“Woman, great is your faith!” (Matt. 15:28).
Faith is basic to the Christian life, so we ought not to be surprised that Jesus is talking about it in our Gospel today. Faith is trust in God: confidence on the part of the believer in what God has done and what God will do. In New Testament terms, faith is confidence in the God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead, and who will raise us up with him. The “mystery of faith” is summed up in the Eucharistic proclamation of “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” Here we see faith fixed upon the action of God in Jesus Christ our Lord: death, resurrection, and coming again.
In our reading, Jesus encounters a woman of faith: not just of faith, but of “great faith.” The story is situated in the time before Jesus’ death and resurrection, but you can already see how the woman prepares the way for New Testament faith in Christ. She has confidence in God, but she also has faith in what Jesus can do for her daughter. “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon” (Matt. 15:22). “Lord, help me” (Matt. 15:25), she says to Jesus. She has identified him as the one who can help.
Jesus commends her for her “great faith.” Though she is a gentile, and not a daughter of Israel, not a follower of the faith of Abraham, she has “great faith.” She has faith in Jesus. Here we have a contrast with Peter and the disciples in our Gospel last week. When the storm arises on the lake, and the disciples are fearful; when Peter follows Jesus out of the boat and begins to sink: Jesus chastises them and says, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” (Matt. 14:31). “Woman, great is your faith!” (Matt. 15:28) provides a study in contrast.
The good news for us is that littleness of faith can still lead to salvation. Peter calls out to Jesus as he sinks, “Lord, save me!” (Matt. 14:30), and he delivers, in spite of Peter’s “little faith.” Elsewhere in the Gospels Jesus tells the disciples that if they have faith the size of a mustard seed (which is the smallest of seeds, the Gospels tell us), then nothing will be impossible for them (Matt. 17:20). All we need to muster is enough faith to cry out to God for help.
So, what’s the difference between a little faith and a lot of faith? What marks out the Canaanite woman as a person of “great faith”? This is not an abstract question, as we consider how we can deepen our own faith. How can we, like this woman, follow more faithfully?
There are a couple of things to consider. First of all, the woman is persistent. She works her way through the disciples, and even through dismissal by Jesus himself. “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs” (Matt. 15:26): not Jesus’ warmest pastoral response. In spite of this she persists in her request. She wants her daughter to be healed. Like the persistent widow in Jesus’ parable in Luke’s Gospel, who keeps pestering the unjust judge, the Canaanite woman doesn’t back down even though her claim is denied.
The second marker is the fact of the woman’s humility in making the request. “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table” (Matt. 15:27). We sometimes think of humility as a kind of false modesty: “Aw shucks, it was nothing,” but that’s not what humility is at all. Here, the Canaanite woman is willing to humiliate herself, to make herself as vulnerable as possible, in pursuit of her daughter’s healing. Dogs don’t have a good rep in Holy Scripture, so the comparison isn’t flattering. That’s humility in its rawest and most elemental sense.
Persistence and humility, as markers of “great faith,” are goods that we can practice in deepening and strengthening our own faith. Persistence in prayer, because prayer is the conversation we have with God. Prayer can begin with something as desperate as “God, are you listening?”; or it can begin with praise and thanksgiving for something as basic as bringing us to this moment. Wherever we start, it’s important to persist.
Humility isn’t about false modesty, or even abasing oneself. I like to think of it as knowing where you are, and who you are, without deception. It’s also about knowing who God is. The Canaanite woman stands on the margins; any claim she has on mercy is unwarranted by the traditions of the People of God. She stands on the margin of God’s mercy, standing where we all stand. She knows where she is and who she is.
But she also knows who Jesus is, and that his margin is broad: that’s the crucial difference. She has faith is who he is and what he can do. May God, in his turn, deepen and strengthen our faith in the same way, so that it too may become great.