O Woman, Great is your Faith!

This Sunday’s gospel is a beautiful vignette of faith in action, and in a way is quite puzzling. Jesus seems to ignore the woman, and then be offensive, before he yields to her persistent faith, and answers her prayer.

The woman in today's gospel is an unusual woman. Firstly, she was not a Jew, and yet, in approaching Jesus, she called him 'O Lord, Son of David.' This was a mark of reverence for who he was and what he was. Obviously, it was her love for her daughter that drove her to overcome every barrier and to persist in any search, if that could save her daughter. As far as Jesus was concerned, she was on a trump card here, because she was doing exactly what he would ask anybody to do. She was driven by love, and that was sure to find a response within the heart of Jesus.

It is difficult to understand why Jesus seemed to ignore her, and even to insult her. I can only imagine that he was teaching his disciples a lesson. It was they who asked him to send her away, because she was a persistent nuisance. He may have wanted them to discover that she was much more than that, and that her faith was something they may not have witnessed before. It was as if he knew that her love for her daughter was so strong that she just could not be put off. He adopted the official Jewish line against such people, because they were considered no better than dogs, while the Jews were the children of God. The woman wasn't going to get sucked into a discussion or a debate; she looked to Jesus for a decision, and she was not dis­appointed.

One can almost imagine Jesus throwing his hands in the air, and giving up! The apostles were right; get rid of this woman! There was only one way to get rid of her, however, and that was to give her what she was looking for. Despite all that had gone before, one can easily imagine Jesus smiling, and with warmth in his voice, he told her to go on home, that her daughter was healed. There is a saying nowadays, 'Don't invade my space'. Well, she had come at him like a JCB, went through everything in the way, and she came away with what she came to receive. I could imagine Jesus saying 'What a woman!'

This woman may not have done much homework or research on Jesus before approaching him. However, for whatever reason, she seems to have got the 'measure' of him, and this prompted her not to take 'no' for an answer.