# Bishop Barron – The Syrophoenician Woman: How We Often Get the Story Wrong

An episode of [Daily Sermons With Bishop Robert Barron](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6783446284), 7 Oct 2026, 15 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/74728387/how_not_to_read_the_story_of_the_syrophoenician_woman.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Peace be with you. Friends, the title of my sermon
[0:02] Speaker 1: for this 20th Sunday of Ordinary Time is How Not
[0:06] Speaker 1: to Read the Story of the Syrophoenician Woman. You know
[0:10] Speaker 1: the story well. You've heard it, I'm sure, over and
[0:12] Speaker 1: over again. Jesus wanders into this country outside the borders
[0:15] Speaker 1: of ancient Israel, and he runs across this woman, a
[0:18] Speaker 1: Syrophoenician woman, who has a request. Could you please help
[0:22] Speaker 1: my daughter? She's possessed by a dark spirit. And then
[0:25] Speaker 1: Jesus sort of famously puts her off. First, he He
[0:30] Speaker 1: ignores her, doesn't say anything to her. And then when
[0:33] Speaker 1: she presses, he says, no, no, no, I've just been
[0:35] Speaker 1: sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
[0:37] Speaker 1: You know, not to you foreigners by implication. And then
[0:41] Speaker 1: when she keeps pressing, we get this line that, I mean,
[0:44] Speaker 1: just seems so almost cruel. It's not right to take
[0:48] Speaker 1: the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.
[0:50] Speaker 1: So first kind of indifference. And then look, I'm just
[0:54] Speaker 1: for Israel. And then finally, I'm not throwing, you know,
[0:57] Speaker 1: food to the dogs. I mean, it's pretty off-putting stuff, right?
[1:02] Speaker 1: And then she has one of the most famous, you know,
[1:04] Speaker 1: snappy comebacks in literary history. You know, well, at least,
[1:08] Speaker 1: you know, the dogs eat the scraps that fall from
[1:10] Speaker 1: the table. And then Jesus comes around. Okay, I'm going
[1:12] Speaker 1: to cure your daughter. Okay, how not to read the story,
[1:17] Speaker 1: even though maybe you've heard a dozen homilies in this regard. Well,
[1:22] Speaker 1: Jesus is, you know, tired out after a tough day
[1:25] Speaker 1: of ministry and travel, and he's kind of cranky. And
[1:28] Speaker 1: this sort of annoying woman comes along. And so, you know,
[1:31] Speaker 1: he puts her off. And then he throws a, you know,
[1:34] Speaker 1: sort of off-putting remark. And then he finally insults her. He's,
[1:38] Speaker 1: you know, just, he's difficult with her. And then she's
[1:40] Speaker 1: so clever and has this kind of, you know, plucky
[1:43] Speaker 1: comeback line. And he says, oh, yeah, okay, I'll do
[1:46] Speaker 1: what you want. In fact, you know, I've really learned
[1:49] Speaker 1: a lot from you. And I've learned a lot from your,
[1:51] Speaker 1: you know, persistence. And so I'm a better person for
[1:54] Speaker 1: having come across you. All right, look. I've been involved
[1:58] Speaker 1: in pastoral ministry for much of my life. Talk to
[2:01] Speaker 1: any priest, anyone involved in pastoral work. Sure, we all get,
[2:04] Speaker 1: you know, sometimes you're cranky, it's been a long day,
[2:07] Speaker 1: sometimes people are kind of annoying, and then we lose
[2:09] Speaker 1: our temper, and we're short, and we're difficult with them. Okay, okay.
[2:13] Speaker 1: When it comes to us, sure, I get that. But
[2:16] Speaker 1: the problem, everybody, is you can't turn Jesus into a sinner.
[2:21] Speaker 1: that he's tired, okay, and maybe psychologically cranky, okay, but
[2:26] Speaker 1: you can't turn Jesus into a sinner who's being, you know,
[2:30] Speaker 1: aggressive toward this woman. If he's a sinner, he needs
[2:34] Speaker 1: a Savior. If he's a sinner, he's not the Savior himself.
[2:38] Speaker 1: And the whole structure of Christianity falls apart. Now, besides that,
[2:42] Speaker 1: it's a great interpretation. I'm saying, so don't read it
[2:46] Speaker 1: that way. I know it's trendy. I know it appeals
[2:49] Speaker 1: to kind of our psychological experience, but it's not the
[2:52] Speaker 1: way to read it. The Church Fathers had a much,
[2:55] Speaker 1: much better and more convincing reading of this that actually
[2:58] Speaker 1: is spiritually much more helpful than saying, hey, you know,
[3:02] Speaker 1: cranky Jesus had a bad day, and plucky gal from Syrophoenicia,
[3:07] Speaker 1: you know, straighten him out. I mean, forget that. What's
[3:12] Speaker 1: this about? It's about the testing of faith. that faith
[3:17] Speaker 1: might grow. The principle— and we all know it, everybody, we
[3:21] Speaker 1: all know the principle— that powers in us grow, deepen, develop
[3:29] Speaker 1: in the measure that they are opposed, that they find
[3:32] Speaker 1: some resistance. And it's in fighting against the resistance that
[3:39] Speaker 1: we grow, right? I mean, it's a basic principle. I'm
[3:42] Speaker 1: going to give you some— and maybe they're stupid examples, but
[3:46] Speaker 1: they're From my own experience, once you see this principle,
[3:50] Speaker 1: you can see it, of course, in your own life.
[3:52] Speaker 1: Here's the first one. So when I was a little kid,
[3:55] Speaker 1: I was a good baseball player. I played all the
[3:58] Speaker 1: main sports, basketball and football and so on. But baseball
[4:01] Speaker 1: was my best game. And I was a good defensive player.
[4:04] Speaker 1: And I did a little bit of pitching. I played shortstop, usually.
[4:08] Speaker 1: But I was an especially good hitter. One year, I
[4:11] Speaker 1: must have been like in seventh grade, maybe, Little League.
[4:14] Speaker 1: No kidding, my batting average was in the 600s, and
[4:17] Speaker 1: I kept it very carefully. You know, in those days,
[4:22] Speaker 1: before I read all these books, I had good eyesight,
[4:25] Speaker 1: I had good hand-eye coordination, and Little League pitching is
[4:28] Speaker 1: not exactly, you know, world-class. So I was able to
[4:31] Speaker 1: hit the ball really well, right? So one year, maybe
[4:36] Speaker 1: it was the following year, I made the all-star team
[4:39] Speaker 1: for our Little League, right? And I find myself at
[4:43] Speaker 1: all-star level. practice. So, you know, the better players are there.
[4:47] Speaker 1: And I'm up at the plate during practice, and I'm
[4:49] Speaker 1: just hitting line drive after line drive, boom, boom, against,
[4:53] Speaker 1: you know, a fellow Little League pitcher. Well, there was
[4:58] Speaker 1: a coach, and it was the All-Star team, so I
[5:01] Speaker 1: didn't really know him that well. He was an All-Star coach.
[5:03] Speaker 1: And he came to the mound, and he saw that
[5:05] Speaker 1: I was hitting really well. And he said to me,
[5:08] Speaker 1: you know, I'd like to show you something. So he
[5:10] Speaker 1: got up to the mound, and he himself was, if
[5:12] Speaker 1: I remember right, He was a college player, you know,
[5:15] Speaker 1: pretty accomplished player. And so I'm at the plate, just
[5:19] Speaker 1: used to Little League pitching. And he winds up and
[5:21] Speaker 1: threw the first real curveball I had ever seen. So
[5:26] Speaker 1: Little League, you know, they're throwing middle speed fastballs at you,
[5:31] Speaker 1: you know, the easiest kind of pitch. Well, I stood
[5:34] Speaker 1: up there and this pitch is coming at me. And
[5:36] Speaker 1: it was so shocking. I'd never seen the real movement
[5:40] Speaker 1: of a curveball, the kind of curves and drops, right?
[5:45] Speaker 1: And so I remember I stepped out of the box
[5:48] Speaker 1: because I was so convinced the ball was going to
[5:50] Speaker 1: hit me. And then it breaks right over the plate.
[5:53] Speaker 1: To this day, I remember that experience. Well, look, if
[5:58] Speaker 1: I just stayed at the level of hitting, you know,
[6:01] Speaker 1: against little league fastballs, well, yeah, I was a good hitter.
[6:06] Speaker 1: but I'd never get any better. What did the coach
[6:10] Speaker 1: do then? He saw the reaction that I had, and
[6:12] Speaker 1: he then started working with me of how to wait
[6:16] Speaker 1: on a pitch, how to see the spin of the ball,
[6:20] Speaker 1: how to anticipate a curveball, how to discern that difference,
[6:24] Speaker 1: how to stand in there, don't jump out of the
[6:26] Speaker 1: batter's box. And he made me, by this resistance, a
[6:32] Speaker 1: much better hitter Right? But by putting up an obstacle
[6:37] Speaker 1: in front of me, like throwing me a real curveball,
[6:39] Speaker 1: he made me a better hitter. Let me give you
[6:42] Speaker 1: an analogy, but now from analogous experience from my academic life.
[6:48] Speaker 1: So maybe a couple years later, I'm a freshman at
[6:51] Speaker 1: Fenwick High School outside Chicago and take an English class.
[6:56] Speaker 1: We had a great teacher. He died not long ago,
[6:58] Speaker 1: just a few years ago, and his name was Mr. Langenderfer. Uh,
[7:03] Speaker 1: We all made fun of his name, of course, being
[7:05] Speaker 1: high school kids. But Mr. Langenderfer was an outstanding teacher,
[7:09] Speaker 1: and he taught English, grammar, and composition. And he was
[7:15] Speaker 1: a tough teacher. The ones you remember, right, are the
[7:18] Speaker 1: tough teachers you had. And every week he made us
[7:21] Speaker 1: write an essay, and we'd hand them in, and he'd
[7:25] Speaker 1: grade them. But then he would choose what he thought
[7:27] Speaker 1: was the best essay— and what he thought was the
[7:29] Speaker 1: worst essay. Now, he wouldn't give the names. He wouldn't
[7:32] Speaker 1: humiliate us that way. But he would read what he
[7:34] Speaker 1: thought was a good essay and tell us why. And
[7:37] Speaker 1: then he'd read a bad essay and point out what
[7:42] Speaker 1: was wrong with it. Well, I remember one time, I
[7:45] Speaker 1: still remember it vividly. It was 50 years ago. He's
[7:49] Speaker 1: reading the bad essay. It was mine. It was my essay.
[7:54] Speaker 1: And even though he didn't give the name, I was
[7:55] Speaker 1: so embarrassed. I remember I was so humiliated. And he
[7:59] Speaker 1: was ruthless, going through the syntax, the grammar, the spelling,
[8:03] Speaker 1: the sentence structure, everything, and just pointing out how terrible
[8:09] Speaker 1: this essay was. Well, look, look, I've spent most of
[8:13] Speaker 1: my life as a writer. You know, I have a doctorate,
[8:17] Speaker 1: and I've written 30 books, and I write almost every day.
[8:21] Speaker 1: I almost every day think of him and think of
[8:26] Speaker 1: something he taught me. I would have been the worst
[8:30] Speaker 1: writer in the world unless he had resisted me, had
[8:34] Speaker 1: put up an obstacle to me, had humiliated me even.
[8:39] Speaker 1: And he did humiliate me. But I wouldn't have gotten
[8:42] Speaker 1: any better if that hadn't happened. He wouldn't have called
[8:47] Speaker 1: forth the power of writing unless he had opposed me.
[8:52] Speaker 1: I'll give you one more example. It's now a few
[8:54] Speaker 1: years after that. I'm at Catholic U in Washington. I'm
[8:58] Speaker 1: studying philosophy, right? I love philosophy. And I kind of
[9:01] Speaker 1: find my way to read these great texts. And in class,
[9:03] Speaker 1: I could understand what was being said. And I would
[9:06] Speaker 1: raise a question and get an answer. Okay. Well, one day,
[9:09] Speaker 1: I think it was my second year at Catholic U,
[9:13] Speaker 1: it was a class with Dr. Dan Dahlstrom, who eventually
[9:15] Speaker 1: became my master's thesis director. Wonderful guy. He was a
[9:18] Speaker 1: very young man at the time. And Hegel, a Heidegger specialist.
[9:22] Speaker 1: So we really admired him and brilliant fellow. Well, in class,
[9:26] Speaker 1: we were talking about this famous problem of divine foreknowledge
[9:29] Speaker 1: and human freedom. How can we be free if God
[9:32] Speaker 1: knows what's going to happen and God is omniscient and infallible, right?
[9:36] Speaker 1: It's a classic old problem in philosophy. So he was teaching.
[9:41] Speaker 1: I asked a question. He gave an answer. And then
[9:44] Speaker 1: I asked a follow-up question. And then he gave an answer.
[9:49] Speaker 1: And then I answered back. And I remember he looked
[9:52] Speaker 1: at me. And he's used to teaching undergraduates and all that.
[9:56] Speaker 1: And he kind of winked at me, and he said, okay,
[10:00] Speaker 1: make your case. And at that moment, the class is watching.
[10:05] Speaker 1: This professor I really admired was challenging me. Don't just
[10:10] Speaker 1: ask a question, but you seem unhappy with the answer
[10:14] Speaker 1: I'm giving, so make your argument. And so I did.
[10:19] Speaker 1: And then he resisted me and answered, and then I
[10:22] Speaker 1: had to answer back. But I remember it to this day,
[10:27] Speaker 1: it felt like wings coming out of my back, that
[10:32] Speaker 1: I was flying for the first time. I wasn't just
[10:37] Speaker 1: learning philosophy or responding to or asking a question. I
[10:42] Speaker 1: was actually philosophizing. Now, poorly and in a jejune manner,
[10:47] Speaker 1: I'm sure, but He was putting up a resistance to
[10:52] Speaker 1: me that was calling forth a deeper capacity, made me
[10:58] Speaker 1: a better philosopher. All right. I'm sure by now I
[11:04] Speaker 1: belabored the point. You get it. Our powers grow through resistance. Now, faith.
[11:15] Speaker 1: What's faith? It's trust in God, right? Do you trust
[11:19] Speaker 1: in God? Yeah, I sure do. And that's why I
[11:22] Speaker 1: am asking God for this, and I expect to get it. Okay.
[11:26] Speaker 1: What if you don't get it right away? I'm pretty
[11:30] Speaker 1: mad about that. How come he's not doing it? I
[11:34] Speaker 1: keep asking. Okay, I'll ask again. I trust in God,
[11:39] Speaker 1: and I'm still not getting what I want. Okay. One
[11:44] Speaker 1: option is to give up and say, okay, I'm done
[11:46] Speaker 1: with this. Like I could have said when that curveball
[11:48] Speaker 1: came at me, like, all right, I'm done with baseball.
[11:49] Speaker 1: I I can't handle that. Or when Dan Dahlstrom said,
[11:54] Speaker 1: make your case. I don't know. I'm not up to
[11:56] Speaker 1: making a case. No, but in both of those instances,
[12:00] Speaker 1: I responded to the challenge by deepening my capacity to
[12:05] Speaker 1: hit and my capacity to make an argument. So faith, faith,
[12:11] Speaker 1: trust in God. Does God resist us, not out of capricious,
[12:18] Speaker 1: you know— dislike of us, not to show off his power.
[12:24] Speaker 1: But he resists us precisely to draw out our trust
[12:30] Speaker 1: more and more. Remember, I've quoted before that line from
[12:34] Speaker 1: Augustine about prayer, petitionary prayer. When you ask God for something,
[12:38] Speaker 1: and Augustine says, when you don't get it and you
[12:42] Speaker 1: get frustrated, I mean, why wouldn't God just give it
[12:45] Speaker 1: to me? His answer is because your soul is has
[12:49] Speaker 1: to expand so as to receive the gift that God
[12:54] Speaker 1: wants to give you. It's by resistance, see, that your
[12:58] Speaker 1: faith grows. You know, you see it in the spiritual
[13:01] Speaker 1: monastic tradition, you know, the idea of someone coming to
[13:05] Speaker 1: a monastery. I want to join the monastery. No, no,
[13:09] Speaker 1: wait outside. Do I have an answer? No, no, just
[13:12] Speaker 1: wait outside. The whole day? Maybe the whole night. Next morning?
[13:18] Speaker 1: The monk comes out. Oh, you're still there. Yeah, I
[13:21] Speaker 1: want to become a monk. All right, well, we'll get
[13:23] Speaker 1: back to you. What do you mean get back to me?
[13:24] Speaker 1: I've been waiting all night. We'll get back to you.
[13:28] Speaker 1: What's the idea? Well, they're testing to see whether this
[13:33] Speaker 1: hunger for the monastic life can grow to the point
[13:36] Speaker 1: where you're really capable of it. You know, by the way,
[13:38] Speaker 1: watch the movie Fight Club, one of my favorite movies.
[13:41] Speaker 1: And remember, these guys want to join this little society,
[13:44] Speaker 1: and they stand outside. And Brad Pitt comes out, no, no, no,
[13:49] Speaker 1: go away, you're too fat, no, no, you're too old,
[13:52] Speaker 1: you're too young. And he puts them off, puts them off,
[13:55] Speaker 1: puts them off, until he knows, okay, they've got what
[13:59] Speaker 1: it takes. That's an old monastic move. All right, you
[14:03] Speaker 1: see my point. The Syrophoenician woman is not convincing a
[14:08] Speaker 1: sinful Jesus to see it her way. Rather, Jesus the Messiah,
[14:14] Speaker 1: the Lord, is convincing testing her by these three levels
[14:18] Speaker 1: of resistance. First, ignoring her. Second, kind of putting her off.
[14:22] Speaker 1: And thirdly, insulting her. But each level, he's drawing forth
[14:27] Speaker 1: a deeper faith. Now listen, and I'll close with this.
[14:31] Speaker 1: After her snappy comeback, you know, even the dogs eat
[14:34] Speaker 1: the scraps that fall from the table. Jesus said to reply, listen,
[14:38] Speaker 1: oh woman, great is your faith. Her faith expanded. Her
[14:44] Speaker 1: faith became great precisely in the process of being resisted.
[14:50] Speaker 1: May I humbly suggest, now I'm in line with Augustine
[14:52] Speaker 1: Aquinas and the whole tradition, that's a better way to
[14:56] Speaker 1: read the story of the Syrophoenician woman. And God bless you.

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