Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.” Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”
He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said. He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” “True, Lord,” she said. “Yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment. Matthew 15:21-28
The more you look at this story, the more puzzling it becomes – so I find, anyway.
Jesus has travelled some distance from his usual stamping ground (Mark, in his rather different version of the story, tells us explicitly that he is looking for a little solitude). But his reputation has spread, and word gets around. So along comes a “Canaanite woman” – that is, a non-Jewish woman – who pleads desperately with him to heal her “demonised” daughter.
And Jesus ignores her! – he “did not answer a word”. And the disciples are heartless: Send her away! She’s getting to be a pest!
But she persists; whereupon Jesus tells her, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel”. And then, as if to make matters worse, he virtually calls her a dog: “It isn’t right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs”.
What! What!
Is this the Jesus who was soon to tell his disciples to “go into all the world and preach the gospel”? Is this the Jesus who demonstrated love for everyone without discrimination? Yet here he seems almost to be saying: “Sorry, but you aren’t a Jew, and therefore I can’t help you.” Is this really the Jesus we know so well?
Various commentators make suggestions (not counting the ones who suggest he was just grumpy and having a bad day, which surely goes against the Bible’s teaching that he was sinless). Was he testing and stretching her faith, perhaps? Did he speak mischievously, as one commentary puts it, “with a twinkle in his eye”?
I really don’t know. But I think a couple of questions can help us get into the heart of the story.
First, why was Jesus so reluctant to respond to this woman’s plea?
The answer can be summed up in one word: timing.
Jesus was very conscious that the plan of God for the salvation of the world was being worked out in stages. (Have you ever noticed how often, in John’s Gospel, he states that “My time has not yet come”?). And his role, during his earthly life, was to be God’s messenger – indeed, God’s king, the Messiah – to God’s special people, Israel: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel,” he plainly says (verse 24).
It was through them initially that the whole world was to be blessed. Only later, after his crucifixion and resurrection, and especially after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, would the message of the gospel explode into the wider world. As Paul would later put it, the gospel is “first for the Jew, then for the Gentile” (Romans 1: 16).
Whether this is enough to excuse (if it needs excusing!) Jesus’ brusque behaviour is for each of us to decide.
What matters is that Jesus did respond to the woman’s cry. And, of course, the Gospels are simply full of examples of him displaying tenderness and love to anyone and everyone who reached out to him humbly and trustingly. As Wesley’s great hymn puts it: “Jesus, thou art all compassion,/ Pure, unbounded love thou art…” No single episode, however puzzling, can take away from that supreme truth!
I said earlier that I thought there were two questions which could help us make sense of this story. But I’m afraid I have run out of space – so I’ll have to come back to the second one, which is the more important one, next time.
But I think there is something else worth noticing first: if Jesus had a strong sense of God’s timing for his life, what about us?
I’m not, of course, putting us remotely on a par with him – of course not! But the fact is that God has a purpose and plan for the life of every Christian, and for every church and Christian organisation. And it’s important that we not only do the right things, but do them at the right time – which, of course, is God’s time.
Sad experience suggests that there are times when, hot-headed and reckless, we enthusiastically run ahead of God; and other times when, lacking zeal and openness to the Spirit, we lag behind. Each error leads to trouble, possibly disaster. I’m sure we can all think of examples from our own experience.
Thank God, it’s true that even when we do make mistakes like these, he in his mercy is willing and able to put us back on track: all is not lost!
But a lot of pain, damage and confusion can be saved if we are careful, as we live out our Christian lives, to seek God’s guidance step by step. As Paul puts it in Galatians 5:25: to “keep in step with the Spirit”.
Do that, and you won’t go far wrong, either in what you do, or in the timing with which you do it.
Lord Jesus, there are times when we find it hard to understand things you say and do, even times when you seem hard with us. Help us to keep our trust firmly in you, even when your smile seems hidden behind a frown. Amen.
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