"And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out crying, 'Son of David, have mercy on me.' "     (Matthew 15:22)

That was quite a woman who came out from that region. She would have been quite a woman from any region. But this particular woman came out from "that region of Tyre and Sidon" into which Jesus and his disciples seem, well, almost to have "strayed". Tyre and Sidon were not quite Sodom and Gomorrah, but they were not too far above that level.

Tyre and Sidon were not, gently and geographically put, were not the Land of Israel, to put it far too mildly. They were not the Land of the Chosen People. Tyre and Sidon were in Phoenicia. Sounds uncomfortably similar to "Phoenix, doesn't it? I hope we are not too similar for Tyre and Sidon were not too be admired, except in grudgingly envious sort of way. Phoenicia was inordinately successful, and along with the consequent wealth, overly devoted to luxury and indolence and every sort of indulgence.

The people form this country were properly called Phoenicians, but devout Israelites, appalled at Phoenician excesses, popularly called them Canaanites as we red in today's Gospel. They were not of course Canaanites. The real Canaanites were no more. The devout Israelites, despising tem as much as they later would the Phoenicians, had exterminated them in the time of the old Judges of Israel shortly after the Exodus and the Settlement in the Promised Land. since only the surviving victors wrote the history, we cannot know if they Canaanites were really as awful as they are described, but we do know that the Israelites certainly, universally, regarded them as dreadful people. The Phoenicians were also dreadful people, so here was a word handy and well- known to use for any sort of dreadful people. So: "a Canaanite woman from that region". not an actual description of her actual heritage, but a very pointed description of how loathed she would have been on sight.

All of this was, from what we read in St Matthew, quite well-known and clearly on the disciples' minds that day. It must also have been well known and on the mind of the woman herself. Of all of them, that Phoenician woman, that Canaanite, if you will, and they would, was keenly and doubtless painfully aware of what that company of men all thought of her and her type. And out she came, from those parts, crying after Jesus himself, begging him to have mercy. And not really on her, not on the woman herself, she doubtless would not have risked it for that reason. She came out, crying after Jesus, for the sake of her daughter, her suffering daughter. A mother's love, yes, even a Canaanite mother's love, would risk anything to save her child and end her suffering. The Canaanites are gone, the Phoenicians are gone, but thanks be to God that sort of mother is not gone.

And all of what issues from her courage, her risk of love, her coming out from that region, her begging, is one of the most extraordinary pieces of Scripture in the entire Bible - bar none. It is an amazing account. Unlike any other.

The disciples do not react well, not surprise, we have gotten used to that after all that we have read about them in the Gospels, They often do not react well. Yes, sometimes they are heroic. They are also sometimes cowardly, sometimes filled with faith, sometimes wrangling for position, sometimes quietly asking for Jesus to teach them to pray, sometimes strutting proudly like little roosters about the power that Jesus has given them over demons. They often make a poor, or at least a miscellaneous showing.

But it is our Lord's reaction that is really startling, that amazes and confuses me. Could this conceivably be Jesus Christ? responding to a mother pleading for the welfare of her little child? Is this the Jesus I love and worship who Answered her "I was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and to them alone." Terribly intimidating, terribly discouraging, I would have thought. But that Canaanite, the woman from that region persists, desperation making her fearless, love demanding she takes a horrible risk. And she persists in her desperate plea, and repeats it, this time kneeling before this man. Is that then also our Lord, is that really Jesus who then replies: It is not fair to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs" - that is her, and her dying daughter.

And then there it is, and I have never known what to make of it, other than to hear and sit back amazed and stunned and silent. Somehow she knew against all evidence against. all odds, all human common sense, unlike any other human wisdom other than, I assume that wise mystical knowledge that comes out of and along with a mother's love for her child. She knew, she knew, that she would not be rejected, against everything that she really ought to have known or at least known better, and doubtless did know, she knew beyond and above and deeper than that, she knew before St Paul wrote or even himself believed, she knew that "nothing in all creation could separate her from the love of God" in this man, Jesus Christ. She knew, oh my she knew, that she was despised, rejected, loathed, resented by all the upright, the good, the decent, the outwardly devout, the Chosen. She knew that they would as soon, and usually did, call her a Canaanites as a Phoenician.

She knew she was beyond the pale, among the despised, undesirable, alien with no valid claim, no claim at all on the mercy of God or his love. And yet. , And yet she knew something more, something better, finer, something as we now no is something ultimately true. She knew she and her daughter and her people and all the world and all of us are loved by God and his Christ, this Son of David, and all together we all share s claim, a portion of the love and healing and reconciliation and hope that this man, this Jesus the Son of David, and Son of God, this Savior, brought to all the world.

Not only, not just the lost of Israel, as she aready realized - probably first among all those whom he came to all to save. And her salvation came, and her prayer was answered and she received what she requested, and needed, for her daughter, and that daughter was healed, and her faith - yes, her Canaanite faith and hope and her Phoenician love and trust - was commended by our Lord who said, in heart-breaking tenderness to this "dog": "Oh woman, how great is your faith! Be it done for you, as you desire." Commended by that Lord, our Lord to whom she ran out in love, despite all she should have known, only knowing somehow that he would, and did love her.

What a goal for us to have! What a love for us to show! What a trust for us to feel, what a faith for us to live, as we seek, as we should, to be like a Canaanite dog, like that woman, from that region, who came out, crying out to Jesus: "O Lord, have mercy on me!" Knowing, knowing, that he will.