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calling out to a man and a Jew at that. But love compelled her - love for her child who was sick. She was willing to be rebuked, even humiliated, in order to get help. She knew she was overstepping social boundary markers - and Jesus affirmed her. “O woman, how great is your faith.”
Early Christians told and retold this story for they knew they too were called to ignore the social boundaries that held sway in their day. Males and females, Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free people - all were to be welcomed in early Christian communities. Yet they found it was not easy for peoples who had lived segregated from each other to know how to get along in their new inclusive communities. Paul offered them a metaphor: they could see each other as differing parts of one body. “God has placed each part in the body just as he wanted it to be. If all the parts were the same, how could there be a body? As it is, there are many parts. But there is only one body…You are the body of Christ. Each one of you is a part of it.” (I Corinthians 12:18-19, 27) Yes, they were different, but they were interrelated and needed each other to form the Body of Christ.
That was and is the the kingdom to which Christians are called - a place of living together in connective, life-giving relationships rather than in death-dealing division. We are to live with appreciation for rather than fear of our differences. For such a kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven, we will need to have the faith of that Canaanite woman. We too need to be willing to be rebuked, even humiliated, for the sake of Love. Isn’t that what Jesus experienced? Isn’t that the way we are called to follow?