Matthew 15:21–28
21 Jesus left and went to the territory near the cities of Tyre and Sidon. 22 Suddenly a Canaanite woman from there came out shouting, “Lord and Son of David, have pity on me! My daughter is full of demons.” 23 Jesus did not say a word. But the woman kept following along and shouting, so his disciples came up and asked him to send her away. 24 Jesus said, “I was sent only to the people of Israel! They are like a flock of lost sheep.” 25 The woman came closer. Then she knelt down and begged, “Please help me, Lord!” 26 Jesus replied, “It isn’t right to take food away from children and feed it to dogs.” 27 “Lord, that’s true,” the woman said, “but even dogs get the crumbs that fall from their owner’s table.” 28 Jesus answered, “Dear woman, you really do have a lot of faith, and you will be given what you want.” At that moment her daughter was healed.
Writer of this Gospel, Matthew, a Jew himself, intentionally highlighted this woman as a Canaanite. It was Jezebel, a Canaanite, who imposed heathen worship on Northern kingdom’s religious life, causing spiritual decline, hunger, death in the land. Influence of Canaanites’ worship could be found in Northern kingdom until it was destroyed, and exiled by Assyria in 722 B.C. In Southern Judah, Canaanites’ pagan worship also influenced national life. Persistent wicked detestable practices resulted in a downward spiral decline of the nation, with eventual exile to Babylon.
After return to their homeland, the Jews lived under subjection to Persian’s rule. For most of the part until Jesus’ time, they were living under subjection to one superpower’s rule to another one’s.This created a great expectation of a king, anointed and sent by God, to sit upon the throne of David as promised in 2 Samuel 7. In Jesus’ time, the expectation was for the coming Messiah to liberate them from Romans’ rule and oppression and to establish a great kingdom like David’s. Many believed that this promise would be fulfilled in one miracle worker from line of David, named Jesus.
With all this historical background known to the Jews in this story and his Jewish readers in around 50’s A.D., Matthew identified her as a “Canaanite.” And thus the tension in the story suddenly heightened to its peak as she called Jesus “Lord, Son of David!”, meaning “Anointed One/ Messiah, King of Israel!”
What did disciples think when Jesus remained silent? They might have thought in their hearts that instead of silence, Jesus should have answered her with harsh response like “Go away you unclean, unspiritual wild dog!” And rightly so, when she kept on shouting, His disciples could not take it any longer, and asked Jesus to send her away. If disciples had been conversant in Chinese, they would have as well said: “Yesu, rang ta gun ba!”
What might be greatly surprising to the horror of disciples and original Jewish readers was that Messianic kingdom’s presence came upon these two Canaanites as evil spirit’s dominion over her daughter was destroyed. This was in contrast to previous narrative where religious leaders of the Jews, after observing His miracles, rejected Him as Messianic King ushering in His kingdom.
It was true that Jezebel, was wickedly evil. Yet, widow of Zarephath ministered to prophet Elijah. It was likewise true that many in Israel rejected Jesus, yet, others like His disciples followed Him. Jesus’ kingdom consists of great diversities, each in peaceful and harmonious existence with another, all united in warm fellowship with the benevolent King of kings.
Revelation 7:9
“After this I saw a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes and held palm branches in their hands.”
And you are invited to make God’s vision of Messianic kingdom’s a reality: from every nation, every tribe, every people, every language worshiping Jesus. You were born into this great family of God to joyfully work together with Him in contribution to His vision, to His kingdom’s agenda. Will you, as His disciple, say to Jesus then “Here, I am o King of kings, Your work partner!” ?
