping that one day he will put everything in its place? May God help us not to give up, but to keep moving forward with faith and with prayer and with perseverance.
WHAT WAS THE CANAANITE WOMAN’S NAME?
This story brings my thoughts to Jacob. Do you remember how he wrestled with a “man” by the fords of the river Jabbok (Genesis 32:24)? After a while of wrestling, he realized that this “man” with whom he was wrestling was no ordinary man. Then he became afraid and said, “I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared!” (Genesis 32:30). At that moment he realized that the one with whom he had been wrestling was in fact God himself. Jacob met this “man,” and he wrestled with him all night. And when dawn came and it grew almost light, the “man” said to him, “Let me go!” (Genesis 32:25-26). But Jacob would not stop wrestling with him. This forced God to touch the socket of his hip and to cripple him. This crushed Jacob. But even in that moment of agony Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me!” “I will not let you go unless you bless me!!!” And when God saw that nothing could make Jacob give up his search for God’s blessing, he blessed him. And he gave him a new name… What name did he give him? Israel… What did “Israel” mean? “One who struggles with God” (Genesis 32:28). Because he had struggled with God and with man and had overcome. We can understand why Jacob wrestled with God — he was seeking the blessing. But can we understand why God wrestled with Jacob? Why did God need to wrestle with Jacob??? God would have had no trouble winning the fight. If he had simply breathed on him, he would have vanished. So why did he need to wrestle with a man all night? Why did he not simply give him the blessing? Evidently God values this quality in a person — God values determination and a person’s ability not to give up. If you have this ability not to give up, then know that God will answer your faith — I want to tell you this. In fact this is one of the things he seeks to build in us — to make us people who endure trials; people who keep on fighting and standing firm to the end; people who persevere and who refuse to give up — like that persistent widow who kept knocking on the door of the unjust judge until he granted her justice according to her right (Luke 18:8). Do you remember that parable Jesus told, to teach us how we ought always to pray and…? And not to give up (Luke 18:1)! And not to give up!!! God wants to make us people like that neighbor who came to his friend to beg for bread and did not stop knocking until he received it (even though his friend had already locked his door and gone to bed and did not feel like getting up…). And what did he answer him? Would he give it to him? If the one asking was persistent enough, he would receive it. What did Jesus say about the friend? That, even though he had gone to bed, even though he had put his children to sleep, even though he had locked the door…, still “he will surely get up and give you as much as you need” (Luke 11:5-10).
8 I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need. (Luke 11:8)
So God wants to build this in us — this desire of Jacob’s — to ask for the blessing to the very end; this determination of the poor widow — to pray until we receive. God wants to build in us also what we see in this Canaanite woman — that she did not give up, even when Jesus fell silent, even when Jesus told her, “I was not sent to you”; even when Jesus rebuked her, saying, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” Jesus loves such people, people who cling to God’s goodness and kindness and do not give up on receiving it even when there are many things they cannot see clearly and cannot understand. And this is what I want to encourage you to do — to have faith. You may not understand many things, but when you see a promise of God, take hold of it and ask until you receive it, so that your joy may be complete. And God will give it to you, because he delights in your asking until you receive. This Canaanite woman from Matthew chapter 15 — do you know what her name was? Her name was “Israel” — if you understand what I mean — her name is not mentioned, but we can most certainly say that she was “one who struggles with God and overcomes” (Genesis 32:28). She was in a struggle with Christ, and she overcame — by faith. Do not think that Jacob overcame God by strength. In Hosea 12:4 it says that he overcame “with weeping and pleading” before God. The Canaanite woman received negative answers from Jesus. And in the end, when she took his words and turned them around and said, “Yes, Lord, but even the little dogs eat the little crumbs that fall from their master’s table” — then Jesus answered her and said to her, “Woman, you have great faith.” Jesus was astonished by her and in the end was glad to have been “defeated.” The disciples, who did not do very well on their test, simply watched the encounter between her and the Lord with wide-open eyes and gaped in astonishment. They had never seen anyone show so much boldness or confidence in Jesus, or anyone who demonstrated such a risk-taking love, ready for anything — because she was doing it for her daughter. When she first approached them, they thought that the one they were watching was a lowly person; one who could be called “the dregs of society” — one who is a Canaanite, who is foreign, who is an outsider. But things turned out so that it proved she related to Jesus on such a level of understanding, humility, honor, reverence, trust, and courage that in fact she was the one who put them to shame with her faith, her words, and her behavior.
MEGA FAITH
At last Jesus turns to the woman. And now he takes off the mask he had put on when he said he was sent only for the house of Israel and that it is not right to take the children’s bread and give it to the dogs. For a moment he had covered the enormous kindness of his heart — and he had done it with a definite purpose. Because he wanted to build her faith and to see how far and how much faith she had. But now that purpose had been achieved. The test was over, and the time had come to write the grades. And this woman received the highest grade — a six!
28 Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment. (Matthew 15:28)
Jesus said, “Woman, great is your faith! Your prayers are answered! Your daughter is healed! You were and are my beloved daughter the whole time. What a spirit you have! You wrestled with God and you overcame. Woman, great is your faith!” The word “great,” which Jesus uses for the Canaanite woman’s faith, is “mega.” We use this word when we speak of mega-watts, of mega-churches, and so on. But she had “mega-faith.” Mega is something that is truly big, something that is enormous. And this woman, whom everyone else thought was part of the dregs of society, was honored by the One before whom she knelt and whom she called Lord, and whom she would not let go until he answered her prayers. She passed the test because she had mega-faith. While I was preparing for this teaching, I read the following in a commentary (The Bible Exposition Commentary): “This woman’s faith was great because she persisted in asking and trusting even when everything seemed to be against her. Certainly her race was against her: she was a pagan. Her sex was against her, for most Jewish rabbis paid little attention to women. It seems the disciples were against her, and Christ’s words may have led her to believe that even he was against her. But all these obstacles only made her insist all the more in her asking.”[2] God always honors faith, because faith always honors God. Let us be strengthened in faith, because God esteems faith and he wants us to have faith. And may God give us the answers to our prayers and give us victory in the name of Jesus. Let us be “those who struggle with God”; let us wrestle with God. We have grown slack; we have forgotten to pray. We must pray earnestly and unceasingly. See how Jacob prayed — all night long. Let us cry out before God, and let us have experiences with God. This woman had an experience with God. She had something to tell. After this event she could tell her friends. “Do you know what happened? I went to Jesus. And when I prayed to him, at first he was silent. Then he said that he was sent only to serve Israel. But I kept praying to him. I knelt before him. Then he went on refusing me. He said, ‘It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.’ But I told him, ‘Yes, Lord, but even the little dogs eat the little crumbs that fall from their master’s table.’ And then he smiled and said to me, ‘Woman, you have mega-faith. Let it be as you desire.’ And do you know what happened? When I came home, my daughter was well — the demon was gone. And from that moment on she was completely healed. (And she married and has a family, and to this day she keeps on serving God…)”
[1] Wiersbe, W. W. (1997, c1992). Wiersbe’s Expository Outlines on the New Testament (61). Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books. [2] Wiersbe, W. W. (1996, c1989). The Bible Exposition Commentary. “An exposition of the New Testament comprising the entire ‘BE’ series”—Jkt. (Mt 15:21). Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books.