August 20, 2023 Sermon
Sermon title: "Even the Dogs Eat the Crumbs"
Scripture: Matthew 15:21-28
(Other lectionary suggestions include Genesis 45:1-15, Psalm 133, and Romans 11:1-2 and 29-32.)
Matthew 15:21-28
The Canaanite Woman’s Faith
21Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon." 23But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, "Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us." 24He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." 25But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." 26He answered, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." 27She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." 28Then Jesus answered her, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed instantly.
For me, this is a wonderful passage, and we may even be getting a look at the human side of Jesus! We are told that he went to the region of Tyre and Sidon. These are old Canaanite cities, also known as Phoenicia. (In the Old Testament we are told that King Solomon entered into an agreement with Hiram of Tyre to buy a bunch of beautiful wood for the Temple he was building in Jerusalem.) So, the Israelites knew about Tyre and Sidon. Jesus was probably looking for some R and R, and perhaps he wanted to do a little thinking about the next step in his ministry. Also, things might have been coming to a head in Israel, and he really wanted to get away. He wanted to go someplace where he would not be recognized.
But look what happens: a Canaanite woman recognizes him, and instantly starts begging him to cure her daughter, who has a demon. And look how Jesus responds: he says NOTHING! Doesn't that surprise you a little bit? It certainly surprises me! I mean, Jesus, our Savior, the one known for his compassion, says NOTHING! And the disciples, too, seem to want nothing to do with her! "Send her away!" they say.
When Jesus DOES say something, he says, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." How odd, again, for such a cold response from our Lord! Another way of saying this would be, "You ain't one of us, lady, so buzz off!" What is Jesus thinking here? I mean, we know that he thought of his mission as being to Israel first, and perhaps later on to the rest of the world. But is his mind racing ahead to entertain the idea that his Father in heaven might want him to move BEYOND his people and share the Good News with this non-Jewish person NOW? Jesus had to have been thinking thoughts like these.
And then look what happens: Jesus says, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." What a TERRIBLE thing to say IF Jesus is serious! The Jews of Jesus's day thought of the Gentiles as dogs, and not the cute little puppy-dogs that you and I have as pets. The dogs of Jesus's day were looked down upon, because they lived in the streets and ate garbage. Some Jews had even said that Gentiles were created by God for the fires of Hell! So, NO, it was not a good thing to call somebody a dog, and here we have our sweet and wonderful Lord Jesus referring to this non-Jew as a dog!
But look how SHE reacts! Is she offended? NO! She takes the bait and runs with it by saying, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table!"
Jesus absolutely LOVED this woman's response! He says, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And we are told that her daughter was healed instantly.
One reason I love this passage is that it shows us how the written word can be understood in more than one way. For example, Jesus says some things that sound terrible - but what we DON'T get is the expression on his face. What we DON'T get is a possible gleam in his eye. What we don't get is the possible playfulness that is going on between Jesus and this non-Jewish Canaanite woman. And it is NOT being unfair to the spirit of this text because of what happens at the end. Jesus says, "Woman, great is your faith!" (In another version of this story, perhaps in Mark, Jesus says, "I haven't seen faith this strong in all of Israel!") Can you tell? I LOVE this passage! Here we see the very human Jesus, even the playful Jesus as he banters back and forth with this outsider!
I mentioned that there were certain things that don't come through in the written word. There are OTHER things that don't come through because we are reading an English translation. For example, the Canaanite woman calls Jesus "Son of David", which is a political title. And later on in their encounter she calls him "Lord" which implies a religious title. What's going on here is a GROWING in faith by this non-Jewish person. Says the Scottish scholar William Barclay, "She began by following; she ended up upon her knees. She began with a request; she ended in a prayer." And then Barclay says that's how WE should come to Jesus: first with adoration of his majesty, and only then with a statement of our own need.
Does any of this remind you of the Lord's Prayer? "Our Father who art in heaven, HALLOWED be thy name." And only THEN do we ask for what WE want: "give us this day our daily bread...."
Barclay also points out how persistent this lady was. THIS woman came to Jesus because he was her ONLY hope. Says Barclay, "She had the one supremely effective quality in prayer - she was in deadly earnest. Prayer for her was no ritual form; it was the outpouring of the passionate desire of her soul, which somehow felt that she could not - and must not - and need not - take no for an answer."
One more quality this woman had: an indomitable cheerfulness. "She was in the midst of trouble; she was passionately in earnest; and yet she could smile. She had a certain sunny heartedness about her. God loves the cheerful faith, the faith in whose eyes there is always the light of hope. the faith with a smile that could light the gloom."
Barclay ends his comments about this woman by saying "she brought to Christ a gallant and an audacious love, a faith which grew until it worshipped at the foot of the divine, an indomitable persistence springing from an unconquerable hope, a cheerfulness which would not be dismayed. That is the approach which cannot help finding an answer to its prayers."
Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Matthew tells us a story that is supposedly about the faith of this outsider, this non-Jewish person, this Canaanite woman, but it's not just about HER. It's about how WE should go about OUR spiritual lives, too. No wonder the Gospel writers have been called the Four Evangelists.
Let me end with this insight from N. T. Wright. I have said before that maybe Jesus GREW in his ministry. Maybe he first thought of himself as coming to the lost sheep of Israel, but this encounter with the Canaanite woman perhaps makes him think for the first time that maybe he was sent to the whole world and not only the Jewish community. Says Wright, the early church certainly didn't make this story up! He says, "What we have here is as startling to us, perhaps, as it was to Jesus' followers at the time. The woman's faith broke through the waiting period, the time in which Jesus would come to Jerusalem as Israel's Messiah, be killed and raised again, and then send his followers out into all the world....(as it says in Matthew 28). The disciples, and perhaps Jesus himself, are not yet ready for Calvary. This foreign woman is already insisting on Easter."
Isn't that great insight? Sometimes those on the outside insist on bringing in God's kingdom sooner than those on the inside are ready! I've told you this story before. When Martin Luther King, Jr., first came to Birmingham, Alabama, the bus boycott had already begun, and the organizers were looking for a new place to meet AND a new leader. Dr. King received a phone call from the leader of the boycott, asking if his group could meet in Dr. King's church. King, brand new as the minister of the church, said, "Let me think about that for a while." The voice on the other end said, "Well, think about it in a hurry, won't you, because we're all going to be there next Thursday!"
I LOVE that story, because even the great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was pushed along by the events that had already started before he was on the scene.
Could that have been true for Jesus and his disciples, as well? God was already out ahead of them in the person of that Canaanite woman? What do YOU think? Amen, and thanks be to God, who lives again to heal us and sometimes even to disturb us!
Pastor Skip
