Continuing our series of sermons from Matthew, in this story Jesus is reluctant to listen to the pleas of a Canaanite woman that Jesus heal her daughter, who is possessed by a demon. In some ways, this is a challenging story because Jesus initially rejects the woman, citing his call to the Jews, not to others. Although historically there have been various interpretations of the scene and Jesus’s attitude, the one thing that is very clear is that the woman is persistent, and her persistence eventually pays off when Jesus heals the woman’s daughter.