Notes from the Wayside: Perspective: Crumbs for Everyone!

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

Crumbs for Everyone!

From there, Jesus went to the regions of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from those territories came out and shouted, "Show me mercy, Son of David. My daughter is suffering terribly from demon possession." But He didn't respond to her at all.

His disciples came and urged Him, "Send her away; she keeps shouting out after us."

Jesus replied, "I've been sent only to the lost sheep, the people of Israel."

But she knelt before Him and said, "Lord, help me."

He replied, "It is not good to take the children's bread and toss it to dogs."

Matthew 15:21-26 (CEB)

'Cause we can talk and debate 'til we're blue in the face

About the language and tradition that He's coming to save

Meanwhile we sit just like we don't give a $%@#

About fifty thousand people who are dying today

From "What Matters More" by Derek Webb

I love stories about Jesus. I love the stories of Jesus' healings and other miracles. I love the stories of Jesus' standing up for the oppressed and knocking arrogant religious people off of their high horses. I love the parables, the stories that Jesus told. I love what all of these stories teach us about God and about ourselves, and I love how these stories help me to make sense of my own story.

Of course, there are some stories about Jesus that I don't love quite as much.

There was once a Canaanite woman who had a daughter who was troubled a demon of some sort. One day, this woman sees Jesus and His disciples in her hometown. She's heard about the miracles performed by this man, so she begins calling out to Him, "Show me mercy, Son of David. My daughter is suffering terribly from demon possession." At first, everyone seems to ignore her, so she continues to beg.

The Disciples grow tired of listening to her, so they try to get Jesus to send her away. Jesus seems to share their feelings. He says, "I've been sent only to the lost sheep, the people of Israel."

The woman then throws herself at Jesus' feet and says, "Lord, help me."

Jesus then says, "It is not good to take the children's bread and toss it to dogs."

So this woman comes to Jesus, begging Him to heal her disturbed daughter, and Jesus refuses. First, He says that He only cares about His own people, the Israelites, and then, to add insult to injury, He basically calls the poor woman to a dog.

Jesus is not supposed to act like that!

Is this the same Jesus who had a heart-to-heart conversation with a Samaritan woman who had a bad reputation?¹ Is this the same Jesus who called His disciples to take His message "unto the uttermost part of the earth"?² Is this the same Jesus whose disciples ministered to a eunuch from Ethiopia³ and a military officer from Rome?⁴ Why would Jesus say such horrible things to this woman? Was Jesus just having a bad day, or was He actually a racist jerk?

Like any good parent, this woman will move heaven and earth to help her child, so Jesus' crass words don't phase her at all. In fact, she even takes the label of "dog" and runs with it. She continues to beg, saying, "Yes, Lord. But even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall off their masters' table." The woman's words apparently impress Jesus, for He answers her, saying, "Woman, you have great faith. It will be just as you wish." With these words, the woman's child is healed.⁵

So did Jesus have a change of heart upon hearing the woman's response? Did He perhaps see the error of His ways and decide to do what's right by helping her? Did He suddenly realize that non-Jewish people are worth saving just as much as the people of Israel? On the surface, it certainly seems as though Jesus changes in some way, but, if Jesus is God incarnate as most Christians claim and if God never changes, then how can Jesus change in such a profound way?

Maybe something else is going on here. The wannabe philosopher in me hates to take anything at face value, especially a story so disturbing. I believe that if we only take things at face value we run the risk of missing the treasure buried just beneath the surface.

Earlier in the Gospel story, Jesus performs another healing from a distance. This time, Jesus is approached by a centurion who begs Him to heal his paralyzed servant. The fact that this man is a centurion, a military officer who commands one hundred troops, implies that he is a Roman and not an Israelite. Jesus does not give the centurion the cold shoulder as he does the Canaanite woman. In fact, He's quite eager to help. He even offers to go to the centurion's home, but the centurion, who does not feel worthy to have Jesus darken his doorstep, asks him to heal the servant from a distance. Jesus does what the centurion asks.⁶

If Jesus is indeed bigoted against Gentiles - non-Jewish people - then His bigotry is a recent development.

Let's step back from Jesus' unkindness for a moment and turn our attention to what the Canaanite woman says to Him. When Jesus calls the woman a dog, the woman says that even dogs eat crumbs from their masters' table. If Jesus is comparing the woman to a dog, then the woman is comparing a miraculous healing to a crumb. With this comparison in mind, the question must be asked,

If a miraculous healing is but a mere crumb from God's table, what in the world is a meal?

Remember that it was the Disciples who wanted Jesus to send the woman away. I wonder if, maybe, Jesus was simply mirroring the Disciples' own bigotry while, at the same time, pushing the Gentile woman to declare her faith before the Disciples.

The people of Israel understood themselves to be God's chosen people, and when people believe themselves to be chosen by God they risk becoming arrogant. In the Gospel, there is a recurring theme of outsiders having more faith than the chosen. When Jesus was very young, it was Zoroastrian astrologers who worshiped Him, while the king of Israel wanted to get rid of Him.⁷ When the Roman centurion asks Jesus to heal his servant from afar, Jesus says, "I say to you with all seriousness that even in Israel I haven't found faith like this."⁸ When the Canaanite woman answers Jesus, He commends her for her great faith.

I don't believe that Jesus actually regarded the Canaanite woman as a dog: I believe that He saw her not only as child of God, but also as a woman of great faith who had something to teach the Disciples. What the woman said to Jesus is indeed profound: by comparing a miraculous healing to a crumb from God's table, she shows that she believes in a big, powerful, extravagant, generous God.

This concept of God reminds me of another story about Jesus. One day, Jesus is ministering to a large number of people in an isolated place. The Gospel story tells us that there were five thousand men, so, if we factor in women and children, there could have been tens of thousands of people present. As day becomes evening, the people grow hungry, and the Disciples only find five loaves of bread and two fish. There might be enough food for everybody to have a crumb as long as they make the crumbs small enough. Jesus breaks up the food and passes the pieces around. Somehow, everyone walks away filled, and, strangely, there is more food at the end than there is at the start.⁹

A breadcrumb from God is a feast fit for a king.

We live in a harsh, unfriendly world where people seem to enjoy kicking others when they're already down. At times, the world around us might make us feel like dogs - or worse. The Creator of this world, on the other hand, is big, loving, gracious, and extravagant. To God, none of us are dogs, for we are all God's beloved children. This big God's heart is big enough to contain the entire world.

Notes:

John 4:4-42
Acts 1:8 (KJV)
Acts 8:28-39
Acts 10
Matthew 15:27-28 (CEB)
Matthew 8:5-8
Matthew 2:1-12
Matthew 8:10 (CEB)
Matthew 14:13-21