What today’s Gospel tells us about Jesus and the challenge for us:
As we hear the Gospel proclaimed we see that Jesus is in Gentile territory. Did he do this on purpose? The previous incident shows Jesus wiping out the distinction between clean and unclean foods. Is Jesus now wiping out the distinction between clean and unclean people?
Jews traditionally would avoid Gentiles as they viewed them as unclean.
We hear reference to dogs in this reading. The word dog was used by the Jewish people as a term of contempt for the Gentiles. Dog did not refer to the well-loved companion of man and woman that it is today. It was in those days a symbol of dishonor, an insult. It was a reference to the wild dogs of the street.
However, Jesus did not use the word in an insulting way. He used the word dog referring not to the wild dogs of the street, but to the lap dogs of the household. He used the word in a diminutive way. In Greek diminutives represent that which is affectionate. Thus, Jesus took the negativity out of the word.
What impressed Jesus the most in this story was the faith of the woman, she would not take no for an answer. She was a woman who was dealing with the tragedy of a very sick daughter and yet her faith never wavered.
The first thing God wants of us, the first thing we must do to be right with reality, is to live in faith. We cannot be right with God merely by keeping the letter of the law; we cannot be right with God simply by disciplining ourselves; we cannot be right with God just by being as good as the next person. We can be right with God only by faith. Which is to say that we must live in the constant conviction that God is good. Genuine faith involves an all-out attitude of reliance on God’s goodness. It may be compared to a child’s absolute trust in a wise, generous, loving father or mother. There is a world of difference in attitude, not to mention output, between a son who does things for his father out of love and respect, and that of an employee who does things merely for pay, or out of fear that he may lose his job or not get a promotion. They may do the same things, but the difference in motivation inevitably colors their work. There is a world of difference between a doctor who chose his profession because it made him an instrument of vital human service, and one who calculatingly chose the profession because it promised a large income! So it is with Christian faith: what counts is motivation, spirit. Commitment to religious law and formal observance cannot substitute for the conviction that God is good. That is where faith’s reality begins.
In the end despite her initial plea for help being rejected, she never gave up her faith that God is good. Her faith was tested and her faith was real, and her prayer was answered.
Image: “Faithful” by orangeacid is licensed under CC BY 2.0.