Desperation that leads to true faith

            The story doesn’t begin with us knowing about her great faith; it begins in desperation, where great faith often begins. The Canaanite woman, whose name we never hear, has a daughter whom she describes as “cruelly possessed by a demon.”  We don’t know exactly what this meant, but it easily could have meant she was afflicted with violently insane behavior, like the man who lived among the tombs in Matthew 8, or that she had terrible seizures, like the boy who often fell into the fire in Matthew 17. Whatever her symptoms, her mother was desperate for her to be healed – to be free from this terrible state. Her desperation led to hope – not hope in the folk cures and remedies she probably had tried before, not hope in the best medical advice of the day, but hope in the God of Israel, hope in the Messiah, God’s Chosen One.

Faith without Shame

            This hope led to a faith without shame. Many times we can be afraid to let our faith be known. Sometimes we don’t want to stand out; sometimes we just want to be polite and not “talk religion.” Sometimes we just don’t want the added scrutiny that comes when people realize we’re followers of Jesus Christ. This woman was different; she lived out a faith that came from having nothing left to lose, a desperate faith. She approached this band of disciples and their leader, Jesus. She screamed out to them from a distance, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David!” She didn’t just shout, she screamed – her cries as desperate as the faith she had that Jesus was the One who could make a difference. She didn’t care that the disciples didn’t approve. She didn’t care, even as a woman approaching men who were strangers, that she would stand out like a sore thumb. She didn’t care about the things that often make us ashamed. She had the faith of a desperate mother – a faith without shame. This should make us think about our faith. Does it come out of desperation? Does our faith rise out of a confidence that Jesus is the only One who can bring meaning to our lives, the only One who can bring true spiritual and emotional healing, the only One to whom our lives are worth devoting? Or, is our faith just a casual thing we do because it’s expected? The Canaanite woman’s faith was without shame because she knew Jesus was her only hope and she didn’t care what others expected.