The Woman Who Extended the Lord's Table

Helen Bruch Pearson in her book Do What You Have The Power To Do reminds us of the power of persistent faith. Let me share with you the story of a Canaanite women who refused to be turned aside until she had received a blessing from Jesus for her daughter. Her story can be found in Matthew 15:21-28.

"Jesus went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon, an area that bordered the region of Galilee. How far he journeyed into this district, and the reasons why he sojourned there, are questions without answers. However, the narrative of the Canaanite woman of persistent faith assures us that borderlands were no different for Jesus than they are for us.

Borderlands are those fringes where the boundaries of the familiar and the strange meet and intersect. They are uncertain marginal places where histories and traditions clash and challenge and overlay one another. They touch at the edges of converging, sometimes conflicting 'us' and 'them' perceptions of reality. Uncomfortable and fractious as they may be, they are also frontiers. Borderlands are mysterious places where the inbreaking of the new is conceived and born. So it was for Jesus in this borderland encounter where he traveled.

The district of Tyre and Sidon was definitely in non-Jewish territory. A Canaanite woman approached him, seemingly out of nowhere. She was not polite or timid. She showed no respect for their differences. She did not observe the lines of courtesy and custom that had separated the Jews and the Gentiles for centuries. Determined to get Jesus' attention, she was a shouting, assaulting, scene maker of the most irritating and embarrassing sort!

Nothing would quiet her except recognition by Jesus. The disciples tried to get her to stop. They attempted to chase her away. They were rude and unkind in an effort to dissuade her. The woman had gone too far, and the disciples could take no more. Her shouting after them was too much. They implored Jesus to send her away.

Out of the silence Jesus had kept, he spoke for the first time. His answer was blunt, curt, and intended to cut off - to end any verbal exchange. Was it intended for the disciples or for the woman? Or was it decidedly ambiguous so that all Gentiles who might ever ask for a favor from this Jewish Messiah would know the answer?

The disciples were relieved at Jesus' response. Surely this would put an end to the woman's public exhibition. But no - the woman persisted. Perhaps for the sake of her demented daughter, the woman was willing to endure and make a public nuisance of herself. Perhaps Jesus was one more cure she was willing to try. Or perhaps she knew more about the Israelites' God than they did. Whatever her reasons, in her turning to Jesus she was transformed. From a posture of shouting and demanding, she bowed and knelt before Jesus with a plea from her heart.

Jesus did not relent. Regardless of how needy she was or how worthy she might be, she was born a Gentile. She stood outside God's covenant. And Jesus was not about to satisfy her by giving up the blessings that belonged only to the children of Israel. How could she presume that she was entitled to anything from the Israelites' God?

'It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs."

His response was almost too hard to bear, for he compared this distraught Canaanite mother with a dog! Burdened by these words, was the woman's only option to slink away from the one she called "Lord" - the same one who called her a dog? To do this was not the woman's nature. In the face of rejection and insults, she refused to be refused! Time was too short and her daughter's life was too precious. The fragility of her daughter's situation kept her from being overcome with sentimentality and self-consciousness.

The woman's faith insisted that Jesus was open to hear God's will anew. He could still be struck to the heart with repentance, she believed. She did not hope for a faith that would move mountains. All she wanted was to speak the right words that Jesus would hear. With little to lose, the woman said, 'Yes Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the masters' table.

This Canaanite woman, who started out as an interruption and intrusion, became God's representative and bearer of truth to Jesus. Her faith challenged Jesus to exercise his faith in a new way - to venture beyond the familiar voices of tradition and to hear a new word from God. The woman was a stranger who shook Jesus from his Jewish way of seeing things. She was an invoker whose faith opened up new possibilities for all persons. She was a persistent petitioner, and after this encounter, no one could be denied access to God's blessings because of race or ancestry or inherited religion and culture. She had truly extended the Lord's table, and there was enough bread for all the children - Gentile, Jew, Greek, slave, free, man, woman, and child.

This story has no ending, but its beginning was with a Canaanite woman whose faith would not let Jesus go until he had blessed her daughter. With that blessing, we have all been fed. We all kneel beside our unnamed Canaanite sister and pray, "Lord, help me."