This coming Sunday is the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time. At its core this narrative remains a miracle-story – And her daughter was healed from that hour. But as the encounter is placed immediately after a discussion of purity in both Matthew and Mark, Jesus’ encounter with this Gentile woman also brings out the implications that the Gentiles will no longer be separated from Israel (cf. Acts 10:15, 28; 11:9–18).

As in the case of the centurion’s servant (8:5–13), where also the dialogue takes precedence over the story, the main interest is in the question of Jesus’ response to the faith of a Gentile. Indeed the two accounts are closely parallel in many ways, not only in being the only Synoptic accounts of healing at a distance, but in the racial issues involved, with Jesus’ apparent reluctance to respond to a Gentile’s request met by the persistent faith which ensures his response in the end. The question raised by 15:1–20 of Jesus’ attitude to Jewish ideas of purity, with all its crucial implications for the Gentile mission, is here put to the practical test of a Gentile’s desire to share in the benefits brought by the Jews’ Messiah.

Verse 22 tells us that she is from the region of Tyre and Sidon. These were Phoenician cities just beyond the northern border of Israel. The people worshiped Phoenician gods and were not nor had they ever been Jewish. By stating that she is from the region generally suggests that she was a rural peasant, rather than a city-dweller.  In Jesus’ day she would have been considered “Syrophoenician” – the term that Mark uses.  But to Matthew, she is a Canaanite. Matthew’s more Jewish audience may be more aware of the enmity between Jews and Canaanites that had existed since the time of Noah. Canaan was the son of Ham, who saw his father naked (a euphemism thought to mean sleeping with his father’s wife). Noah utters this curse in Gen 9:25-27:

Cursed be Canaan;
lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers.
Blessed by the LORD my God be Shem
and let Canaan be his slave.
May God make space for Japheth,
and let him live in the tents of Shem;
and let Canaan be his slave.“

Even more significant than this ancient curse about being slaves to the Jews, is the promise given to Abraham: “And I will give to you, and to your offspring after you, the land where you are now an alien, all the land of Canaan, for a perpetual holding; and I will be their God” (Gen 17:8). They were part of the people the Israelites were commanded by God to place them “under the ban” (Dt 20:17).

The concept of the ban in the Bible is seen in various instances where certain cities and their spoils of war were to be set apart for destruction, not to be taken as booty or spared. The rationale behind this practice was that these objects were considered unclean or devoted to idolatry, and their removal was seen as necessary for maintaining the holiness of the Israelite community and their exclusive devotion to God.

Joshua carried out the “ban” partially as the people of Israel took over Canaanite land and cities. These historical events are carried in memory and would not make Canaanites very friendly towards Jews nor towards the Jewish God. So, why would this woman approach Jesus?

One suggestion is that she had nowhere else to turn. Perhaps she had heard reports about the healing miracles of Jesus. Her need was so great, her concern for her daughter so deep, that she dared cross that rift between Jews and Canaanites. Perhaps she was at the point where she had nothing to lose, and perhaps everything to gain.

In any case her call is striking, not only in its persistence and boldness, but also in its language. Lord, Son of David. While “Lord” may be nothing more than calculated politeness, “Son of David” might refer simply to being Jewish, but it raises the question of whether she had heard (and had nascent belief) in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah.

Image credit: Jean Germain Drouais, Christ and the Canaanite Woman, 1784, Louvre Museum | Public Domain