“Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David!
My daughter is tormented by a demon.”
But he did not say a word in answer to her.
Most of us would probably have given up then and there. After all, the Canaanite woman seemed to do everything right. She expressed faith in Jesus as Lord and Messiah. She asked him to have mercy on her daughter who was tormented by a demon, which was definitely known to be something of which Jesus was capable. Here she was with faith and with a legitimate need only to meet a wall of silence. How could she assume otherwise than that Jesus was indifferent. His disciples, after all, definitely were, at best, indifferent.
His disciples came and asked him,
“Send her away, for she keeps calling out after us.”
She received no response from Jesus and the disciples of Jesus tried to get rid of her. If they were being trained by him wouldn't their response be based on his own? Weren't they saying aloud what Jesus himself was thinking? When he did at last speak it seemed to be so.
He said in reply,
“I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
Jesus himself now explained why the focus of his mission did not include this woman and her problem. If it was us that had persisted this far we would probably still give up at this point, thinking, 'I knew it. It is for others, but not for me'. But this woman did not give up.
But the woman came and did him homage, saying, “Lord, help me.”
He said in reply,
“It is not right to take the food of the children
and throw it to the dogs.”
She attempted to communicate through worship that she was in desperate need. If Jesus had a sympathetic bone in his body how could he not respond? But his response was still not what she sought. He explained with an analogy what he had said above. He had come to feed the children of Israel and it was not his purpose then and there to feed the household pets. At the point when someone compares us to a dog we are likely to assume we've come to the wrong place. But not her.
She said, “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps
that fall from the table of their masters.”
In the silence of Jesus, the annoyance of his disciples, and in his statements that seemed to be about why he could not grant her request she realized he had never once said no. Silence was not a no. Unsympathetic disciples did not mean no. The mission of Jesus having a specific focus did not mean no. Even if he hadn't come to feed the pets as his main purpose, that did not mean they could not be fed. There was in him such abundance that even the mere scraps leftover from feeding the children would suffice to satisfy.
Then Jesus said to her in reply,
“O woman, great is your faith!
Let it be done for you as you wish.”
And her daughter was healed from that hour.
Jesus had come to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But this mission was in view toward unleashing the blessings of the promise to Abraham eventually on all nations, after his ascension when he empowered the Church with the Spirit in whom all could be one. Yet it is precisely the character of faith that it brings the future and the not yet into the here and now. It does this, not because the here and now looks anything like that future, but because it knows the one who holds the future, and that he is good indeed.
What this woman seemed to have in her heart was a little prophecy of what the coming of Jesus would mean eventually. And that faith brought a little bit of that goodness into her situation then and there. Thus, she experienced some of the joy that Jeremiah said would describe the time of the restoration of Israel.
Then the virgins shall make merry and dance,
and young men and old as well.
I will turn their mourning into joy.
I will console and gladden them after their sorrows.
No comments:
Post a Comment