(Audio)
She came and fell at his feet.
The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth,
and she begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter.
Although Jesus was trying to keep a low profile this woman managed to seek him out. She clearly had such deep concern for her daughter that no obstacle was too great if there was some possibility of hope. Jesus himself represented that possibility, as he had by now acquired the reputation for authority that allowed him to drive out demons. In spite of being from a different ethnic and religious background she nevertheless fell at the feet of Jesus and begged him for the favor she sought.
He said to her, “Let the children be fed first.
For it is not right to take the food of the children
and throw it to the dogs.”
She had already humbled herself and made herself vulnerable before Jesus. This initial response from Jesus represented a real test of her faith in him. Was such a test even fair? Her faith that Jesus was someone who could help was new and most likely still fragile. She had already lowered herself to fall at his feet. Wasn't such a test just as likely to provoke her and push her away? Yet Jesus only said it because he believed that she was able to make a response like the one she did, that it would draw from her, not rejection, but still deeper faith.
She replied and said to him,
“Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.”
She noticed perhaps that Jesus had not said no. He only mentioned what should happen first, not that the dogs would never be fed. This referred to the promises of God to the Jewish people, that salvation was first to them, and only later to the world, because "salvation is from the Jews" (see John 4:22), and as Paul and Barnabas said, "It was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you" (see Acts 13:46). But it was always the plan that God's blessings would eventually go forth from Israel to the entire world. This would happen when Jesus, in his own flesh, tore down the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile (see Ephesians 2:14), removing the veil, and opening the presence of God to all people (see Hebrews 10:19-20). Her faith reached out to a future not yet come and drew it into her present moment. She chose to trust in the overwhelming abundance of God which made it so that feeding even the dogs would in no way deprive the children. Rather than retaliating against the apparent slur, she creatively appropriated it in order to make the case for the favor she desired.
Then he said to her, “For saying this, you may go.
The demon has gone out of your daughter.”
When the woman went home, she found the child lying in bed
and the demon gone.
Her faith was able to attain the goal of the salvation of her daughter because and not in spite of the fact that it was tested. In similar situations we tend to infer too much from what Jesus says to us, hearing refusal when he says not yet. And we often disengage or rebel when our faith is tested such that what is not yet remains in the future whereas if we instead humble ourselves before the mighty hand of God our faith might grow enough to draw the future, the life of the resurrection, into the here and now.
If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you (see Romans 8:11).
Let us opt for the faith of the Syrophoenician woman rather than the idolatry of Solomon. If we do not seek our satisfaction and fulfillment in God we will have no alternative but to chase after fleeting pleasures and false gods just as Solomon did. Even great wisdom is no guarantee against this temptation. What matters is the disposition of our hearts. The anonymous woman in the district of Tyre is an icon of how this is meant to look whereas the great king is a cautionary tale.
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