Thomas J Parlette
“Crumbs on the Table”
Matthew 15: 10-28
8/16/26
Once upon a time there was a cartoon in a magazine that showed a female preacher speaking from the pulpit. Two middle-aged men were sitting near the front. Looking up at the preacher, one of them leans over and whispers, “Nag, nag, nag.” (1)
It’s unfortunate but true that many men are very sensitive about women telling them what to do, even when it’s for their own good. And men tend to label this nagging.
Well, that’s where the meat of this story for today starts – it begins with nagging. A woman shows up and starts nagging Jesus and the disciples because her daughter is sick and she wants their help. At first, Jesus ignores her. But she just won’t let up - she is so persistent that the disciples finally plead with Jesus to send her away, “She’s driving us crazy.”
Then Jesus does something very out of character. He says, “I have only been sent to the lost sheep of Israel.” This is actually quite a scandalous passage. It is not often that we catch Jesus with his compassion down, so to speak. First, he ignores this poor woman, even though she seems to have a legitimate concern for her daughter. Then he compares this determined mother and her sick daughter to a dog – not meant as a compliment at all. Now that is simply shocking. In fact, it’s hard to imagine Jesus saying or doing something more out of character than what we see him do and say today. This is not the Jesus we think we know.
Today’s passage is actually two separate stories tied together by a road trip. Jesus starts out in the outskirts of Jerusalem where he has another confrontation with the Pharisees – this time over the many dietary laws governing what you could eat and what you couldn’t eat. Jesus leaves the crowd and the Pharisees with the lesson, “It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.”
And then Jesus skips town. He takes a road trip to the region of Tyre and Sidon – a predominantly Gentile region. It’s there that the nagging begins.
A Canaanite woman shows up and starts shouting at Jesus and the disciples – nagging them about her daughter who is being tormented by a demon. At first, Jesus ignores her – a very un-Jesus like thing to do. But the woman is so persistent and annoying that the disciples plead with Jesus to send her away. “No,” says Jesus, “I don’t have time to deal with her. I have only been sent to the lost sheep of Israel’- to the Jews, not the Gentiles. Again, very un-Jesus like.
And then begins a showdown that is pretty unique in the Gospels. Do you remember when you were a kid playing a game called chicken. In the version I knew, you basically had a staring contest to see who would blink first. You blink, you lose. Well that’s what is going on here. The Canaanite mother kneels before Jesus, addresses him as Lord, and asks for his help. Jesus doesn’t blink – and says, “It’s not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” Your move, Mom. But she doesn’t blink either. “Yes, Lord… yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table.”
This is another one of the moments in scripture where I think there is a long pause. Jesus and this Canaanite mother seeking help for daughter, look eyes, staring each other down – finally, Jesus blinks “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter is healed instantly.
There are two things at play here in this story. First, there is the physical act of getting God’s attention. At first, this desperate mother just gets ignored – by the disciples and by Jesus himself. There have probably been times when many of us have felt like that. We pray and pray and pray, and nothing happens. We wonder if God is listening at all and we ask ourselves – what does it take to get God’s attention? That’s where this Canaanite woman finds herself – on the outside looking in, knocking on the window trying to get Jesus’ attention, not for herself, but for her daughter.
Once there was a man getting ready to go up to bed. He was locking all the doors and turning off all the lights when his wife yelled down from upstairs – “Honey, you left the lights on in the shed, I can see it from our window.” The man shouted back up the steps – “I wasn’t in the shed at all today.” But when he took a look out the window, he could see the lights on and shadows moving about. There were people in the shed stealing things!
So he called the police and reported a robbery in progress. But the dispatcher said – “I’m sorry we don’t have anyone available to respond right now.”
“I see,” said the man, and he hung up. He counted down one minute on his watch, and called the police again.
“Hi, I just called a minute ago, because there were burglars in my shed. Well you don’t have to worry about it – I took care of it. I shot them all.”
Well, within three minutes there were half a dozen police cars on sight and a SWAT Team ready to go – they caught the burglars red- handed.
As the suspects were being loaded into the back of the squad cars, an officer said to the man, “I thought you said you shot them all.”
And the man answered, “I thought you said no one was available.”
(2)
Sometimes we just need some attention. That’s what this Canaanite woman was after. And she will not give up until she is satisfied. Which brings us to the second important thing about this story. It’s easy to get caught up with the finer points like, Why is Jesus so rude?
Or, Does Jesus actually change his mind here?
And, if Jesus is indeed divine, why would he need to change his mind about anything?
All of those are good questions, and worthy of debate. But are we to take from this story about the crumbs from the table? What are we to emulate here.
In the end, Jesus commends this Canaanite woman for her great faith, and as a result, here daughter is immediately healed. So what makes her faith so great? Her faith is great because of its persistence. She will not give up. She is so confident that God’s mercy and grace is for her as well as the lost sheep of the house of Israel, that she is insistent that Jesus help her and her daughter. This woman’s tenacity and persistence is what makes her faith great.
Paul would agree as we hear him say to the church in Rome:
“I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means!”
Paul is quite emphatic on that point. Exclamation points are few and far between in our scripture – but one appears today. Has God rejected his people, has God rejected even the Gentiles? Paul asks rhetorically. Then he thunders the answer to his own question – BY NO MEANS, exclamation point! “The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. Anyone who was once disobedient to God, has now received mercy, God is merciful to all.” It’s almost as if this Canaanite woman has those words ringing in her ears as she stares down Jesus today. “Let me remind you, Lord, that God’s mercy and grace is for me and my daughter just as much as the house of Israel.” And when the stare down is over, I imagine Jesus laughing, and saying, “I like the way you think, you’re right! Great is your faith!” Her persistence is what makes her faith great.
A few years ago there was a story that made headlines about an interesting encounter between a duck and police officer. The officer was walking his beat, when this duck started grabbing at his pant leg. At first, the officer thought it a bit odd, but pushed the duck away with his boot and continued on his patrol. But the duck followed him, quacking and tugging at his pant leg. Finally, the duck sat down on a sewer grate and stared at the officer, quacking every couple of seconds.
The officer thought, “Ok, this is weird,” and he walked over to investigate. As he got closer to the sewer grate, he could hear little quacking noises coming from the sewer. He looked down and there six little ducklings down in the water below. They had fallen through the grate and their mother had gone to seek to help. Well, the police officer called a tow truck and they pulled the grate up and used a vegetable strainer from a nearby restaurant to lift the little ducklings out of the sewer. Then the mother duck and her ducklings waddled off to a nearby pond. (3)
That mother duck did just what the Canaanite woman does in this story – took extraordinary measures to get the attention she needed and then persisted until she got the help she required.
And that’s just what we are called to do as well. Be persistent in getting the help you need. Be tenacious, it will pay off. God has not forgotten or rejected us. God’s mercy and grace are for all of us in need.
So be persistent in seeking the mercy and grace that God offers.
May God be praised. Amen.
1. Source unknown, retrieved from the Internet
2. Ibid…
3. Ibid…
