Sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent
admin | 25 February 2018“Yet the little dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table”
Matthew’s account of Jesus’ encounter with “a woman of Canaan” is masterful. There is a perfect equipoise between her three statements and the three statements of Jesus. And yet, the encounter also reveals the silence of Jesus. To her first request for mercy, “he answered her not a word.” That silence marks the turning point because she does not turn away and even refuses to be sent away and continues persistently to persevere in getting Jesus’ attention.
It might seem that what is at issue is how we get Jesus’ attention. But that is to miss the real power and truth of the dialogue. Ultimately, it is about God’s attention and care for us and about our attention to God intentionally and with strength. In a way, this Gospel story for The Second Sunday in Lent is about our active attention to God. It means perseverance, indeed, great perseverance. Nowhere is that shown more wonderfully than in the story of the Canaanite woman. Here is the story of a strong woman and a story about the strength of faith. She holds on to what she senses and knows about God in the person of Jesus Christ.
No story in the Gospels suggests so much about the necessary interplay of our humanity with God in Christ. In the story, it seems that what drives the entire argument is the perseverance of the woman who seeks the healing of her daughter “grievously vexed with a devil,” itself an interesting malady. It is a malady of the soul, a torment of the mind, not altogether unlike the forms of mental instability and confusion which belong to our culture. And, to be sure, the Canaanite woman here is a great exemplar of the true meaning of faith. She recognizes something divine in Jesus which alone can provide the healing she seeks for her daughter. The healing she seeks is entirely psychological and spiritual, not physical.
The point is that she will not be put off but persists in her quest to get Jesus’ attention. As it turns out, she actually has Jesus’ full attention. The problem is that the others, such as the disciples, don’t. She has Jesus’ attention so much that he insists on her articulating the full meaning of her request. He has heard about her daughter in her opening question to him. “But he answered her not a word.” Why? Because it is not simply about her and her daughter. It is equally about the nature of God’s engagement with our humanity seeking our good in his glory. It is a lesson about the universality of Christ’s mission which is through Israel but not confined to Israel.
The woman is really a kind of everyman, if such political incorrectness can be allowed. She shows the true and radical nature of faith. It is about taking heaven by storm. God wants us to strive, to struggle, to persevere, to persist in nothing less than the good which he seeks for us. Faith is something active, an active response to the truth and goodness of God.
The readings seem to suggest a kind of tenacious perseverance at the same time as they show us the radical nature of the divine will for our good. It can only happen by grace working through our being. In other words, what is moving in the “woman of Canaan” is already grace perfecting nature, the good drawing us more fully into the goodness of God. She seeks what God seeks for all of us and does so with a wonderful humility. The exchange brings out an important point about redemption. We have to want what God wants for us despite our confusions and disarray about what we mean by the good.
Jesus, in this troubling and difficult exchange, draws out of the woman what she seeks. She is a woman from outside Israel. And yet, her tenacity of spirit is what moves this Gospel story and shows what belongs to a true Israelite. That tenacity of spirit is about holding on to what she knows about Christ. Like the blind man on the roadside (in the Quinquagesima Gospel), she will not give up. The exchange not only brings out what she seeks but also ultimately what God truly seeks for us.
Her response is direct and wonderful. After Christ’s initial silence to her request, there is his qualifying and disturbing remark to the disciples who complain that “she crieth after us” and who want Jesus to “send her away”! But Jesus says “I am not sent, but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Is the mission and purpose of Christ restricted and simply limited to the Jews. Is God only the God of Israel? Christ’s remark here reveals one side of the Jewish religion but it provides the stage for the other side, namely, that through Israel, God is the God of all peoples. This is the deep truth of the Abrahamic covenant that through “[his] seed all nations of the earth shall be blessed.” The wonder of this encounter is that it is a non-Israelite woman who realizes this truth and articulates it so powerfully. Instead of being put off by this remark she came “and knelt before him, saying, Lord help me.” Such is the strength of humility, the humility which will not let go of the idea of the truth of God which ultimately cannot be limited to only a few at the expense of the many or, to put in another way, the truth of God is in principle for all. It is universal but we can only come to that through what is particular.
This insight is brought out even more forcibly in the last sequence of the dialogue. Here Jesus draws out of her the much more radical meaning of her insight. In a way, he seems to be testing her by emphasizing what seems to be a kind of Jewish exclusivity. Jesus, however, is challenging the assumptions of the disciples and the form of Jewish particularity. “It is not right,” he says, “to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.” The implication is that non-Jews are like dogs and therefore unworthy of the children’s bread, meaning the teachings of the Torah. Yet the Scriptures, especially the Psalms, often use the phrase “the children of men” which suggests that “children” and “children’s bread” cannot be taken exclusively to refer to “the children of Israel” in any kind of narrow or sectarian sense. This is exactly what this strong woman understands.
“Truth, Lord,” she says, “yet the little dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” This is the amazing breakthrough moment in the dialogue. She identifies herself not only as a dog but as “a little dog” and points out the claim they have on “the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” Her response means that we are all “the children of God.” And in a wonderful note of humility, she recognises that the crumbs which fall from the heavenly banquet are enough for us to live on. This complements the wonderful story which we will read on The Fourth Sunday of Lent, a story which traditionally was also read on The Sunday Next Before Advent. It is John’s account of the feeding of the multitude in the wilderness in which the fragments are gathered up and fill twelve baskets – one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel and/or one for each of the twelve disciples who become the Apostolic Church.
The strength and perseverance of Matthew’s Canaanite woman lies in her insight into the truth of God revealed in Jesus Christ, the truth which is in principle for all. The story challenges our presumptions in two ways: the one in restricting the will of God to Israel; the other in the idea that we have to force God to give us what we want. The encounter is not about the woman bending the will of Jesus to her will; it is about Jesus drawing out of her the truth of her insight about what God seeks for our wounded and broken humanity, especially so with respect to the diseases of our minds.
We have too often too small a view of God and his will for us and too often we are too passive about our relationship with God. If we are going to “abound more and more” in our life of faith, it will require our actively seeking God’s will in our lives. It will require our attention to the ways in which we live and live abundantly from “the crumbs which fall from the master[’s] table.”
The Canaanite woman’s words have influenced the words of The Prayer of Humble Access in our liturgy and build on the strength of her humility. “We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table,” we pray at the time of our approach to the Sacrament. The prayer conflates the imagery and the terminology of this Gospel encounter and John’s account of the feeding of the multitude, applying these stories to our souls in prayer. “The little dogs” indeed “eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table” but the Canaanite woman is not arguing for entitlement or the idea of being worthy. The strength of her humility lies in her openness to the truth of God. It is not about forcing God but about acknowledging the truth of God. It is this that Jesus acknowledges about her. “O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole that very hour.” Such is the strength of humility.
“Yet the little dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table”
Fr. David Curry
Lent II, 2018