Our text introduces us to a remarkable woman. She is courageous. She is clever. She is cool. But most of all she is a loving momma who will do anything to help her sick baby girl.

The story itself has always been one that I would just as soon skip over because, at first blush, it makes Jesus come off like some insensitive jerk. This does not sound like the Jesus I know. In fact, I wonder why such a story was preserved in the gospel record anyway. But then the lectionary drops it in our homiletical lap and says handle it! Can we "rescue" Jesus here, find some way of explicating this conversation that will put him in a bit more flattering light?

The commentators have tried to explain. Some have said that Jesus was just having a bad day — he and the twelve had gone north, out of Galilee (th…