Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

I have preached on this text many times over the years, and I have found that, regardless of what I say, many people still walk away struggling to understand it. We hear something deeply disconcerting in this Gospel: the Lord insulting a woman—and insulting her deeply.

As I have reflected on why we struggle to hear this in any other way, I think there are two things going on. First, we do not really understand the text. We do not hear the Latin pun that Romans would have understood, In Latin, the demonym of Canaan, i.e. Canaanite, is Canaeus and the word for dog is canis. The similar pronunciation leads to the Canaanites being called dogs. and English has no compact, natural way to say exactly what the Lord is saying here. Matt 15:26–27, NA28: Gk κυνάριον (kynarion), here κυναρίοις / κυνάρια, is the diminutive of κύων (kyōn), “dog,” commonly rendered “little dog” or “puppy.” The woman answers with the same diminutive Jesus uses. And so we have to wrestle with the text as it comes to us.

But even if we understood those things, there would still be a struggle, because this story holds up a mirror to us. When we hear this exchange, we see ourselves, and we struggle to imagine any world different from the one we know.

We live in a culture of insults and disparagement. Listen to the media: people are constantly bickering and tearing one another down. We find the same thing in television and movies, even in the books and articles we read. It is as if people revel in insulting one another—tearing others down in order to build themselves up.

That spirit seeps into our own hearts and shapes the way we treat one another. We know that if we were to walk up to a woman and call her a dog, we would mean it as an insult. We would intend to make her feel worse about herself so that we could feel better. We cannot imagine a world in which such words could mean anything else.

We treat our enemies this way. It is not enough for them simply to be our enemies; we feel that we must humiliate them. And many of us treat even our friends this way. Even our families. No one is beyond being insulted and broken down.

But that is not what is happening in this story. That is not the mind of the Lord. The Lord has no desire whatsoever to tear down, to disparage, or simply to make someone feel bad. The Lord is the divine physician. He has come to heal. To build up. To raise up. And to offer us a better way. And like any good physician, there are times when he must wound in order to bring about a deeper and greater healing. That is what we see here.

Yes, there is a harshness to his words. They are hard words, spoken so that this woman can see the reality of her situation and the reality of the Lord’s own mission. At this moment, she stands outside the immediate scope of that mission. The day of the Gentiles is coming—but during the Lord’s earthly ministry, that day has not yet arrived.

Nonetheless, within that wounding—within the harshness of his words—lies an invitation, an invitation she can discover through faith. And she does. She hears what he is really saying. She looks beyond the wound to the invitation and the greater healing. She recognizes that, although his mission in this moment is to Israel, he will heal her daughter. He will give her what she asks because he loves her, too. She embraces that invitation. She allows the divine physician to heal. She has faith.

And this is always what the Lord is seeking to do: to heal, to bind up, and to unite all peoples as one in his Father’s kingdom. That is the mind we too should carry with us into the world. We should not use our words to insult and harm, to tear down. We should use our words to build others up and to invite them into the kingdom of God.

This story seems so offensive to us and so difficult to understand because we do not live as we should. We assume that harsh words must be intended to humiliate, because humiliation is what our culture intends. But if we put on the mind of Christ—if we leave behind the desire to sin, to destroy others in order to make ourselves look good, and instead seek the salvation of every person we meet—then this story makes sense.

So let us spend some time honestly examining ourselves, honestly looking at our lives and at how we use our words. Are our days filled with insults and gossip and the destruction of reputations? Or do we use our words as Christ does: proclaiming the kingdom of God, proclaiming good news to the poor, proclaiming that all have been called into his kingdom?

Do we truly imitate the divine physician, seeking the healing of others? Or do we follow the prince of this world, trying to destroy everything that we see?