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The Canaanite Woman and her
faith. This story has always fascinated me. It just seems so out of
character for Jesus to treat someone, especially one of the marginalized
of society, in the manner in which he treated the Canaanite woman.
“I was sent only to
the lost sheep of the house of Israel!”
“It’s not fair to take the children’s food
and throw it to the dogs”
Jesus called her and her
daughter dogs! That’s derogatory in any culture.
“Yes, Lord, yet even
the dogs eat the
crumbs that fall from the Master’s table”
Did it really go down that
way? Now, I have been accused of having a “sanctified imagination”,
but I’ve been thinking a lot about this text. Don’t forget, Jesus had just
had it out with a bunch of Pharisees over in Capernaum. He had
just healed the sick in Gennesaret, He'd walked on water before that, and
before that, He taught and fed 5,000 men, plus their women and children.
After all this, He had walked about twenty to thirty miles to the area of
Sidon and Tyre. Maybe Jesus was just a bit grumpy this day.
Maybe he was tired. Perhaps he needed a rest. But I think that
the conversation between Jesus and the woman may have gone more like this:
Jesus, seeing some spark of wit and chutzpah (chutzpah... I like that
word...chutzpah.... you get to spit when you say it and everything!) ...
Jesus saw that chutzpah in the woman, winked slightly at her, tilted His
head slightly towards His disciples, in a way that only she could see,
and, tongue in cheek, said, “Say... I came only for the Jews. You
know God only cares about Jews! You certainly are a goya if I ever
saw one!” The Woman catches on and retorts: “That may be, Sir, but
Your bread is so nourishing, so abundant, that I could get full on just
the crumbs!” The woman knew that God’s grace was so bountiful, that
even the crumbs would sustain. She was claiming the crumbs.
What right did the Canaanite woman have to do this? It was
socially taboo for Jews and Canaanites to associate with one another.
They hated one another. There was as much animosity between
them as there is between various cultures today. What was
Jesus thinking? What was the woman thinking? She did address
Jesus by the Messianic title, “Son of David”. Maybe she was
aware that in the lineage of David there were certainly at least two
Canaanite women. If you look back in Chapter 1, Matthew’s genealogy
lists Rahab and Tamar. And Ruth is listed there, too.
Though not a Canaanite, she was described as a Moabitess, most certainly a
Gentile. The legacy of salvation, then, was intended for Jews
and Gentiles alike. This woman was merely grasping onto her
inheritance, that which was rightfully hers. She was merely
claiming the crumbs.
But can the crumbs really be enough? Can they sustain? I know
that our two dogs at home are getting fat on the crumbs that the children
drop. There seems to be an endless supply! So it is with God’s
grace. God’s grace is so abundant! His gifts so plentiful!
The psalm in our old testament reading today, psalm 133, gives us a
wonderful image of how abundantly God’s grace is poured out!
When we anoint people with oil, when they are sick, we usually put just a
little dab on their foreheads. But the psalmist talks about
fellowship and unity among people being like oil poured on Aaron’s head,
so much oil that it drips down his beard and collar and onto his robes!
So much oil that it oozes down arms and fingertips, and there is plenty
left for all those whom he touched. Aaron, being a high
priest, was in a position where he needed to touch many... to accept their
sacrifices...to counsel them...to proclaim healing. Through
Aaron many claimed the inheritance which was rightfully theirs.
They were, in effect, claiming the crumbs.
Jesus, our own high priest, knew how to claim the crumbs, too. Remember,
when He fed the 5,000 men and their families, and later when He fed the
4000 and their families, the leftovers, the crumbs, were carefully
gathered up? They were precious, not to be wasted. What
a wonderful example of what we are to do with the abundance God has given
us!
The Canaanite woman not only claimed the crumbs of her inheritance, the
inheritance that allowed her to approach the Son of David, but she grasped
the crumbs for the sake of one who could not claim them for herself.
Her daughter, who was so ill that she couldn’t possibly even recognize her
need for Jesus, could in no way seek Jesus herself. So it was
left for the mother to claim the crumbs. And, Glory to God,
her daughter was made whole!
So, what does all this have to do with any of us? After all,
we’re saved. In Jesus Christ we have eternal life. The
inheritance is ours. Period... end of story.
Right?
While it is true that there is absolutely nothing we can do to earn our
salvation, there is not a thing we can say that will make God love us any
more or any less than He already does now, I think that sometimes we
Christians, and I include myself in the “we”, take for granted that with
which God has blessed us. It’s just our nature. I
look out into this congregation and I see so many gifts poured out on
us... through us... like oil running down Aaron’s beard, onto his robe,
and down his sleeves. Our place in God’s family is set, once and for
all. That is absolutely true. But, do we think
about our inheritance... do we grasp onto it... do we claim it for
ourselves? I have heard it said that God has no
grandchildren... we are all his children. And that means that
even though, through Jesus, our names, even ours, have been added to that
genealogy with which Matthew began his book, each of us must appropriate
that faith for ourselves and live it out in our individual lives.
It is a wonderful thing when parents bring their children up in the faith,
but we cannot just passively accept that which has been passed down to us
by our parents. We must claim the crumbs for ourselves.
And what about those whom we find on the margins, peering in, perhaps, at
the fellowship and communion which we enjoy? Like the
Canaanite woman who pled for healing for her daughter, we, too, are called
to stand in the gap for those who, perhaps, are too sick ... too lonely...
too “different”... to claim the crumbs for themselves. We are
called to be a holy priesthood. And the gifts which have been
so abundantly poured out on us will benefit those whom we touch.
So what does it look like when we do these things? A faith
that we have appropriated for ourselves becomes.. oh, so precious and
personal! It is lived out in a variety of ways. The crumbs are
evident everywhere. We can find them in ... that look of victory on the
face of that Special Olympics athlete we’ve been coaching.... We can find
them .... in the quiet “thank you” on the lips of the single Mom whom we
helped at the food bank last week. We see them in the peace
which falls upon the one suffering from ill health when we sit by his
bedside and pray with him. These crumbs also nourish when we
comfort the one who is grieving... when we bring hope to the one in
prison. When we claim the crumbs for ourselves, and for those
who perhaps cannot do so for themselves, our faith becomes alive, dynamic,
and contagious.
Today we celebrate The Lord’s Supper. What a wonderful
illustration of God’s grace appropriated for us through the blood and body
of Jesus Christ. As we participate in this feast, I challenge
us to claim every nourishing crumb, our rightful inheritance, and to think
about those who may be peering in from the margins and who, for one reason
or another, may not be able to fully participate here with us.
Let us claim the crumbs for ourselves and for others whom God has placed
on our hearts.
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