As part of the sermon I said I couldn't imagine what was going through the mind of this nameless woman, desperate for the health of her daughter, first ignored and then dismissed as a "dog" or at best a "little dog" by Jesus... Many have tried to defuse the scandal of these words, but perhaps the shock of them is what has made them so memorable... working their way even into the words of the Prayer of Humble access in those communion liturgies derived from the Book of Common Prayer... where we confess our unworthiness to gather up the crumbs under God's table, but affirm God's mercy.
Here however, is my feeble attempt to imagine what was going on in this woman's mind...
I was at my wits' end… my daughter had lost her wits… She was in agonising pain, talking gibberish and lashing out at anyone who came near her… It must have been a demon. She was tearing at her own skin and eventually we had to bind her to her own bed for her own safety… it took four of us to tie her down, even though she is only a slip of a girl… She is all I have… I have no husband or sons… My husband was taken by illness after my daughter was born… and now it seemed as if my daughter was going to be taken from me too…
I had just spent a third sleepless night watching over her thrashing constantly against her bonds and the demon that was inside her… It was then that my brother told me about a Jewish holy man who was staying in the next village… It is rare for Jews to come anywhere near us, except to trade… and their holy men usually make sure not to be defiled by us foreigners… And the feelings of contempt are mutual… Our elders tell us this whole land used to be ours… from Sidon to the southern deserts and across to the Jordan valley… before the Hebrew-speakers swept out of the wilderness to steal it from us… It may be ancient history… But such enmities are passed down, from father to son, and mother to daughter. So the presence of this holy man, this rabbi as they call him, was unusual… The subject of gossip. My brother said that he had heard this rabbi, had come to hide among us to escape the crowds who constantly followed him down in Galilee, because he was a miracle worker… That he had healed hundreds, and fed thousands with a few loaves and fish.
It seemed unlikely… but I was prepared to try anything, so without stopping for breakfast I went down to the village where he was staying and asked where this miracle man could be found? When I got to the house he was there in the courtyard breaking bread with a small band of followers…
I called out from the gateway “Son of David! Master, have mercy on me! My daughter is possessed by a demon and she is suffering horribly.”
He ignored me… But his followers didn’t… A couple of them got up and came to the gate, still with bread in their hands, to shoo me away… But I wasn’t going to give up that easily… So I kept shouting out… as they tried to push me out the gate…
Eventually one of his “gatekeepers” went back to his master and whispered something to him and the man himself got up and came over. He also still had bread in his hands… But his first words were:
“I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”
I didn’t care, I was desperate… I threw myself at his feet and cried
“Master, help me, please!”
I looked directly up at him… tears in my eyes…
But even then he said, waving the bread in front of me…
“You need to stand in line and take your turn. The children get fed first. It is not right to take bread out of the children’s mouths and toss it to the dogs.”
Was he calling me and my daughter dogs?
Yet, even through my tears I saw a glint in his eye… was he joking? Was he laughing at my daughter’s plight and my indignity? Or was something else going on… Some joke that he was having at the expense of his followers that I wasn’t aware of… was he laughing at us or at them… I don’t know… but I saw something deeper… a sense of compassion that rarely passed from Jew to Canaanite or vice versa…
So I responded in like mind… I picked up a piece of bread that one of his followers had dropped in the earlier scuffle and
“That is true Master, but even the dogs under the master’s table get to eat the scraps that his children drop.”
And at that, he smiled and nodded.
“True” he said…
“Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted. Your daughter is no longer disturbed. All signs of any demon are gone.”
I was going to ask him to come with me just until I was sure, but he had already turned away to go back to his breakfast, and his followers stood as a solid wall between us, shooing me away once more…
So I came home to find my brother on my doorstep dancing with joy…
“Come! Come and see!” he said… dragging me inside to find my darling daughter sitting up on her bed… Freed from her bonds and free from torment. The demon gone… for good it seems.”
How? I don’t know… Because of my “great faith” as the rabbi said… I don’t know about that!!
But I do know that from now on, the stories I tell my daughter about the Jews will not be about how they stole our lands, but how one of them saved her… Even though she was not one of the lost sheep of Israel but a Canaanite dog…
Selah
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