If I’m being honest, I don’t really like the story of the Canaanite woman found in Matthew 15.
The first time the woman speaks to Jesus, telling him of her daughter who suffers from demon possession, Jesus doesn’t even answer her. In fact, his disciples come to him and ask him to get rid of her. Instead of rebuking them for their failure to see this woman as a beloved child of God, Jesus replies—but not kindly. He tells her he “was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”
Still, she persists, asking again for Jesus to help.
At this point, I almost wish Jesus would have just kept ignoring her, because his reply is downright offensive. “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
Ouch.
Now this woman has been outright ignored by Jesus and treated like a nuisance by the disciples, now Jesus calls her a dog.
Which is exactly why I don’t really like this story. This is not the way I expect Jesus to act. It seems to go against his overall message of love, grace, and mercy, as he blatantly ignores this woman’s humble plea for him to have mercy on her. The whole thing seems unJesuslike, and I don’t like it.
Except, as we go on, we find that Jesus does indeed answer the woman—he tells her she has great faith and then heals her daughter.
And this is where I struggle. Most of the story seems unJesuslike, and then, all of a sudden, the guy I thought I knew shows up at the end.
I wonder if my problem with the story is that I think Jesus needs to act the way I want him to.
If I were writing the way Jesus should behave in this story, he would stop and listen to the woman right away. If the disciples tried to ask him to get rid of her, Jesus would tell them to shape up and to recognize this woman’s infinite worth in the eyes of her Father. Then, he would say to the woman, “Sure, absolutely,” and heal her daughter. The end.
Instead, he makes her ask several times, effectively testing her faith and perseverance.
I want Jesus to do things the simple way, when he does things the Jesus way.
I wonder if this is why it’s so difficult to be a Christian sometimes. We want things to go our way, the easy, painless way, and God makes us ask, wait, and persevere while he does things his way.
We don’t know what the woman was thinking as she walked away, though sheer elation over Jesus healing her daughter was likely part of it. She may have wondered over the way Jesus had treated her at first, but ultimately came away marveling at how he saw her great faith and listened to her plea. Maybe the encounter didn’t go exactly as she had envisioned, but she walked away seeing it was best.
Because the reality is, we don’t serve a God who does things because we want him to. He doesn’t promise to stick to only acting in ways we like. But we can know that he does have our ultimate good in mind through whatever he does, even when he writes the story differently than we would.
[Brianna DeWitt is a believer in Jesus, surrounding yourself with good people, and that desserts are best when they involve chocolate and peanut butter. She also blogs at http://awritespot.wordpress.com and tweets at @bwitt722.]
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