Great Is Your Faith

Acts of Worship
Awe of God

Glory To God in the Highest

Matthew 15:21-31  The Message

Healing the People

^21-22 From there Jesus took a trip to Tyre and Sidon. They had hardly arrived when a Canaanite woman came down from the hills and pleaded, “Mercy, Master, Son of David! My daughter is cruelly afflicted by an evil spirit.”

²³ Jesus ignored her. The disciples came and complained, “Now she’s bothering us. Would you please take care of her? She’s driving us crazy.”
²⁴ Jesus refused, telling them, “I’ve got my hands full dealing with the lost sheep of Israel.”
²⁵ Then the woman came back to Jesus, went to her knees, and begged. “Master, help me.”
²⁶ He said, “It’s not right to take bread out of children’s mouths and throw it to dogs.”
²⁷ She was quick: “You’re right, Master, but beggar dogs do get scraps from the master’s table.”
²⁸ Jesus gave in. “Oh, woman, your faith is something else. What you want is what you get!” Right then her daughter became well.
^29-31 After Jesus returned, he walked along Lake Galilee and then climbed a mountain and took his place, ready to receive visitors. They came, tons of them, bringing along the paraplegic, the blind, the maimed, the mute—all sorts of people in need—and more or less threw them down at Jesus’ feet to see what he would do with them. He healed them. When the people saw the mutes speaking, the maimed healthy, the paraplegics walking around, the blind looking around, they were astonished and let everyone know that God was blazingly alive among them.

For Reflection
What are we to make of this story?  In my mind this is a "What If?" story.  What if Christ were to adopt the conventional wisdom of the Chosen People and acted according to their perception of God's exclusive favor?  Would Jesus, then, not act in ways that offered exclusive favor to the proud spiritual and political superior and ignore the inferior outsider? 

How does this Canaanite woman react to being disrespected by Jesus? She approaches in humility.  She is not angered by Jesus reaction.  She accepts her political status but pleas for her spiritual equality by evoking the name of  David, indicating that she, a Canaanite, recognized the God of Israel and, recognizing Jesus authority, begged mercy.  Because of her acceptance of Christ the distinction between Jew and Gentile is taken away

Pray

as did the Canaanite woman.  Ask God for mercy.  Recognize the authority of God.  Pray that you will worship God with patient expectation that God will answer your prayer. Pray for the healing power of God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.