Matthew 15:21-28; 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

At first glance, Jesus is somewhat testy and heartless in the Gospel story today. You can see it right there in the exchange between him and the Canaanite woman, an outsider.

When the woman calls out to him, he first gives her the silent treatment. When she continues to entreat him, he replies that he was sent only to the lost ones of Israel, not to them. When she persists, he insults her, saying, “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.”

The woman is unfazed however. She takes all this in stride and responds that “even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.”

It is only here that Jesus lightens up and praises the woman, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.”

We wonder then what was so great about this woman’s faith that moves our Lord to cross over to her side and grant her wish. 

What makes for greatness of faith? From the story itself, we gather that great faith consists in bearing courage, humility, and love.

The first, courage. You must hand it to the woman. The first crossover in this story is hers. She makes it from her side to Jesus. By no means was this easy, especially for a woman in a patriarchal world marked by deeply entrenched loyalties to one’s tribe or religion. She was brave to recognize Jesus not only as Son of David, but as Lord.

Today, it still takes courage to hold on to faith in God, especially in a world that has grown colder to God. In such a world divided and distracted by all sorts of idols, where the persecution of belief can be polite or subtle, it takes courage to continue believing in our Lord.

Great faith is not for the faint or timid of heart. Faith is great only insofar as it is borne by courage.

The second mark of great faith is humility. The woman never lost this sense of her place, her sense of who she was in the encounter. Even when she was repulsed early on by the Lord, she continued to engage him head-on, not pulling her punches. Because she knew who she was, she could drop that punchline about equating herself to a dog and her willingness even to take scraps that fell from the table.

In these technological times, it is easy to become proud of what we have achieved and made, the things we can now control. In a world of plenty, humility is in such short supply. For all our progress, we seem more unequal and dislocated than ever. It takes humility to admit that not all is well with us. It takes humility to turn to God for help, to realize our true place and to be even willing to settle for scraps from the tables of heaven.

Great faith is not for the proud of heart. Faith is great only insofar as it abides in humility.

The third mark of great faith is love. Jesus must have already sensed this love just from the tenor of the woman’s entreaties for her daughter. Yes she was brave enough to approach him and humble enough to ask his help, but if her faith was strong it was also because her love was strong. It was because she loved her daughter with her life that she came to repose her faith in the Lord.

There are many pathways to faith. We can come to faith from reading, from ideas and stories, from encounters with people, from moments of consolation or desolation. Without love animating these pathways, faith turns hollow. It takes love to believe that God is love.

Great faith comes from the heart. Faith is great only insofar as it is drawn from love. 

Now we realize why Jesus seemed somewhat testy and heartless at the start of his encounter with the outsider woman. The exchange between the two would never have happened otherwise. From that honest and happy exchange, we learn that our God is a moveable God. He is moved by faith that is great. And faith is only great insofar as it is borne in courage, humility, and love.

*image from the Internet