Encounters that challenge social divisions generate difficult emotions. But when a connection is made across the line, attitudes and habits can be blown apart. A new community can be woven.

A story of Jesus draws us into this kind of moment. Before I tell the story let me address the concern that his attitude to a Gentile woman raises in those who honour him: when she begs him to heal her daughter, he ignores her and then insults her. Some argue that he speaks words he does not believe in order to surface the prejudice held by his disciples. Some say that he says the words in a way that encourages her to challenge him, so that she becomes the agent of change. Some say her courage teaches him.

The storyteller does not choose between these options. They ensure that we see the strength of the prejudice so that we understand how transformative it is when Jesus first heals this woman's daughter and then begins a teaching and healing time among her people. Now to the story.

After another set of difficult encounters, Jesus crosses out of his homeland Galilee into the Gentile area called the Ten Cities. His homeland is rural and agricultural. The area he goes to is urban, educated and well off. The people of the region buy grain from Galilee, but otherwise despise them as country hicks. The people of Galilee consider the people of these cities unclean.

Jesus goes to the area expecting solitude, but his reputation proceeds him. A woman whose daughter is desperately ill comes to beg for healing.

He ignores her. She is breaking every taboo: approaching a man not of her family whom she does not know; approaching a person not of her community; and from the Galilean perspective, if she touches him, she makes Jesus unclean, requiring ritual cleansing.

Even when ignored, she keeps calling to him, begging for help.

Jesus' companions tell him to send her away; she is annoying them. Her persistence calls attention to them and the division between them.

He bends the taboo when he turns and says that he is sent only to the lost sheep of his own people. (This is the moment that some readers struggle with, expecting him to show compassion and respect to all who are needy and vulnerable.)

Speaking to her is enough of an invitation to approach the boundary. Kneeling before him she says, "Lord, help me."

His next words are even harsher. "It is not fair to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs."

In this day, dogs were not pampered house creatures. Also, this region relied on the food produced in Galilee. And because they were wealthy, in a time of limited harvest, they could buy food that Galileans could not afford, leaving Galileans hungry and the people of this area well fed.

Though his words are like a slap in the face, the woman does not retreat. She speaks to him in a way that honours him, though not his words. "Yes Lord, yet even the puppies eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table."

And in this moment, something shifts. Her words shift the definition of their two peoples, allowing that his people can be honoured and hers can be humble. As she presses against the wall between them, insisting that some good cross from his side to hers, a door is opened.

Jesus praises her. He praises her faith. His power flows across to heal her daughter.

This is not a single event; this moment opens a whole set of interactions. This moment is like his baptism, the event that began his ministry. From the river where he was baptized, he went up a mountain to teach his people and then he healed them and finally fed a crowd in the wilderness. From this place, he goes up a mountain to teach her people, and then he heals them, and finally he feeds a crowd of her people in the wilderness.

This story is often pulled out as an isolated incident. But the teller embeds it in a wider narrative so that it is not a single event but the beginning of a new way forward. A boundary is crossed. Divided communities weave a new way together.

Cathy Hird is a farmer, minister, and writer living near Walters Falls.