When I first read this week’s Gospel, I got all excited. It says “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’.”  

I got excited because FINALLY the Bible is gonna talk about us dogs! YES!  

Turns out… not so much.  

How big is your faith? It turns out that this story is about a brave, loving mother who comes to Jesus asking Him to heal her sick daughter. At first it looks like Jesus is ignoring her.  Seems that she had asked a lot. Miss Julie says that any mother would do that. They  would ask over and over if their child needed help. She says they would keep asking until they got the help their child needed. And I know that’s true. Miss Julie would ask over and over if I needed help. She’s kinda stubborn like that. 

I wanted Jesus to stop what he was doing and take care of this woman’s daughter. But I think he was kind of mean. Maybe Jesus was just tired and having a bad day. Or he was teaching his disciples something.  The mother in this story didn’t quit. She could have given up and gone home. She might have been a little mad. But instead she stuck with it. She kept asking Jesus for help when it looked like he wasn’t paying attention to her. She kept asking because she had faith that Jesus could help her daughter.  She knew how powerful Jesus was, and she was willing to take risks and persist in her efforts because she believed in His ability.  

The part about the dogs and the crumbs means that her faith was so strong and so big that she knew even a little bit of Jesus’ power could help her daughter. The woman showed faith and humility when she said that even the "crumbs" of Jesus' power were enough to save her daughter. She trusted Him completely.   

By helping this woman, Jesus showed everyone that God's salvation and love are for all people, no matter where they are from, not just a select few. In Jesus’ time, Jews and Canaanites did not get along. Jesus was a Jew. The woman was a Canaanite. She’s not one of the chosen people. She’s an outsider that the insiders don’t want to be around.  

Plus, she is a woman and in Jesus’ time, women were not all that important. Maybe that’s why she thought Jesus was ignoring her. Probably a lot of people had. Probably even the disciples wanted Jesus to ignore her.  

There are days that we pray and get no answer. We come before God and offer all that we are and all that we have. We tell God how we feel, tell him what we need, but nothing happens. We wait. We listen. God is silent. It’s like talking to the walls of our room.  

Sometimes we all feel like we are ignored, and it’s really not a good feeling, is it? When we have a question and no one answers us right away it makes us feel like we are not worth their time. When I ask for a treat and nobody does anything about it, I just woof louder!