Crumbs

Our scripture today has a short prelude. We have two seemingly unrelated stories, but really the first 10 verses or so serve as a prologue to the next story. It’s almost like the first part is the set up and the second part is the punch line.

Before we start reading I want to say a little bit about the Pharisees. The Pharisees kind of get a bad rap these days. I guess some of it is deserved, but maybe it’s not all deserved. Pharisees were one of 3 main groups within Judaism in Jesus’ time. The others were the Sadducees and the Essenes. The Pharisees were made up of mostly middle class Jews. They believed in strict adherence to the Torah, and also to oral traditions. These were interpretations of the Torah handed down from generation to generation, they said directly from Moses. Their observance and interpretation of the scriptures and oral traditions led to a very strict view of purity. In fact some say that they held everyone to purity standards that were usually reserved for priests and worshipers in the Temple.

It was some of the oral tradition they adhered that caused problems between the group and Jesus at the beginning of chapter 15 of Matthew. We’re going to pick up reading at verse 10, but first I’ll set the scene. A group of Pharisees comes to Jesus to ask why he allows his disciples to eat without washing their hands. This causes a person to be ritually unclean or defiled. Jesus responds to the question by condemning the Pharisee’s observance of the oral traditions. Our reading picks up just after that exchange.

Matthew 15:10-28

After he talks with the group of Pharisees, Jesus calls the crowd to him and explains to them that “it is not what goes into your mouth that defiles, but what comes out.” Well, now the Pharisees have gone from upset to incensed! Not only is Jesus saying that it doesn’t matter if you eat with dirty hands, he’s also saying that it doesn’t matter what you eat!

The business about eating with dirty hands is part of the oral tradition I mentioned, it’s not a gigantic deal to disagree with this. Not all Jews observed the oral traditions. Some observed different oral traditions. But now it seems that Jesus’ words fly in the face of scripture, the Torah itself.

So, according to the Pharisees, eating with dirty hands defiles a person. And according to the Torah eating unclean foods (pork, catfish, oysters) defiles a person. Jesus says no. He gets a little crude in his explanation, but basically says that what you eat only stays with you for a short time and it’s gone. The consequences of your sin, what comes out of our mouths, can last forever. That is what truly defiles a person. He says what comes out of our mouths originates on our hearts; our sin comes from the heart. And it is our sin that defiles us.

What is defilement? What does it mean to be defiled? It means to be unfit for fellowship with God or God’s people. So much of this conversation is about who is and who is not fit for fellowship with God. In other words, it concerns who is acceptable and who is not. Who is worthy to be saved and who is not.

According to the Pharisees, at least in the context of this story, purity laws are paramount in determining who is and is not worthy of experiencing God. These laws and traditions didn’t just deal with foods that were acceptable or not. They also dealt with the handling of dead bodies, sick people, blood, and lots of other things. According to the Pharisees’ traditions, spending time with certain Gentiles could defile a person; because they did not obey the standards for purity and if they are not pure and you touch them then you are not pure. It really reminds me of cooties. I guess the Pharisees believed in spiritual cooties.

So in this context, Gentiles, or non-Jews, are not acceptable for fellowship with God. They are not worthy of being saved.

So after this conversation, after this discussion of the theory what does and doesn’t defile a person and who is and is not worthy, we get a real world example. We get to see Jesus put his words into practice.

Jesus and his disciples travel the district of Tyre and Sidon. Tyre and Sidon were two cities in Phoenicia. This is gentile territory. So after Jesus in essence opens the door for God’s mercy to be shared with Gentiles, he heads to the heart of Gentile territory.

As he and his disciples are walking, a woman begins shouting at him. She is a Canaanite woman. This is important, at least to the first readers of Matthew’s gospel. Canaanites were the inhabitants of the Promised Land when Joshua led the Israelites across the Jordan River after the Exodus from Egypt. Jews and Canaanites had been enemies for centuries. In Genesis, Abraham did not want Isaac to marry a Canaanite woman. Isaac demanded the same of his son Jacob. So these hard feelings go back even centuries before the Exodus. For Matthew’s readers a Canaanite represents the ultimate Gentile.

So here is this Gentile woman, shouting at Jesus. “Lord, have mercy! Heal my daughter!” And Jesus just ignores her. She continues shouting. The disciples are put out with all of this carrying on. They tell Jesus he should send her away. Instead, Jesus answers, “I was sent for the children of Israel.” Now the woman comes and throws herself down in front of Jesus. “Lord, help me!” And Jesus responds in a, well, a shocking way. “It is not right to give food meant for the children to the dogs.” He calls her a dog. It was common in Jesus time to refer to Gentiles as dogs, but we don’t expect that from Jesus. Especially after the sermon he just gave practically screaming for inclusiveness.

The woman answers back, “Even the dogs would eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table.” Now Jesus is impressed, or maybe he feels guilty for his initial response. But he tells her something he doesn’t say to anyone else in Matthew’s Gospel. “Your faith is great!” And he heals her daughter.

I don’t know about you, but this story is a little…well, it leaves me scratching my head. And it does the same for many preachers and scholars and Bible readers. This entire exchange, except for the last two sentences seem completely out of character for Jesus.

There have been many attempts to explain his behavior. Maybe he was having a really bad day and he just snapped a little. Maybe he was just toying with the woman; trying to draw a stronger confession of faith out of her. Maybe it was a test of her faith. Maybe he was putting on a show for the disciples. Demonstrating for them the attitude he had just preached against.

I think there is only one certainty about Jesus motivation in this story. I am certain we have no idea why Jesus said what he said or did what he did. I do know that we can learn from this story. I do know that Jesus gives us a great lesson on being the church.

This story is filled with social missteps. There are countless reasons why Jesus would be absolutely right in responding the way he did, at least according to his culture. First, she is a Gentile woman addressing a Jew. Jesus had no obligation to respond to her. Second, she is shouting at him. Women were expected to be reserved in public. Seen not heard. By initiating a conversation with him, she is violating social norms. By shouting, she it is a further violation of social customs. Third, her daughter is demon possessed. This is another of those things that can make a person unclean by association.

But after Jesus initial rejection of her requests, despite all of these chips stacked against her, he still heals her daughter. Here we have an example of Jesus embracing an outsider. Almost the ultimate outsider. At that time God’s mercy, in the eyes of most, was reserved for the select few. For the Jews. And the different sects probably felt it was only for their variety of Judaism. Now we have God incarnate, healing someone not just on the fringes of society, she was so far outside of society she was to be ignored. She was a dog. Jesus sees her faith and gives her the crumbs of his mercy.

And there is the lesson we can take from this story. I don’t want to focus on how rudely Jesus treated the woman, because…he did. I can’t deny it. But then he looked past who she was and where she was from and he saw her as a child of God. A faithful child of God. And he gave her the mercy she requested.

I think today, we are too much like the Pharisees and the disciples in this story. Both groups had a narrow view of who was worthy of God’s grace. The number of unworthy was much, much larger. Jesus, though, in his interaction with this woman shows us that God’s grace is for everyone. Even the dogs.

Today we are not hung up on things like Gentile or ritually unclean or a woman acting out of turn. But we still like to think we can decide who is and is not worthy of God’s grace. Who is worthy of help and who is not.

Not the gay guy. Not that Mexican, he might be here illegally. Not the pregnant teenager. Not the… well you get the picture. Those are exactly the people who need God’s grace. Those are exactly the people we are called to love and accept.

And it's important to remember that when it comes to dogs, well, we're all dogs. None of us are worthy of even the crumbs of Jesus' mercy. So how can we deny anyone else of that gift?