Brief synopsis of the readings: We begin in Isaiah where God (again) promises salvation and justice. But he goes on to talk about “foreigners who join themselves to the Lord.” Those who become servants, who keep the sabbath and hold to God’s covenant will be included in being brought “to my holy mountain.” This will be called “a house of prayer for all peoples.” Matthew’s Gospel tells us about a Canaanite woman who approached Jesus, asking for healing for her daughter who was tormented by a demon. When Jesus didn’t answer her his disciples suggested he send her away. Instead Jesus told his disciples that he was sent only for the “lost sheep of the house of Israel.” When the woman persisted Jesus told her: “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” But she responded that “even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.” Jesus then praised her for her faith and her daughter was healed.

I’ve often believed that if parts of Scripture don’t make you uncomfortable you’re not reading it closely enough. We have an image of Jesus who heals the sick, gives comfort to the downtrodden and heals people of illness. But here a woman asks for healing for her daughter and Jesus is just plain rude to her. What gives?

A little background: the woman is Canaanite. They were the people who were displaced when the Jews fleeing Egypt occupied the promised land and the Canaanites had been sworn enemies ever since. When Jesus tried to get rid of her he was doing exactly what was expected of him. Jews of Jesus’ time lived alongside of but separate from people of varying ethnic backgrounds, languages and religious beliefs and it would be reasonable to believe that Jesus had his hands full with the “lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

And so let’s make this more confusing by bringing in our first reading from the 56th chapter of Isaiah. This passage comes from the last few chapters of a long book with a hopeful ending and it talks about welcoming foreigners who come to God with an open heart willing to follow God’s commands.

So did this woman come to Jesus with an open heart? Well that’s hard to say. We don’t know how she felt about God’s covenant or Jewish law because she came out of desperation. She sought healing for her daughter and was willing to break social norms to get it. She knew the disciples wanted her to stop bothering Jesus but she didn’t care.

So Jesus asked her a rude question and she cames back with a pretty good answer and Jesus praised her for her faith. What? “Food of the children,” “dogs,” “scraps from the master’s table”?

I think we can safely say that Jesus’ comment focuses on not wasting food, that we need to make sure that the children are not denied food because some of it went to the dogs. Nobody is going to feed dogs at the expense of children. Perhaps the woman asserted that there was so much food on the table that some scraps would fall off for the dogs and nobody would go hungry. Of course she would be admitting that she and her daughter were dogs but maybe she was taking the long view.

Hopefully Jesus knew that she would respond like this and her faith was strong enough. I think our fear in a situation like this is that the woman would hear Jesus’ words and slink off in despair and embarrassment; of course had this been the case I doubt this would have ended up in Matthew’s Gospel.

But I think her response speaks to a larger truth. Sometimes having faith requires us to respond with strength and determination even when (and perhaps especially when) we are challenged by someone we thought would support us. Many years ago I helped prepare a couple for marriage. They were college students who lived in San Diego but were going back to her home parish to get married. During their engagement they shared a car and found it burdensome to live separately. They discussed moving in together before marriage but decided against it and she moved into an apartment in the same complex as her fiance. They met with the priest who was to perform the wedding and when he saw the same address for both he chewed them out for “living in sin” before the marriage. When they tried to point out that they were in different apartments he refused to listen. There was a happy ending: they asked me to preside at the wedding and I was honored to do that.

I admired their faith because it would have been easy to slink off and get married somewhere else but they stood their ground. Marrying in the church was important enough that they weren’t going to let this priest drive them off. And what bothered them the most was that they were “following the rules” and were still getting criticized by someone whose support they expected.

Now obviously they had a different experience than the Canaanite woman (and on no level was this priest anything like Jesus) but it showed a time when they needed to show a courageous faith when they didn’t think they would have to. We can expect conflict in our faith but we have to dig deeper when the conflict comes from who is supposed to be an ally.

Finally, we don’t know the rest of the story. We know the daughter was healed but did the Canaanite woman become a follower of Jesus? I hope so. Whatever her feelings about Jesus and his disciples she was given a strong path toward healing. We see examples of people in this situation who approach Jesus out of desperation and come away with a strong commitment that changes their lives (think of the leper in Luke 17).

And you have to know that this woman spent the rest of her life with a great story about her encounter with Jesus.