Matthew 15:21-23 - Send her away!

15:21,22

When the Israelites had conquered Canaan many of the Canaanites had been dispersed to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman came to Jesus crying out “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me!”. To be merciful meant to deal with some severe problem someone was facing, in this case it was that her daughter was demon-possessed. So what we have here is a Gentile woman seeking help from Jesus. The centurion back in Matt 8:5 was the first Gentile encounter to be noted by Matthew. 

15:23

Jesus kept quiet. Now why did He do this? Maybe it was to draw out the reaction of the disciples and to draw out faith from the woman. In the case of the disciples this seems a perfectly reasonable thing for Jesus to do, for their attitude needed changing. By the way, it is quite normal for a disciple to need his or her attitudes to change, and you and I are disciples. The disciples just wanted Jesus to get rid of the woman. She had at least two, and possibly three, things against her in the eyes of the disciples. She was a woman, she was a Gentile, and she was making a noise.