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 Gospels of Matthew and Mark, written in Jesus’ mother tongue (Aramaic). This was to ensure that Matthew had not lost the plot of the whole story twice in translation.
Discovering that all the texts said the same was a bit of a spin-out. Even blind Freddy could have seen
that all the versions 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 and from my home country, Sri Lanka. She was a maid like thousands of other maids in the UAE. However, unbeknown to her or any other, something extra made her and her plight important to me. It was her name. She had the same name as the most beautiful girl I had fallen in love with in high school.
That girl, whom I had thought would be my life partner, did not get my parents' approval. There were
two reasons for my parents’ disapproval: First, she hailed from an ardent Buddhist family, and second, her
family was from a “lower caste” according to the norms of Sri Lanka. Enough said; that was the end of that relationship 42 years ago.
However, as is common with our childhood relationships and memories, her name—and all the sentiments appended to it—have remained with me to date.
As it turned out, that attention primarily demanded by a residual sentimentality for a name was timely and urgent. 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.
(mentioned in the Bible 2 Samuel 5:11; 1 Chronicle 17:1; 2 Chronicle 2:3-8; 1 Kings 5:6; 2 Kings 19:23; Ps.
104:16) and then Sidon and Tyre, where Jesus went for a holiday from his ministry.
Like today, at the time of Jesus, a few Jews lived in Tyre and Sidon. Jesus likely had a close friend
or a reasonably well-to-do family friend living there for him and his disciples to visit for a holiday. [it is
recorded in the Bible that Jesus had well-to-do people who had supported his ministry “out of their resources” (Luke 8:3)]. Or, it also could be that Galilee’s leading Fisheries business tycoon Zebedee -- the father of Jesus’ disciples James and John – had a holiday home of his own, or had business friends in Tyre, who could provide a free holiday out of town for his sons and Jesus.
On their way to this holiday in Tyre, Jesus met the Canaanite woman. In Mark’s Gospel, this woman is described as a Greek of Syrophoenician origin (Mark 7:26). She was not a Jew but a native of Syrio-Phoenicia who spoke Greek. Phoenicia is Lebanon today, and Syria is her neighbour. The Biblical Canna in ancient days included parts of Lebanon and Syria, and the natives were known as Canaanites. Therefore, Matthew describes this woman as a Canaanite. Three more details of this woman are in order.
First, something less important. In a homily of the third century attributed to Clement, this woman and her daughters are named Justa and Berenice. (Clement was the bishop of Rome in the late first century AD and is considered the first of the Apostolic Fathers of the Church—according to the tradition of the church, Apostolic Fathers are those who succeeded the Apostles and are also said to have known some of the Apostles personally.)
Second, a little more important detail about this woman and her daughter. According to the images in the
ancient Canaanite frescos, Canaanites had been black or dark-skinned. I wanted to make mention of this small detail about this woman because she should have stood out in her appearance to Jesus and his disciples.
From what we know, Jesus, his disciples, and most Jews at that time would have been olive-skinned.
While the colour of a person’s skin was not a basis for discrimination in ancient times, the “otherness” of this woman would have been quite startling to Jesus and the disciples.
Now, the third and the most important thing about this woman. Although the socio-economic status of the woman is not mentioned in the Gospel, she likely belonged to the predominant business class of the region of Tyre and Sidon (as even it is today, Tyre was the fourth largest city of Lebanon and a bustling metropolis of trade and commerce in Jesus’ day).
The rich Canaanites of Tyre employed the minority Jews living there. These Jews were discriminated against and exploited. While Justa herself may not have been an oppressor, from what we can glean from Jesus’ reaction to her, she could have come across to Jesus as a typical wealthy Canaanite business-woman. The Jews resented everything about these Canaanites and were aware that their countrymen and women were exploited by the rich. They detested the Canaanites and called and treated them like “dogs."
Now, imagine the whole scenario of Jesus meeting Justa.
Jesus and his disciples were tired and on their way for a holiday. Justa, the Canaanite woman,
showed up to ask Jesus for a great favour. She pleaded for help from Jesus to heal her daughter, who, Matthew says, was tormented by an evil spirit. This was an encounter Jesus and the disciples had not expected on their way for a layoff.
The experience of Jesus meeting this woman could be likened to me meeting the multi-millionaire Emirati who exploited the maid from Sri Lanka.
Now, I guess you would understand the background of Jesus' harsh words against this woman. Jesus’ tiredness is also reflected in the annoyance and pique of his words at the woman's request. This is expressed in his words when he said one would not throw bread meant for the children at dogs. In other words, Jews would not grant favours to the dogs that mistreat them. Justa was not offended or discouraged by Jesus’ reply and pursued her request.
Justa humbled herself before Jesus and replied: “Yes it is, Lord, even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” In saying those words, she humbled herself before Jesus and appealed not to be seen as an oppressor Canaanite mistress. She elevated Jesus as a gracious master who allowed dogs to eat crumbs falling from his table. In other words, Justa made Jesus know that he was in control, and if he would, God would grant her the favour she asked for.
What moved Jesus’ heart to help this woman? Now, let me share my second story with you, which helped me understand what may have moved Jesus to help this woman.
At the time, the Archbishop formally licensed me to the position of Interfaith Adviser to the Archbishop of
Melbourne and Primate of Australia In May 2018, I received a formal invitation from the Muslims in Melbourne to attend an Ifta. Ifta is the breaking of the fast at sunset each day of Ramadan.
With my new position, I was obliged to accept the invitation. However, my experiences in the UAE still fresh in my mind, I accepted the invitation with reluctance.
The iftar was held at the residence of an affluent Muslim family in Coburg. With my experience of wealthy
Emiratis that exploited human beings for cheap labour, I was unease attending the ifta. However, the event went fine with eating dates and sweetened food, which I didn’t like anyway. I hesitantly nibbled on the food only to please the host, Mr Ibrahim. He sat opposite me, watching over the guests and feasting over the food. Hired waiters served the food, and the womenfolk of the community and spouses of the men were in the rumpus room.
At the end of the meal, the chief host, Mr Ibrahim, obliged to introduce me to his wife. Following the
introduction, the husband left, and I had the opportunity to talk to Mrs Ibrahim for a very brief moment. Before the conversation could even start, she hesitated and abruptly stopped me. She said, “I only want to ask you a great favour, respected my Father in God. Please understand me. If Shohar (my husband) comes to know that I had asked this favour of you, he will kill me. Please, please, please pray for my seventeen-years old daughter, Ablah. She is suffering from Capgras Syndrome, and no one can help her. Only God can heal her”.
I did not know what this illness was. Mrs Ibrahim explained that Capgras syndrome is one of the rarest mental disorders. It causes the delusional belief in a person that someone in their life, usually the father, mother, spouse, sibling or a close friend, has been replaced by an impostor and acting violently against them. In Ablah’s case, Mrs Ibrahim told me that Ablah considered the mother the impostor. The treatment for this condition includes administering drugs designated for dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, which are incredibly devastating for a young child maturing to adulthood.
I melted when she told me all this, and my resentment against wealthy emirates
evaporated. My heart went out to her plight, and I saw her desperation to have her daughter healed. For a
moment, I forgot that it was a hijab-wearing Muslim woman who was requesting for me to pray for
her daughter.
All I saw in front of me was a human being, a mother, crying out for help in healing the child she had given birth, believing that the mother was an impostor. And, just before Mr Ibrahim could courteously
interrupt us, I said to her: “Your faith in God will heal your daughter”. Then, I left.
Something similar happened to Jesus when the desperate mother pleaded with him to heal her
daughter. Initially, there was in him a resentment against the Gentile Canaanites who exploited his
countrymen. He also knew that she was a woman of another faith.
But in the face of a genuine human cry for help, prejudices, disagreements, differences and resentments were put aside. Faith in God and His gracious intervention took priority. To the woman, Jesus said: “you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment (Mat. 15: 28)
This is to say that even when there may be many “things” between Jesus and us that we must make up for, God is not far from us. Therefore, our knowledge of these “things” should not make us not ask for God’s favours.
However, because differences, misunderstandings, resentments and issues need to be sorted, Jesus may growl at us. But if our faith in God remains unshaken, Jesus will ensure that God will answer our cries for help.
This scenario worked out in the story of Jesus meeting the Canaanite woman. Jesus praised her faith, which persisted above everything else between them. Jesus emphatically said: "Woman, you have great
faith! Your request is granted.”
I was invited to an Ifta at the Ibrahims again in June last year. The moment I entered the house, amid many guest menfolk, Mrs Ibrahim did the most unusual and culturally reprehensible thing a Muslim woman would do.
Mrs Ibrahim took hold of my hands, kissed them, and said, “All praise to God, our daughter is healed, Father Ruwan.” I told Mrs Ibrahim, "Your faith in God healed your daughter, Mrs Ibrahim—all praise and thanks to God who is our Maker. He has outpoured His love to you and your family.”
(Please know this situation could have been with a family of any faith, including the Christian faith)
I was an honoured guest at the girl’s wedding in January this year. At the wedding, I learned that, in Arabic, the girl’s name Ablah means “perfectly formed.”
When the teary father announced the daughter's perfection as a bride as he handed the daughter to the groom, I remembered that it was the mother’s faith that God would perfectly form and heal a very sick child ready for marriage that made her perfectly formed.
Let us thank God, who loves us more than we know and is always at hand to hear our cries and bless us
with His favours. Amen
