{"id":10650,"date":"2005-08-07T19:49:27","date_gmt":"2005-08-07T17:49:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theologie.whp.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/?p=10650"},"modified":"2025-07-10T14:56:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T12:56:11","slug":"matthew-1521-29","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/matthew-1521-29\/","title":{"rendered":"Matthew 15:21-29"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost | August 14, 2005 | Matthew 15:21-29 | Hubert Beck |<\/h3>\n

Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, \u201cLord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.\u201d Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, \u201cSend her away, for she keeps crying out after us.\u201d He answered, \u201cI was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.\u201d The woman came and knelt before him. \u201cLord, help me!\u201d she said. He replied, \u201cIt is not right to take the children\u2019s bread and toss it to their dogs.\u201d \u201cYes, Lord,\u201d she said, \u201cbut even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master\u2019s table.\u201d Then Jesus answered, \u201cWoman, you have great faith. Your request is granted.\u201d And her daughter was healed from that very hour.<\/p>\n

Crumbs From the Master\u2019s Table<\/strong><\/p>\n

May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us,
\nthat your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.
\nMay the peoples praise you, O God;
\nmay all the peoples praise you.
\nMay the nations be glad and sing for joy,
\nfor you rule the peoples justly
\nand guide the nations of the earth.
\nMay the peoples praise you, O God,
\nmay all the peoples praise you.
\nThen the land will yield its harvest, and God, our God, will bless us.
\nGod will bless us, and all the ends of the earth will fear him.
\n(Psalm 67, the Psalm of the Day)<\/p>\n

A Haunting Question<\/p>\n

What are the \u201cboundaries\u201d of God\u2019s grace? It is an age-old question, haunting all the corridors of time \u2013 and even haunting the Scripture itself. The psalmist is confident that God\u2019s grace reaches out to \u201cguide the nations of the earth,\u201d making \u201chis ways known on earth, his salvation among all nations.\u201d<\/p>\n

One is tempted to say that there are no \u201cboundaries,\u201d for the very word \u201cgrace\u201d would seem to contradict the idea of \u201cboundaries.\u201d If God\u2019s grace is the defining description of how God deals with humanity, then grace would seem to supercede all boundaries. The result of such thinking, of course, is a universalism suggesting there are no \u201cboundaries\u201d at all.<\/p>\n

The Scripture permits no such universalistic thinking, however, for it is clear that it understands there are \u201cboundaries\u201d to be recognized, lived within and obeyed in the kingdom of God.<\/p>\n

It is hard to find any clear \u201cboundaries\u201d in the first eleven chapters of the Scripture, although it is equally clear that there are those who are godly and those who are ungodly. They, themselves, become the defining \u201cboundaries\u201d by virtue of the way their lives are governed by God. But the narratives are broad and the margins within which the godly and ungodly live are generally vague save when overt evil becomes apparent as in the case of Cain or the flood or the tower of Babel. No clearly defined laws are expressed, however, as clear-cut \u201cboundaries.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Abraham and his posterity, however, the \u201cboundaries\u201d become much clearer. They were identified by blood lines and a particular history of a particular people called Israel. The Old Testament is the continuing story of how that distinctive family of people drew around itself specific \u201cboundaries,\u201d calling themselves \u201cthe people of God,\u201d identified not only by familial ties but also by specific and particular ways of living and worship prescribed by the One who had called them into existence. Moses drew the boundaries quite clearly under the guidance of God.<\/p>\n

Thus did the grace of God identify itself through a particular people with a defining way of life and worship. Yet there was always an awareness that God\u2019s grace could and did and would always reach far beyond such narrow confines. The Psalm of the Day is clear that God is interested in, rules over, reaches out to, and can even be identified by the way he relates to \u201cthe nations of the earth.\u201d (Psalm 67:4) And the prophet speaking in the First Lesson for today insists there will be \u201cforeigners who bind themselves to the Lord to serve him, to love the name of the Lord, and to worship him. . . . These I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar, for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Out of this long tradition of \u201cboundaries\u201d established within what is called \u201cJudaism\u201d came this man Jesus who stands at the heart of today\u2019s Gospel. He well understood these \u201cboundaries.\u201d He knew that his task was to take up this long history of Israel, making it his own, filtering it through his life and body, filling it full of new meaning that could, at least initially, only be understood from within that story of God\u2019s people called Israel. He would eventually broaden those \u201cboundaries\u201d in ways unimaginable to the disciples around him \u2013 and unthinkable in general to those out of whose midst he was arising. It took an immense struggle to expand the horizon of thinking about these \u201cboundaries\u201d on the part of his disciples and those who followed him to move into the world on a new level.<\/p>\n

The Book of Acts speaks of that long, hard struggle to expand the \u201cboundaries\u201d of those who thought of themselves both as children of Abraham and followers of the Christ. The Second Lesson for today speaks of the tensions that were being raised as those \u201cboundaries\u201d pushed outward. \u201cDid God reject his people? By no means! . . . God did not reject his people.\u201d Quite the opposite, their disobedience was coupled with the sins of the Gentiles, and Christ died for all. \u201cGod has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.\u201d This entire section of Paul\u2019s Letter to the Romans reflects on the tension between those who were his people Israel and the new people who had entered the kingdom of God by faith. The extension of the \u201cboundaries\u201d was filled with stress.<\/p>\n

Nor has this stress been overcome to this day. Over and over the people of God have had to recognize anew how old \u201cboundaries\u201d are pushed out by the grace of God to include still others. Sometimes the struggle has been overt — plainly in sight. Racial divisions, gender differences, national and cultural differences have had to be overcome time after time in order to recognize the far-reaching nature of God\u2019s grace. At other times they have been much more subtle. But we keep wanting to establish \u201cboundaries\u201d and God keeps pushing on them. We like neat, cozy, clear-cut \u201cboundaries\u201d to our lives, and God\u2019s grace challenges them at every turn.<\/p>\n

Yet we know that God\u2019s kingdom is not nor can it be \u201cboundary-less.\u201d The tension concerning how to recognize those boundaries and to live within them creates a constant strain within the church.<\/p>\n

Bread and Crumbs<\/p>\n

This brings us to today\u2019s Gospel, for the woman who approaches Jesus was a Gentile, a foreigner to the kingdom of God, an intrusion into the tidy \u201cboundaries\u201d with which the disciples were comfortable and within which Jesus proposes his basic arena of activity to be centered. The Canaanites were, from the days when Israel first entered the Holy Land, mortal enemies who were to be exterminated by the command of God. This woman, living just beyond the borders of Israel, is of the heritage of those who were the most unwanted of the unwanted. Not only is she of such an extraction, but she, as the pronoun makes clear, is a woman \u2013 one who is not to speak to a man in public. Not only does she approach Jesus, though \u2013 she nags at him, she makes a public scene around him.<\/p>\n

If that were not enough, we now encounter a number of very odd things in the narrative.
\nFirst of all, she addresses Jesus in terms that makes one wonder where she got the terminology: \u201cLord, Son of David. . . \u201c These are Jewish terms, terms applied to the hopes Israel harbored for a figure who would change the course of their history. To \u201csave\u201d them would mean that he must establish a new rule among them. Perhaps the term \u201cLord\u201d indicates such a hope on her part, but it may well be little more than we would say by way of courtesy, \u201cSir.\u201d The term \u201cSon of David,\u201d however, would hardly have meant much of anything to anyone other than the Jews. Yet she has such an address on her lips from the beginning. .<\/p>\n

Jesus\u2019 peculiar initial unresponsiveness to her appeal is equally strange. This is the same man who responded so willingly to another Gentile, a centurion who pleaded for the welfare of a sick servant, only a few chapters earlier. (8:5-13) There was no reluctance or hesitancy then. Why should it be so now? Is it because she is a woman? Is it because she is a Canaanite and the centurion was a Roman? There is no answer to the question \u201cwhy?\u201d There is only this strange, surprising silence.<\/p>\n

Not so with the disciples, however! They want to be rid of her. \u201cSend her away, for she keeps crying out to us.\u201d Possibly she has been nagging the disciples to get Jesus to do what she wants him to do. Consequently they may be asking Jesus to respond to her so that she will leave them alone. But they may simply be asking him to do something drastic in order to rid her from their presence. The woman certainly is getting under the skin of the disciples. Still Jesus seemingly remains unmoved.<\/p>\n

In fact, to add to the oddity, he says, perhaps to the disciples within hearing distance of the woman, or perhaps directly to the woman, \u201cI was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.\u201d He claims to have a clear goal, a fixation \u2013 an all-consuming passion, in fact \u2013 on where he is to direct his attention and his energies. The woman is not in that vision, for she is a Canaanite. He is preoccupied, he seems to be saying, with one unifying commission, and that is entirely wrapped up in his relationship to the people of Israel who, themselves, are as \u201clost sheep\u201d who need his full and undivided attention in order to return them to the fold from which they had strayed.<\/p>\n

But the woman seizes on this immediately! Now he is \u201cin conversation\u201d with her and she will not let the opportunity pass by. His silence had been terrifying, but now his words open a new door! Again it is an oddity that she should be so bold, so brave, so challenging that she presses her case with force. She has been reduced to desperation, to be sure, but she will not turn loose. Like Jacob in his struggle with the Angel of the Lord at the River Jabbok, she hangs on for all she is worth. She started with the plea, \u201cHave mercy on me,\u201d but now she kneels before him as though in worship and supplication: \u201cLord, help me,\u201d she says. \u201cYou are my only hope. You can\u2019t turn me down, for you are the only One to whom I can look.\u201d As Peter said in another setting, \u201cLord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.\u201d So now: \u201cYou have the word of authority over this demon. Who else can do this for me? I throw myself entirely on the grace of your good will!\u201d<\/p>\n

Then the most extraordinary thing of all occurs. This merciful One, this man filled with grace, this Prince of Peace, speaks in terms that sound harshly rude: \u201cIt is not right to take the children\u2019s bread and toss it to their dogs.\u201d Attempts are made to modify these words, to make them less harsh, by appealing to the word \u201cdog\u201d as a \u201chousehold puppy\u201d who licks the crumbs from under the table. But no matter how one wants to revise their sense, Jesus is speaking as an Israelite spoke of Gentiles. They were \u201cdogs,\u201d and there is no way to change that offensive sense.<\/p>\n

Yet, glory be! The woman grabs hold of this very rejection and turns it into a response from which Jesus can no longer carry his case! \u201cYes, Lord,\u201d she says. \u201cI affirm what you say! I am not of the house and lineage of those from whom you come. Nor am I worthy to approach you as I have. Nevertheless I still make bold to say one last thing and ask you to consider it most seriously! Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master\u2019s table. You are correct that it would not be right or proper to take the bread of the children and give it to dogs like me. Yet I, as a dog, ask only that you let me have the crumbs that fall from your table!\u201d What an astonishing statement!<\/p>\n

\u201cWoman, you have great faith. Your request is granted.\u201d He who has fed five thousand from Israel only a short time before and who will feed another four thousand only a short time hereafter grants to this woman the \u201ccrumbs that fall from their master\u2019s table.\u201d Do not the feeding of the five and four thousand serve as a great parenthesis around this story? He who feeds Israel, to whom he is sent, has given an \u201cappetizer,\u201d as it were, to a Gentile woman in the \u201ccrumbs from the master\u2019s table.\u201d<\/p>\n

She has pushed on the \u201cboundaries\u201d of grace and has found them malleable, accessible, ready for penetration. She has not extended the \u201cboundaries\u201d herself, for that is not her task. It is for Jesus who will, following his death and resurrection, instruct the disciples to take up that task: \u201cGo and make disciples of all nations,\u201d he will tell them once he has completed his task among those whose \u201cboundaries\u201d had been most visible before this. The \u201cboundaries\u201d are not new, as the Psalm for the Day and the First Lesson have made clear, but now an unveiling of the larger \u201cboundaries\u201d is taking place, and through this Canaanite woman we catch a glimpse of it.<\/p>\n

The \u201cBoundaries\u201d Newly Defined<\/p>\n

So now the \u201cboundaries\u201d of that kingdom of God concerning which we raised the questions earlier are more clearly discernible: \u201cYou have great faith,\u201d Jesus said. It was not a broad-based \u201cfaith in faith.\u201d It was not a faith that everything would turn out all right, for she had long hoped that things would turn out right for her daughter, but they had not done so. She comes with no appeal for justice, no claim based on her \u201crights\u201d or merit . . . only a plea for mercy, an undeserved help. She has nothing to bring with which to barter for her daughter\u2019s wellbeing. Her only clothing is humility. She simply brings the faith and confidence that in Jesus alone she finds hope for herself and her daughter.<\/p>\n

Thus did she \u201cbreak through\u201d the barriers that could have hindered her. In this way she signaled the way to the future as Gentiles flooded into the church, being carried on the waves of faith that in Jesus salvation had broken upon the face of the earth. Her story can well be and often is used as an example of the need to persist in prayer when the silence of the One to whom we pray devastates us. Her story is surely a marvelous and powerful assertion of this necessity to persist in prayer.<\/p>\n

But in her we all find ourselves, for we, the church, largely Gentile today, are all \u201cdogs\u201d before the older \u201cboundary lines\u201d of where and when and how God\u2019s grace arched over the earth. Long before this woman pushed those margins out by virtue of her faith God had made plain that his grace was far larger than anyone dared to think it was. \u201cLet no foreigner who has bound himself to the Lord say, \u2018The Lord will surely exclude me from his people,\u2019\u201d the prophet had said of old. (Is. 56:3) In the blood of Jesus the \u201cboundary of sin\u201d was broken down and people of every nation poured into the kingdom of God. The \u201cdogs\u201d of the earth were transformed into the \u201cpeople of God!\u201d<\/p>\n

We have been bound to this saving and gracious Lord through our baptism and the word that leaped upon us powerfully through those waters. We have been fed on the crumbs, the bread and wine that bear our Lord\u2019s body and blood. We have been visited with wondrous promises that \u201call who call on the name of the Lord will be saved.\u201d We have been secured \u201cby faith\u201d into the family of God.<\/p>\n

But let these \u201cboundaries\u201d within which we presently live and rejoice not become a fortress into which we retire to rest in safety. Let them be, rather, a penetrable place to which a Canaanite woman can come with her plea, \u201cLord, Son of David, have mercy on me!\u201d And let it be a place from which the word goes out, as from the Lord himself, \u201cYou have great faith. Your request is granted!\u201d<\/p>\n

Crumbs are enough to satisfy the hunger of the world \u2013 so long as they are crumbs from the Master\u2019s table!<\/p>\n

\n

Hubert Beck
\nhbeck@austin.rr.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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