Compassion & Understanding Of The Lord Heals The Canaanite Woman’s Daughter

Today, I want to hear God speaking to us through the story of Jesus healing the Canaanite woman’s

daughter, who was tormented by a demon. For many reasons, this is a unique and fascinating story.

For starters, this story, which is placed in the region of Tyre and Sidon, is among the two stories of Jesus’

ministry outside his territory, Galilee and Judea. The only other place Jesus visited outside his ministry base is Caesarea Philippi (Mt 16:13), which is about 75 kilometres on foot away from Galilee.

Second, to my knowledge, this is the only instance in which Jesus was huffy and made smart comments on a woman. The woman concerned, outside the Jewish faith and thus a non-believer, confronted Jesus and pleaded for his help, saying: “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.” But Jesus shook her trees by saying: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel…; it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

The women, however, never gave in and continued pleading with Jesus, saying, “Lord, help me!”

In the context of all the stories of Jesus’ ministry, this story seems entirely off-tracked by the way Jesus engaged with people who had come to him for help. I read the story several times to understand whether I missed something important in the conversation between Jesus and the women. But I couldn’t find anything, and it was eating at me.

Still curious, I had wondered whether Matthew, who wrote this story in Greek, may have lost something in

translation. I even consulted the Gospel of Mark, where the story is reported (Mark 7:24-30.

Discovering that all the texts said the same was a bit of a spin-out -- both reports of the story agree.

Now, then, what does God want us to learn from this story?

To understand the message God wants us to hear today from this story, I would like to share two stories

with you that helped me understand this story. The first story I want to share with you will set the

background to the story of Jesus. The second story will help us to understand what God wants us to hear today through the Gospel story.

The first story is from my ministry and experiences in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This story is a bit

personal for the reasons you will soon know. The story is about a housemaid who approached me for help and support. She was 27 years of age. She was a maid like thousands of other maids in the UAE.

I discovered first-hand that the wealthy Emirati family that employed this girl over-worked,

harassed and tormented her for 16 hours a day for a meagre salary of A$ 200 per month.

I got involved in bringing justice to her through every legal avenue available. After six months of pursuing her case, I managed to help her by revising her working conditions and increasing her salary to A$450 per month. I have dealt with hundreds of such cases in the UAE. However, my involvement with this maid’s situation made me resent the injustice towards the labourers from the developing world in the UAE. I hastened the conclusion of my ministry there and returned home to Melbourne.

These kinds of experiences in the UAE made me understand what it is like to hate, resent, and deplore anyone or any foreign agency that would exploit, denigrate, and misuse another human being.

I wanted to share this story with you to help you understand the social background of the story of Jesus we read today.

Here’s the first part of the background to the story.

I hope you remember the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand from two weeks ago. According to

Matthew’s Gospel, after this event, Jesus crossed over to the other side of the Sea of Galilee (the Northwestern side) on a boat and arrived in Gennesaret (Mt. 14:34). Matthew tells us that Jesus had an extremely busy and intensive ministry there (Mt. 14:35, 36). But Matthew doesn’t tell us how many days Jesus spent in Gennesaret.

However, in today’s Gospel, Matthew says that after this intensive ministry stint, leaving Gennesaret, Jesus “withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon” (v. 21). The connotation of the word “withdrew” (Greek.

anechoresen) is that he “retired to” or, as we may say today, “took off to take a break”.

The distance between Gennesaret and Tyre on foot is about the distance between St. Paul’s Cathedral in town and St. Peter’s Church, Kinglake (56 kilometres). This region is directly south of Beirut, where a fertiliser factory blew up last week, killing scores of people and leaving thousands of people homeless.

In 2013, I was on an official visit to Beirut. While there, I visited Bcharre to see the Cedars of Lebanon.