Just when we thought that Jesus’ love was all embracing and all compassionate, he shocks us by  behaving in a way that can only be described as harsh and unfeeling. In today’s gospel Jesus is approached by a Canaanite woman, who pesters him to cure her daughter. ‘Canaanite’ was the name given to the older inhabitants of Israel who were dispossessed as unclean by Jesus’ own people. Jesus would not have been expected to fraternise with such a woman. True to  expectation, Jesus does not respond to the woman, explaining that he has been sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel … this woman is therefore not his problem! Could Jesus really have held this harsh opinion, or was he testing his disciples?

The Canaanite woman continues to pester. She has great faith that Jesus will eventually give in and cure her daughter. Again Jesus responds harshly. “It is not right to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs…” In other words, only Jews had a right to be  treated as ‘children of God’. The Gentiles on the other hand are likened to ‘dogs’. This opinion seems even less like the Jesus we know! Much more likely is the notion that Jesus is stretching his disciples’ understanding of God’s boundaries, or rather, lack of.

When we first read the Bible we get the feeling that God is simply there for the ‘Children of Israel’ or the Hebrew Nation, but the truth is that God does not limit his promises to just certain categories of people. The story finishes with Jesus rewarding the woman’s faith with a cure. At first it might appear that Jesus is giving in to ‘pester power’, though it is much more likely that Jesus had decided from the very outset that he would help this woman. In awarding a cure, Jesus is showing his disciples and us, that faith has the power to melt boundaries and prejudice. Even today we probably imagine God’s salvation is for a select few, but today’s story teaches us that salvation is there for anyone and everyone who places their trust in God.

Jesus then answered the Canaanite woman:   

‘You have great faith.  Let your wish to granted.’