+ 16th Sunday after Pentecost – September 8th 2024 +
Series B: Isaiah 45:4-7; James 2:1-10; Mark 7:24-37
Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church
Milton, WA
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
If you were a first century Jew the last place you’d expect to find a woman of great faith in Israel’s Messiah would be in the region of Tyre and Sidon.
This was not a place known for its faithfulness to YHWH. This was Gentile territory – the rabbis even called them dogs – no place for a purebred Israelite to be hanging around – and yet Jesus goes there; Although he came first to the house of Israel, he also came to seek the lost, the loser, the outcast. Still, this Canaanite country – no place for a respectable Messiah to be hanging around. This was the home of wicked Queen Jezebel – the same Jezebel who had brutally killed YHWH’s prophets, worshipped pagan idols and introduced rampant idolatry into Israel, hunted and threatened the life of Elijah, and was devoured by dogs.
Never would you expect a woman of dogged faith in YHWH to come from Tyre and Sidon, and yet that’s exactly what happened.
We don’t know how she heard, but the word had traveled all the same – a traveling Israelite teacher was in the area. And not just any old wandering rabbi. A healer. A miracle worker. An exorcist. The things he had done. The people he healed. Maybe there was some truth to what folks had called him…the Messiah. Besides all that, she was desperate. No one to turn to. No help to be found. He was her only hope to help her demon-possessed daughter. It was a long shot, but mama-bears in the first century were just as fierce and willing to do anything for their cubs as they are in our own day.
She heard of Jesus. She believed that somehow, someway, this man could do something for her daughter. So this unnamed unknown woman from Tyre and Sidon. This Gentile. Found Jesus. Fell at his feet – a posture of worship. She tossed aside any shred pride and pretense and presumption she might have had. She threw it all – laid all her chips down – and fell at the feet of Jesus. A beggar.
And what was Jesus’ reply? We’d expect him to heal her daughter on the spot. Just say the word and it’s done. But that’s not what Jesus does. He says something rather shocking. Offensive even.
“Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.”
Now, some have tried to soften these words by saying, you know, in the Greek that word means little dog – as if that’s better. Whether it’s the 21st or the 1st being called a dog is still being called a dog. Unlike today, dogs didn’t have a good reputation in Jesus’ day. It’s not supposed to be softened. It’s supposed to be shocking.
Jesus’ words fly in the face of any sense of entitlement we might have before him. As if God owes us anything, as if we deserved anything. Not at all. We’re no different from this woman – we’re all beggars before God.
But what’s most shocking of all isn’t what Jesus says, but how this woman replies. She doesn’t get defensive. She doesn’t storm off in a rage. She doesn’t try and cancel Jesus for his insulting words.
She agrees with him.
“Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.”
No sooner had Jesus finished speaking than this woman nods her head and says, “I could not agree more.” “You’re right. I’m a Gentile dirty dog of a sinner.” So, give me what the dogs are given. Just a crumb. That’s all I need. She saw in Jesus someone who was greater than her sin. So do we. Yes, Lord, you’re right about me. It’s all true. I am a poor, miserable, mangy mutt of a sinner. I could not agree more. Only give me what you promised – a crumb of your mercy, a drop of your grace. I’m a dog and worse. And yet the Divine flee bath of Baptism washes all your sin away.
Luther preached it this way:
“What a superb and wonderful object lesson this is, therefore, to teach us what a mighty, powerful, all-availing thing faith is. Faith takes Christ captive in his word, when he’s angriest, and makes out of his cruel words a comforting inversion, as we see here. You say, the woman responds, that I am a dog. Let it be, I will gladly be a dog; now give me the consideration that you give a dog. Thus she catches Christ with his own words, and he is happy to be caught. Very well, she says, if I am a dog, I ask no more than a dog’s rights. I am not a child nor am I of Abraham’s seed, but you are a rich Lord and set a lavish table. Give your children the bread and a place at the table; I do not wish that. Let me, merely like a dog, pick up the crumbs under the table, allowing me that which the children don’t need or even miss, the crumbs, and I will be content therewith. So she catches Christ, the Lord, in his own words and with that wins not only the right of a dog, but also that of the children.
This is what God’s gift of faith does. Faith finds a foothold – a yes - in Jesus’ words even when it appears that God is silent or says no. Faith clings to the words of God’s promise when the law shows us who we are before God. Faith clings to Jesus like a dogged and blessed beggar.
That’s what that woman was. That’s what we are.
A crumb was all she asked for. And yet, Jesus gave her more than that.
Only he gives her more than that. He feeds her more than crumbs…he sits her down at his table and gives her a whole table full of grace.
“For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.”
Her daughter was healed, but so was she. And so are you.
Jesus gives us more than crumbs. In mercy, he took the punishment that we deserved. He became lower than the dogs, lowered all the way down from the cross into death, dying in our place, bearing our sin. Thrown into the jaws of death and the grave for us. And in his grace Jesus also gives us what we don’t deserve, but what he delights in giving you: a place at his table where he feeds you more than crumbs. He gives you his own flesh to eat. His very blood to drink. Here is healing. Grace. Mercy. and forgiveness. Here is the bread of life for beggars like you and me. Here is divine goodness for dogs like us. Here is a seat at the Master’s table where you are welcomed. Fed. Forgiven.
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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