St. John’s Lutheran Church
Albany, New York
16 August 2026 + The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 15 / Lectionary 20a (Mary, Mother of Our Lord)
Matthew 15:[10-20], 21-28
The Rev. Josh Evans

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Remember those ubiquitous bracelets: WWJD?
What Would Jesus Do?

Well, in this particular instance,
Jesus done messed up.

At worst, Jesus is a sexist, xenophobic jerk
who calls this foreigner and this woman a dog
(I’ll let you figure out the contemporary insult Jesus is grasping at).

At best, Jesus is not a very good teacher
if he can’t even practice what he preaches –
after literally just teaching about how
“it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.”
Translation: the things we say,
especially to and about other people,
matter.
And then Jesus turns around,
and his first instinct is to call a woman…a “dog.”
Do as I say, not as I do…I guess.

Our first instinct
might be to defend Jesus –
that can’t possibly be what’s going on, right?

But things get problematic
even before the outright insult:
This woman is shouting –
a detail Matthew notes not just once but twice.
But Jesus does not answer her at all.
Does he not hear her?
The disciples certainly did: “Send her away!”
It’s hard to imagine Jesus didn’t –
which implies Jesus was outright ignoring her.
Maybe he was just tired –
or maybe he was grappling with centuries of ancient hostilities
between his people and their neighbors
and just hoping the woman would go away
if he gave her the silent treatment long enough.

The evidence certainly makes it difficult to defend Jesus –
but maybe that’s not Matthew’s intent anyway.

Maybe instead, Matthew wants to remind us that this “Emmanuel,”
this “God is with us [humans],”
is himself deeply and truly and fully human,
as we confess in the words of the creed.

And if Jesus is fully human,
then it follows that Jesus was susceptible
to getting it wrong
and messing up.

That’s a hard thing to grapple with.

And: I would invite us
to sit with that tension:
Jesus was fully human.
Jesus messed up.
Jesus made mistakes.

How might that change
how we approach the stories in the gospels?
(That could be a whole Bible study series on its own, couldn’t it?)
How might that change
this story?

Some interpretations would suggest
that Jesus was testing this woman’s faith –
was she “worthy” enough to have her request for help granted?
Or maybe he was testing his hearers
about the lesson he had just imparted –
would they pick up on what he had just done (wrong) and call him out on it?
That feels a little icky though, manipulative even, doesn’t it?
And what kind of credibility would such a teacher have
to make this woman an object lesson
and an object of ridicule?

What if instead
the exemplar of faith in this story
is not Jesus
but the unnamed Canaanite woman –
kneeling at the feet of Jesus,
shouting, pleading, begging
for help
for her daughter?

After all,
Jesus himself commends her
for her faith.

What if, in fact,
this woman
is the one in this story
who has the most to teach us
about faith?

This unnamed Canaanite woman
models a kind of faith that is persistent,
not for its own sake
but for the well-being of another –
in the case of this woman, her daughter –
even when that other isn’t in the room
or doesn’t yet have a place at the table.

And she knows and trusts that Jesus –
whom she calls “Lord” and “Son of David” –
can help her,
and she won’t take no –
or his insults toward her –
for an answer.

Hers is a faith that is persistent and risk-taking,
daring to talk back to Jesus –
“Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table” –
daring to remind Jesus of the abundance
a few loaves of bread can provide for thousands
(did he forget so soon?),
daring to change Jesus’ mind
and expand his understanding
of the very reign of God he himself has been preaching.

Jesus changes his mind –
there is the scandal of this story
and the good news:
Jesus changes his mind
toward an even greater inclusivity.

If Jesus, who, while fully divine, is also fully human,
can make mistakes
and change his mind,
then so can we.

There is grace in that –
permission to make mistakes,
own up to them,
and learn from them,
so that we can preach and practice
a radically inclusive and expansive reign of God
that is for everyone –
not just for a select group
who profess a specific creed,
who adhere to a specific set of beliefs,
who belong to a particular denomination or congregation,
who speak a particular language or come from a particular culture.

This story invites us
to a different understanding of faith,
not exactly with Jesus as teacher
but with this unnamed woman
who shows up
in a mere eight verses.

WWTCWD?
What Would The Canaanite Woman Do?

The Canaanite woman would shout
until she was heard,
embodying a kind of faith that is persistent, bold, and risk-taking,
playing the long game
and staking its hope on that long arc of the moral universe
that inevitably bends toward justice and wholeness and liberation,
even when we can’t quite yet perceive it,
even when it feels like our efforts at repairing the world
in pursuit of God’s reign
are futile.

The Canaanite woman would shout
in harmony with Mary’s song,
embodying a kind of subversive faith
that turns the world upside down:
lifting up the lowly,
filling the hungry,
remembering the forgotten.

“Great is your faith!”
Jesus commends her.

Persistent faith.
Risk-taking faith.
Faith concerned for the other,
crossing boundaries,
subverting expectations,
revealing abundance,
pointing us to expansive grace
and radical belonging.

A faith that changes minds
and changes us.