Over the past few weeks, we have seen Jesus heal, feed, encourage, and walk with his disciples. We have heard Gospel stories in which we can imagine the Kin‑dom that is different from the ways of power. The stories from the margins, the stories about the uncounted or oppressed, the stories of people of little faith.

Today’s passage continues this theme. But it also shows a side of Jesus that is not easy to accept. Let me briefly walk through today’s story. Jesus had been travelling through the region of Galilee. Then he crossed into Tyre and Sidon, which is a nearby non‑Jewish area. There he met an unexpected person—a Canaanite woman. She pleaded with Jesus to heal her daughter, who was suffering under a demon.

Jesus first ignored her. Then he refused. He refused her in a very hurtful and insulting way. He compared her and her daughter to “dogs.” But the Canaanite woman didn’t give up. Insults were not important to her in that moment. She turned Jesus’ words around and used them to argue why Jesus must heal her daughter. Jesus was amazed. And he healed her daughter.

This is the outline of the story. I have a question: Why did Jesus leave Galilee and go to Tyre and Sidon? The Gospels don’t tell us directly. But when we consider the political environment and look at the original Greek text, we can see the reason. Jesus fled Galilee, which is Herod’s territory, because Herod killed John the Baptist, and now Herod was likely to order his men to capture Jesus. As we heard last week, Jesus encouraged his disciples and strengthened their faith when they were faced with John the Baptist’s death. But Jesus, holding the hands of people of little faith, was not free from Herod’s threat either. Jesus withdrew from Galilee to escape Herod. And in that place, he met the Canaanite woman.

The word “Canaan” or “Canaanite” had two different connotations for Jewish people. First, “the land of Canaan” referred to what is now the region of Palestine. For Jewish people, this land was the promised land. It was the land of God’s promise, the land of abundance, opportunity, and blessing.

However, “Canaanite people” meant something very different. They originally lived in that land. But to Jewish people, Canaanites were believed to be the people whom Israel had to conquer. Israel and Jewish people couldn’t live peacefully with Canaanites. Jesus’ words comparing the Canaanite to “dogs” show the common Jewish attitude clearly.

Jesus also had a theological reason to refuse the woman’s plea. In verse 24, he says, “My mission is only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel.” But Jesus did not always act only within this mission. In Matthew chapter 8, he healed the servant of a Roman centurion, who was not part of Israel. So in today’s passage, Jesus’ difficult and confusing response can be understood as part of the prejudice and exclusion that Jewish people held toward Canaanites.

There are many ways to interpret this passage. But today, I want to receive Jesus just as he appears in this story. Jesus was Jewish. And he was not completely free from the historical and social conditions of his community. I believe that Jesus’ faith and theology were large enough to include not only Jewish people but also non-Jewish, Gentile people. But in this passage, when he meets the Canaanite woman—someone from a group long oppressed and excluded by Jewish people—his Jewish identity is not hidden.

In Jesus’ time, life was very difficult for both Jewish and non‑Jewish people living in the land of Palestine, except for Roman citizens. Jewish and Canaanite people both lived under the rule of the Roman Empire. That colonial rule, and the rule of those who cooperated with the Empire, was not gentle or kind. We can see this from the deaths of John the Baptist and Jesus. It was a harsh and violent system. In this situation, the encounter between two people from the two oppressed peoples, the encounter between Jesus the Jew and the woman the Canaanite, could have been more gentle, more in solidarity with each other, and more beautiful. But the long history of war and conquest cast a deep shadow over their encounter.

Nevertheless, this story is still in our Gospel because Jesus did not stay where he first stood. He didn’t remain inside the narrow thinking that many Jewish people held at that time. Jesus saw the faith of the Canaanite woman. And he recognized her faith.

This change, this transformation in Jesus didn’t happen by himself. It came through the woman’s courageous and rightful challenge. It came through a challenge that was very hard for her to make. In verse 27, she replies, “But even the dogs get to eat the scraps that fall from the table.” On the surface, she uses the same word that Jesus used for her and her daughter: “dogs.” But of course, this was not her true heart. She certainly would not have accepted being called a “dog.” She would never have accepted that label for her daughter. She was simply showing Jesus that his words were unfair. She was telling him why Jesus must heal her daughter.

After her words, Jesus finally changes. In verse 28, Jesus says, “Woman, you have great faith! Your wish will come to pass.” What happened here? Why did Jesus’ attitude suddenly shift? I believe that between verse 27 and verse 28, many things happened in Jesus’ mind and heart. He listened to the voice he had refused to hear. He could stand with the life he had refused to notice. He fully accepted someone he had once seen as beneath his Jewish people. He received her as God’s beloved daughter and his sibling.

In her voice of faith, Jesus looked at himself. He saw the narrowness and the prejudice inside him. He realized he needed to be transformed. And he came to accept in his heart that Canaanite people were also God’s people, as well as Jewish and Gentile people.

This was an Uncomfortable but Transforming Encounter. This is the encounter Jesus experienced. Before the remarkable faith of the Canaanite woman, Jesus may have looked again at his own faith. He had fled to Tyre and Sidon because of Herod’s threat. But in front of the faith of the woman he had ignored, Jesus remembered the faith he once had. He understood where he needed to be. And he began to move again. Let me read verse 29: “Going on from there, Jesus came to the shore of the Sea of Galilee, then went up into the hills. He sat there, and large crowds gathered.” He returned to the people of Galilee, where he was called to be. In the encounter with the Canaanite woman, Jesus heard the voice of God.

Let me close with this. Are there voices we have not listened to? Are there people we have ignored or pushed aside? God’s voice may be there. The walls of prejudice and exclusion—walls we may not even see in ourselves—can be broken through uncomfortable but transforming encounters. God’s voice is there. It is the voice that transforms us, renews us, and strengthens our faith.

May God’s voice, already among us, come even nearer to our hearts, to our lives, to our relationships, and to our community. Amen.