The Woman From Sidon (Matthew 15:21-28)

Jesus and his disciples had taken some time out for a break. Mark in his account mentions that Jesus was staying in a house in Sidon, but we are not informed as to how he located it. In any case, during their stay, they would have gone out and on one of those occasions this incident took place. Matthew obviously was there so he is an eyewitness of what occurred.

Providence

Sometimes, a location gets a visit from an important person and some people may want to see the VIP out of curiosity. They may be royalty or politicians or someone very good at sport. Occasionally an expert in a particular field goes somewhere and anyone there affected by the problem he was good at solving would hope to meet him. Jesus was skilled in dealing with the problem that this woman’s daughter was afflicted with, so it is not surprising that she would want his help.

Yet there was the problem of the men who were with him. They did not give the impression that she would be welcome to draw near to Jesus. But she had one opportunity, and she was determined to use it. Was her determination good, or was she being presumptuous in her aims?

Problem

Yet she had one large problem and that was her ethnic identity. She had not had the opportunity of reading the Gospel of John and looking up John 3:16 for encouragement. Instead, she was a Canaanite. She belonged to the people whom God had told the Israelites to evict from Canaan. Her people had long been opposed by the Israelites and how could she expect him to help her? Yet there was one matter in her favour, as it were. He had come to her territory, and was now close by. If a Canaanite could not go to Israel, maybe the Messiah would come to her.

Her dilemma raises an interesting historical issue about the God of history. What was in his mind when he instructed the Israelites to make sure that no Canaanites would be in the land? For most of them, being expelled from their homeland would be a tragedy. Somewhere in her line in the past, her family had come to Sidon. And the God who had banished her race would ensure that she would Jesus there. His eye was on her down the long centuries because he had planned that she would meet the Saviour. And so it happened. Ever wondered why your ancestors came to this country when it was a pagan nation. Centuries passed before they heard the gospel. But you find yourself in a place where the gospel was preached, a gospel that they never heard. But you did, because the God of history had his eye on you, to show mercy to you.  

Persistence

The tense of the Greek verb indicates that she persisted in her request. We know that sometimes people have to persist in prayer. A well-known example of a person of prayer is George Muller. Did he ever have to persist in prayer? No doubt, he did. But we know that when he was younger he began to pray for the five sons of some close friends. Two were converted shortly afterwards, one a few years later, and two were not converted until several years after Muller died. Muller was over ninety when he died, and he had prayed for those two men for almost sixty years. But he persisted.

What can we say about her prayer? Notice what she prayed for with regard to divine attributes. If it had been me in her situation, I might have focussed on God’s power because, after all, her daughter was affected by the power of the devil and needed supernatural deliverance. But she focussed on his mercy, his compassion. I assume she thought about what she would request. We could get power without mercy, but we cannot get mercy without power. God could just reveal his power, but that would not be the same as revealing his heart.

She also knew what to say to Jesus. She recognised that he was the Messiah. We can see this in her addressing him as the Son of David. The promises that had been made to Israel about the Messiah seem to have been real to her. After all, it had been predicted that when he came, in him would the Gentiles trust.

And she also knew that he was divine, that he was the Lord. How did she know that? She lived in a community where idols were worshipped. So we do not know how she came to recognise that he was divine. But we can say that although she lived in Sidon she knew as much about Jesus’ person as did the twelve men who were walking with him. What an extraordinary prayer she made, given her background.

Her petition was short and to the point. Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, told his disciples that when they prayed they were not to use vain repetitions as the Gentiles did. But here was a Gentile with very respectful prayers. Her heart was like a quiver from which she drew arrow prayers aimed at the Lord for mercy. Surely she would be heard.

Problems

But Jesus said nothing to her initially, not a word. She experienced the silence of the Saviour. Did the disciples expect this? They had seen him interact with another pagan woman, the woman from Sychar with her blend of religious opinions, although they had gone away for most of the time. On that occasion, he had engaged with her and revealed to her that he was the Messiah. The disciples had seen him cross the stormy sea to meet a Gentile man in Gadara who had lost his reason. They had seen him with one word deliver the man of a thousand demons and send him out as a witness. But here he is silent to a mother whose daughter only has one demon (although one was very bad to have).

It looks as if the disciples were encouraged by the silence of Jesus. They took his silence as a sign of disapproval, and proceeded to urge him to send her away. What an extraordinary sight! Disciples of Jesus who should have been delighted with a person praying are asking their Master to be indifferent to her need, and to send her away immediately. Of course, before we point the finger at them, have we secretly or maybe not secretly wished that Jesus would take a potential troublemaker or difficult person away from us? These men were asking Jesus about their own comfort and not caring about her pain.

Then Jesus spoke, but his words seem to be very discouraging for her. What hope could she find in a statement that summed up his current ministry, that he was only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel? She would not have known that he would only be engaged in that aspect of his work for a few more months before he would send out those apostles to the world to reach people like her.

What do we do when God is silent to our prayers? If we are Christians, we know that happens. We sing Psalm 40: ‘I waited patiently for the Lord.’ The word ‘patiently’ does not mean serenely. The psalmist waited with waiting, with perseverance until the Lord delivered him from the miry clay. When we have the experience of the author of Psalm 28, what can we do? ‘To you, O LORD, I call; my rock, be not deaf to me, lest, if you be silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit’ (Ps. 28:1). What can we do, but what those psalmists did? Keep on praying.

Petition answered

The woman continued to pray. She changed her position and knelt at his feet. She did not realise it but soon she would be able to sing, ‘It was down at the feet of Jesus, O the happy, happy day…’ Maybe she realised that it was inappropriate to be shouting at the Lord and more appropriate to be kneeling at his feet. She had a humble heart and she showed it by taking a lowly position. Of course, she was not the only person to do this. Just ask Mary of Bethany and Mary Magdalene and the woman who wiped his feet with her hair. Or the leper whom he healed. Perhaps prayer is not answered because we are not sufficiently lowly in our petitions.

She not only changed her position, but she changed her petition. She shortened it to ‘Lord, help me.’ I don’t know if that made a difference, but Jesus responded to her. In English, his reply seems to repeat what he had said about the lost sheep of the house of Israel. To get the point we need to know that there are two Greek words that can be translated as dogs. One refers to the wild dogs that were dangerous, and that was the word that was used to describe Gentiles. But the word that he uses was used of pet dogs that children had. Perhaps her daughter had a pet dog. In any case she knew what pet dogs did – they ate the crumbs that fell from their little master’s table. She got the point. Jesus had encouraged her faith. Even if she was only like a pet dog, she could share in the blessings of the children of God.

Then, Jesus commended her faith, not just to her but also to the disciples. By taking her opportunity, by persevering in her petition, by listening carefully to the words that Jesus used, she revealed that she had a great faith in him. After all, they had just been given a lesson in what faith is. They literally were following, and through this woman’s experience they learned what they might have to do many times in the future, which is to persevere in prayer when heaven seems silent.

Lessons

First, Jesus often wants to see the strength of our faith, and one place where that is revealed is in our prayer lives. Do we persevere? Are there petitions we once made, but say them no longer? Do we search his Word for little words to help us? After all, it was a little word that helped this woman from Sidon.

Second, don’t be surprised if sometimes God is silent to our most earnest requests. He can seem to treat as unimportant the ones that we and everyone else would regard as very important. But silence is not always a negative response. Rather, we are being taught something in his classroom that is good for our souls.

Third, we should not be surprised at the locations where Jesus has his people. We have our expectations, and they are often a mile out. The disciples had no idea that there was a needy woman in Sidon who knew the Lord and who carried a huge burden that she wanted him to relieve. We could be walking beside such without realising it. Is it not a challenge to those of us who have not responded to the gospel to realise that someone without our privileges may have a relationship with God that some of us do not have?

Fourth, we should avoid giving the impression that we don’t want someone to be saved or helped by God. The conversation of the disciples would have stumbled the most determined seeker if Jesus had not stepped in and sorted out the situation. Similarly, we need to be careful that our words don’t add to the burden that somebody is already carrying

Fifth, we should not overestimate our personal requests. This woman learned that such is the fullness of Christ that even this great miracle was only the equivalent of a crumb. In our experience in this world, no matter how much we have been given, we have only had crumbs, but at the same time we know that there is a fully laden table ahead.