This coming Sunday is the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The disciples’ request, Send her away for she keeps calling out after us need not be understood as disapproval of her request, but simply a desire for peace and quiet (cf. 19:13?).  In fact, if Jesus would just grant the petition, they all can rest.  Many scholars hold this content makes Jesus’ emphatic objection (v.24) more cogent.  But rather than take the path of least resistance, there is a principle to be highlighted. The principle is the same as that of 10:5–6, of a mission restricted to Israel (during Jesus’ earthly ministry): “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The statement here is Jesus’ explanation to the disciples of his unexpectedly unwelcoming response to a woman in need; she herself need not have heard it, as it is only in v.25 that she approaches Jesus closely.

In her close approach she gives Jesus homage and again refers to him as Lord. While one can assume this is only the posture/language of the petitioner, in Matthew such language always refers to worship before God.  Given this, how should one take the repartee between Jesus and the woman? There are three basic suggestions:

1. One suggestion for understanding Jesus’ response is that he is testing her faith (Lord, Son of David) and her resolve (a key characteristic for all disciples).
2. Another suggestion is its polar opposite, he is making it clear to her that she and her concerns are not part of his mission – but her clever reply, acknowledging the primacy of mission to Israel, raises the possibility of mission beyond Israel for those who accept God’s sovereignty in how He chooses his own people.
3. Another variation depends upon the understanding that Jesus is still in Jewish territory and that the Canaanite woman has come as though fulfilling the Isaian vision of the Gentiles streaming to the Temple Mount (cf.  Isa 2:2-4): the Gentiles are to approach God through Israel.

All three responses allow for Jesus’ final words (v.28) and the healing desired.

Yet we are troubled by Jesus uttering: “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” It has been suggested that since the Greek term kynaria, a diminutive, i.e., puppy, is an affectionate reference to dogs as pets, that Jesus is not being harsh.  While that appeals to our modern sentimentality and manners, it has trouble because of the lack of any such idea in Judaism, or of a known diminutive form to express it in Aramaic. The more likely scenario is that Jesus is expressing the contemptuous Jewish attitude to Gentiles in order to explain why her request does not fit into his mission to Israel. But written words do not convey a twinkle in the eye, the tone of delivery, or other such nuance.  Perhaps Jesus verbally conveys the words she would expect, but everything else hints at an invitation to “make her case.”  And she makes it in a way that conveys her faith.

No-one else receives from Jesus the accolade “…great is your faith!” (though the reply to the centurion seems equivalent, cf. 8:10). Was it merely her persistence in expecting a response despite apparent refusal? Or is there also the idea of her spiritual perception in recognizing both the primary scope of Jesus’ mission to Israel and also the fact that that was not to be its ultimate limit? The Canaanite woman, like the centurion before her, foreshadows the time when the true Israel will transcend the boundaries of culture and nationality.

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