Crumbs for the Dogs?

[Our lessons were Genesis 45:1-15, Psalm 133, Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32, and Matthew 15: 10-28.]

Today’s Gospel can be for challenging for us. In many ways, we have been brought up in a tradition of a meek and mild Jesus who isn’t that involved in the world but instead focuses on the afterlife. He’s also in our art a bit too fair skinned for an inhabitant of that part of the world. Sometimes instead of striving to make ourselves more like Jesus, we try to make Jesus more like us.

Jesus has left Palestine and has gone into what we now call Lebanon. There was a long-standing feud between the people of the Holy Land and the people of Lebanon. Some things haven’t changed much, it seems.

The district of Tyre and Sidon that Jesus has entered was Canaanite territory on the Mediterranean coast to the north and west of Galilee. The residents were a greatly mixed people who may still have had some Canaanite blood, but also well diluted by infusions of Syrian and Phoenician elements. They were Gentiles, of course. The designation of a Canaanite woman was a typically Jewish term of reproach and disparagement, as is the troubling reference by Jesus to dogs. While it may trouble us to hear such words coming from Jesus’ mouth, Jews did speak of their neighbors that way. And remember that in their culture, dogs weren’t given the privileged position that they have in our culture.

This woman is in dire need. For her daughter’s sake, she is willing to ask an ordinarily despised Jew for help and even calls him “Lord”. She has no reason to expect him to help her.

And at first, he doesn’t. He says he was only sent to God’s chosen people. And when she persists, Jesus uses the common racial slur the people of Israel used about Gentiles—“We don’t give human food to dogs.” He is trying to see if the woman can step beyond the customary boundaries of her race. And she does. In her words, she shows that she understands.

All throughout the Gospel, we see Jesus’ message being misunderstood. The disciples frequently don’t get it. The Pharisees can’t see past the Law. But this Canaanite woman, in her statement that even the dogs get the crumbs that fall from the master’s table, shows that she understands that God’s grace as available to all people—Jew and Gentile, male and female. She is claiming her place in the Kingdom of God, even if that place is small. And Jesus hears her!

This story is not about getting what we deserve. It is about faith in God’s grace providing what we need. But to receive this, we must be willing to step outside our comfort zones into places where we are needed, or as we heard last week, to step out of the boat. We are called to help the “dogs”—the “others”—of our day. Dare we show less courage and trust than this Canaanite woman whose daughter was healed?