Throughout the last couple of chapters, the crowds have chased Jesus, the Pharisees have cross-examined him, and Jesus has kept moving trying to find a place to pray and recharge. The turn in ministry came when the Pharisees “conspired against him, how to destroy him” (12:14-15). After this, “when Jesus became aware of this, he departed.” Then the news came that Herod had beheaded John; and “when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself” (14:1-13). Next, the Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem question him closely (15:1-20). After Jesus warns the crowd about the Pharisees, we come to this verse.
15: 21. Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon.
Earlier, Jesus went up on a mountain or crossed the Sea of Galilee to get away, but now he crosses another boundary. He leaves the district of Galilee, which historically had been part of the nation of Israel. He crosses the ethnic boundary into Phoenician territory, something the prophet Elijah did as well when he was fleeing from King Ahab (I Kings 17:8-16). Jesus had noted earlier that “deeds of power” had not been done in this territory, so they are unlikely to know him (11:21). Perhaps he may get some relief from the crowds…or not.
15: 22-28. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed from that moment.
Jesus has been recognized; is there no place to rest? Matthew calls this woman a ‘Canaanite’, meaning one of several groups of people that were driven out of the Promised Land hundreds of years earlier by the Israelites. Mark, by contrast, says she was “a Greek of Syro-Phoenician origin” (Mark 7:26); which is a complex identity meaning that she belonged in this formerly Greek province. At any rate, she is not a Jew.
Yet, she calls Jesus by his Jewish epithet, ‘Son of David’, and thus identifies his ancestral link with Solomon, the Son of David who became known for various kinds of wisdom, including the knowledge of healing. She shouts out, apparently along the road since there is no mention of a crowd following Jesus. Jesus does not answer and apparently keeps walking, ignoring as well the disciples' complaint that she is “shouting after us.” She is rather like the woman with a hemorrhage who appeared earlier in this Gospel. She persistently followed Jesus, though without a word (Matthew 9:20).
Jesus tells the disciples, within the hearing of the woman, that his current mission is to Israel. Since we know the end of the story, we would prefer Jesus to have said, “first to the Jews,” but that is not what Jesus said. The woman does not argue, but falls on her knees before him to make her personal plea.
Jesus’ answer again surprises us; it seems harsh. Is Jesus calling her a ‘dog’? That is what Jews thought of Gentiles. However, previously Jesus had healed a Gentile, the Centurion’s servant, and the highpoint of that exchange was Jesus’ statement that “in no one in Israel have I found such faith” (8:5-13). That time, Jesus predicted that “many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” Perhaps this moment will reveal another insight.
Notice that the woman does not argue with Jesus about the theological issue of the nature of Jesus' proximate and ultimate missions. Instead, she takes Jesus’ seemingly unfortunate slur and turns it around to support her plea, which is that he heal her demon-possessed daughter. Some commentators see this as a kind of ‘word play’ that Jesus uses to test this woman’s faith. That is, Jesus teases her to see if her faith was genuine. Maybe. Others argue that Jesus is setting the disciples up for a lesson that will prepare them to cross boundaries for the larger mission to the Gentiles that comes after the Resurrection and Pentecost. Maybe.
At any rate, Jesus’ use of a word that can also mean ‘little dogs’ invites a rejoinder from the woman that even the ‘pet dogs’ get to eat the crumbs from the table, and this may be part of the word play. Jesus is impressed by her faith, so Jesus awards her the distinction of having “great faith.” As I noted, this title is shared only by the Roman Centurion and by the Canaanite woman, and both were Gentiles, not Jews.
15: 29-31. After Jesus had left that place, he passed along the Sea of Galilee, and he went up the mountain, where he sat down. Great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the blind, the maimed, the mute, and many others. They put them at his feet, and he cured them, so that the crowd was amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the maimed whole, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel.
Finding a quiet place among the Gentiles of the Tyre and Sidon territory does not work. So, Jesus returns to the environs of the Sea of Galilee. There, as might be expected, great crowds show up with a variety of disabilities and illnesses. This work brought the hoped-for response: “They praised the God of Israel.” After all, it was Jesus’ mission to call a sinful people back to a forgiving God, and to confirm his mission with deeds of wonder and works of mercy.
This is not the description of an event as much as it is a summary statement, like the one Matthew wrote at the end of Chapter 14, verses 34-36. Now, the current summary of Jesus’ ministry of healing is the last one in Matthew. After this, the narrative moves step by step toward the cross.
15: 32-39. Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for the crowd because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat, and I do not want to send them away hungry, for they might faint on the way.” The disciples said to him, “Where are we to get enough bread in the desert to feed so great a crowd?” Jesus asked them, “How many loaves have you?” They said, “Seven, and a few small fish.” Then ordering the crowd to sit down on the ground, he took the seven loaves and the fish, and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all of them ate and were filled, and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. Those who had eaten were four thousand men, besides women and children. After sending away the crowds, he got into the boat and went to the region of Magadan (Magdala).
Some commentators, overly critical of the text, argue that there was only one such feeding of a large crowd, and that both Matthew and Mark have overplayed their hand here. However, skip ahead to the next chapter and we find Jesus himself referring to two such feedings.
“Do you not remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many baskets you gathered? Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many baskets you gathered?” (Matthew 16: 9-10).
So, we will take this as a similar but separate event. It is possible that the event is included because it moves subtly toward the climax of the Last Supper. Indeed, while the story of the feeding of the 5000 used the word ‘blessed’, this account uses the Greek word eucharisto, in which you can see the word ‘eucharist’. Eucharist is another word for Holy Communion. Points of contact: the elements (loaves and fish) are brought by the people, the people sit in anticipation, Jesus gave a thanksgiving prayer (eucharisto), he broke the bread and fish into pieces, he gave them to the disciples to distribute, the people ate, and then they were sent away.
When they had gone, Jesus got into a boat and went to the region of Magadan. If Magadan means Magdala, then this is straightforward. This city sits on the west shore of the Sea of Galilee and was known for the production and trade of dried fish. The name means ‘tower’ and probably refers to the towers that fish were hung on to dry. We would also know the city as the home of Mary Magdalene, that is, Mary from Magdala. However, not everyone agrees that Magadan is just another name for Magdala.
Here’s the kicker. Mark describes the same event in 8:1-10, and the previous setting for Jesus’ ministry there was the Decapolis, that is, the ‘Ten Cities’ that constitute the district on the south and southeast side of the Sea of Galilee. After the miraculous feed, Mark says Jesus got into a boat and went to the district of Dalmanutha. No mention of Magdala.
There are several unnamed archaeological sites near Magdala, at least one of which has been excavated. It has been suggested that this was the village of Dalmanutha, but there is no actual evidence that it was. So, we are left with a mystery. In Mark, the next destination for Jesus and his disciples is Bethsaida, which is up the coast on the north end of the Sea of Galilee. However, Matthew has Jesus and the disciples next show up in the district of Caesarea Philippi, which is also north of the Sea of Galilee. So, it seems clear that there are different ways to indicate a place, whether it is as a district, a city, or a village.
Overall, it is clear that Jesus is working his way in ministry up the western coast and into the towns to the north of the sea. From that distant location, he will next wind his way south to Jerusalem. Jesus keeps moving, but as we will see next week in Matthew 16, the Pharisees and Sadducees are close behind with another tricky test.