Have you ever had someone that you didn't get along with? Maybe it was someone you had just me, and you simply didn't "click." Or maybe you were taught by your family not to like certain people. One of the most famous family feuds in American history is the conflict between the Hatfields and McCoys. The Hatfields, led by their patriarch Anderson "Devil Anse" Hatfield lived on the West Virginia side of the Tug Fork River and the McCoys, led by Randolph "Ran'l" McCoy, lived on the Kentucky side. Both families were in the lucrative timber business and the animosity went back long before the feud began. Rumor has it that the Hatfields were pretty well off and were prone to brag (of course this rumor probably was started by the McCoys). Even though the evidence is a little murky, the story is that the deadly feud began when Ran'l McCoy accused Floyd Hatfield of stealing one of his hogs and took him to court. A few weeks later, on Election Day, Ellison Hatfield died of wounds received at the hands of three of Ran'l McCoy's sons. The leader of the Hatfields, "Devil Anse," took matters into his own hands and had the three sons killed. The feud only grew from there. Over twelve years in the late eighteen hundreds twelve members of these two families lost their lives to the feud.

Israel vs. the Canaanites

In today's passage about the faith of the Canaanite woman, we are reminded of a similar feud that took place on a much larger scale. It was a well-known fact that the people of Israel did not like Canaanites — just read the first six or seven books of the bible. The Canaanites were the pagans who lived in the Promised Land before Israel came to live there. At that time, the people of Israel nearly killed off these Canaanites, there were many who survived — and even in the time of Jesus, Israel was not lacking for people who believed they should have finished the job. We can see this in writings from Jesus' day that described Canaanites as people with, "inborn wickedness," and as, "an accursed race from the beginning."1

A Canaanite's Great Faith

However, the Gospel of Matthew offers us a different take. This passage is about the faith of the Canaanite woman. As a matter of fact it is about the "Great faith" of the Canaanite woman. This would not be such a big deal if Jesus went around applying this compliment loosely, but this woman is unique in two ways. She is the only Gentile (non-Jewish) woman that Jesus heals in Matthew's gospel, and she is the only person that Jesus says has "Great Faith." Compare that with the five times he reminds the disciples of their "little faith," and you see how unique she is. For the disciples to hear about her great faith would be like a Hatfield learning about great faith through a McCoy!

Desperation that leads to true faith

But 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 who she describes as "cruelly possessed by a demon." We don't know exactly what this meant, but it could have easily meant she was afflicted with violently insane behavior, like the man who lived among the tombs in chapter 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. But her desperation led to hope — not hope in the folk cures and remedies that she had probably 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.