It’s been a minute since I preached last in this series, so let’s do a quick recap. In the preceding incident, Jesus challenged the Pharisees’ fixation on ritual purity laws to show that defilement comes from within us, not from outside of us. This is important to clarify, as he will be in places that the Jewish people considered unclean as he begins to move into his ministry to the Gentiles through Gentile regions.
In today’s episode, he will demonstrate to his disciples that Gentiles are not unclean as his ministry points toward the Gentiles.[1] The heart of today’s passage is a much discussed one.
She [a Gentile] came and bowed down before him and said, “Lord, help me!” Jesus replied, “Let the children be satisfied first, for it is not right to take the children’s [Israelites] bread and to throw it to the little household dogs [Gentiles].” “Yes, that is true, Lord,” she replied, “but even the little dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs that they make fall from their masters’ table.”
Did Jesus just call a woman a dog? Well, yes, but there’s more going on here than meets the eye.
* * * * * *
First, let’s talk about dogs. We generally love dogs in our culture. They are our ‘best friend’. I love dogs, probably going back to a time my pet dog in Alabama saved me from a rabid rat that attacked me in our front yard. When Jesus was alive, dogs weren’t always the family pets like they are today in the United States. That’s not to say people didn’t bond with them; plenty of Greek and Roman records survive that show that dogs were often well loved. You see it in a lot of the literature and even tombstone inscriptions.
“My eyes were wet with tears, little dog, when I bore thee (to the grave)... In a resting place of marble, I have put thee for all time… sagacious thou wert like a human being. What a loved companion have we lost!"[2]
In the Jewish world, while dogs were domesticated, they generally represented uncleanness, rebellion, or savagery. It’s fair to say that while at least some Jewish people individually cared for dogs, corporately, they had a much lower view of dogs than did the Greeks and Romans.[3]
· [Goliath] said to David, "Am I a dog that you come against me with sticks?" And David said, "No! Worse than a dog!" (1 Samuel 16:43)
· Hazael said, "How could your servant, a mere dog, do this monstrous thing?" (2 Kings 8:13)
· “Dogs have surrounded me; a gang of evildoers has closed in on me; they pierced my hands and my feet.” (Psalm 22:16)
· “Don't give what is holy to dogs or toss your pearls before pigs, or they will trample them with their feet, turn, and tear you to pieces.” Matthew 7:6
· Rabbinic tradition explains that ‘as the sacred food was intended for men, but not for the dogs, the Torah was intended to be given to the Chosen People, but not to the Gentiles.’[4]
So, the Jewish community that saw dogs as a symbol for the unclean, animal side of humanity lived within in a bubble in a broader culture that saw dogs in a much more positive light. While there is no way that calling a person a dog was a compliment at that time, what Jesus’ disciples heard and what the woman heard were different. More on that in a bit.
Second, let’s talk about Tyre and Sidon.
These cities were filled with descendants of the Caananites, cousins of the Israelites driven out of Canaan because of their terribly violent idolatrous practices (child sacrifice, etc). While they had been assimilated into the empire that ruled the Israelites, you could still cut this old family tension with a knife.
To make it worse, they apparently flourished in part at the expense of the countryside, whose resources they exploited. Economically, Tyre took bread away from a food-rich Galilee while Galileans went hungry (see Acts 12:20). To connect the dots with my opening discussion about dogs, there is reason to believe they had a popular proverb about not giving food to their children first and then letting dogs eat the crumbs. In their proverb, the dogs were likely the Jewish people.
This is modern Israel and Palestine perhaps, with a history of land wars; if you like Appalachian history, maybe it’s the Hatfields and McKoys. Those aren’t perfect analogies, but I hope it captures the idea. The disciples would not have thought of them any more kindly than they did of Samaritans - and the disciples wanted to call down fire on Samaritan towns.
When this story begins, imagine how the disciples must have felt going into this territory with Jesus. This is not just a Gentile area, which poses problems for them staying ceremonially pure (I’m assuming they were still processing Jesus’ teaching on that). This is the enemy.[5] These are people who have caused suffering to them and their families. The testing and highlighting of a woman’s faith in this story occurs in this context.
After Jesus left there, he went to the region of Tyre and Sidon (a Gentile region with some of Israel’s “most bitter enemies”[6]).[7]When he went into a house, he did not want anyone to know, but he was not able to escape notice. Instead, a woman whose young daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him and came and fell at his feet. The woman was a Greek (Canaanite), of Syrophoenician origin.
She cried out, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is horribly demon-possessed!” But Jesus did not answer her a word. Then his disciples came and begged him, “Send her away,[8] because she keeps on crying out after us.” So Jesus answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” [I have come to feed my children.]But she came and bowed down before him and said, “Lord, help me!”
[He responded with a saying she recognized:][9] “Let the children be satisfied first[10], for it is not right to take the children’s bread and to throw it to the little household dogs.[11]” “Yes, that is true, Lord[12],” she replied, “but even the little dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs that they make fall[13] from their masters’ table.”
Then Jesus answered her, “Dear woman[14], your faith is great! Because you said this, you may go and let what you want be done for you. The demon has left your daughter.” And her daughter was healed from that hour. She went home and found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
First, this story in context applauds Jesus as just and the woman as virtuous.
When we read other healing miracle stories, Jesus never treats someone who asks with disrespect. That gives us good reason to think that if this story comes across that way, we might be missing something important. This quote might be a little bit literature nerdy, but it matters to understand what’s happening here.
“[This story] fits a type common in ancient literature wherein a subject approaches their leader with a request, which is initially dismissed, but later conceded to. In the exchange, the leader is shone to be just and fair, and the subject is judged virtuous. Both receive public honor, a win-win situation which was uncommon in the zero-sum game of honor/shame that structured the ancient world’s social customs… this encounter fits a pattern whereby a ruler who had every social right to ignore a plea was nevertheless shown to be compassionate by acceding to his subject’s wishes.”[15]
This is where I do a brief aside about the importance of studying context. We want to hear and see what the first audience heard and saw as much as possible whenever reading Scripture. When seen in this light, what at first glance presents a rude and insulting Jesus talking to a demeaned woman is revealed instead as a scenario in which the worth of the woman and the goodness of Jesus are revealed.
A common saying was refurbished to show that though she is not one of the children of Israel and is not part of the fellowship around the table, her persistent request is rewarded and her character is applauded (no doubt much to the surprise of the disciples).[16]
“The dialogue presented the woman a chance to gain honor. She pursued the virtuous course, and with the occasion to speak (and model) uprightness publicly, she earned the highest prize in antiquity - honor. She also secured Jesus’ highest praise, “Woman you have great faith.”[17]
Second, this reveals a God whose compassion is scandalous.
Remember, he has just called out the Pharisees who drew really sharp lines between clean and unclean, holy and unholy, Jew and Gentile.
· He heads to a Gentile place (ceremonially unclean) to recover from ministering to his own people.
· It’s Canaanite folk: distant, idolatrous relatives; enemies (spiritually unclean)
· It’s a place full of people who harmed his children (economic exploitation)
· A woman approaches him in a culture where only men should do that (culturally offensive)
· Odds are good that she had tried the gods of her people (which were part of the problem) so that wasn’t going to work. Jesus likely wasn’t her first resort, but he was the one to whom she turned now.
And then Jesus tells her that her faith is great. This, in contrast to the times Jesus has told his disciples that their faith was struggling.
It’s a great reminder that Jesus came to offer Himself and His Kingdom to all people groups, all statuses, all ethnicities, all levels of rich and poor, educated or uneducated, sick or healthy, happy or depressed, in-group or outcast.
Notice how quickly he sent his disciples out – first the 12, which we already saw, and soon the 70, and then the Great Commission into all the world. Part of their training, no doubt, was to watch him respond compassionately to those his disciples were least likely to feel compassionate toward. If first Samaritans and now Canaanite enemies have access to Jesus, then there are no untouchables, no one so unclean that God’s grace and truth cannot impact their lives, no sinner outside of the length of Jesus’ reach.
Later in Matthew’s gospel, we will hear a parable about a seemingly sketchy group invited to a wedding banquet after the invited guests fail to respond (22:1–14). All along, Jesus has been welcoming outsiders and disenfranchised people such as tax collectors, prostitutes, and “unclean” people. Who can come to Jesus? Anyone.
It’s a good reminder that the light of Christ shines into surprisingly dark places. No way did the disciples expect to go to Canaanite Tyre and find someone ready to kneel at the feet of Jesus.
This is why we never write off a people or a place. This is why we go into all the world to preach the gospel. We may be shocked at how hardened those with access to Jesus have become – and how ready are those who seem to us to be far from Him.
Third, even the crumbs of the gospel are amazing and good.
"Not of the children? True…. [but] one crumb of power and grace from Thy table shall cast the devil out of my daughter."(Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary)
I had not thought of that before studying this. Freeing someone from demonic possession is a crumb from the feast of the Kingdom. Remarkable. It’s a pretty incredible crumb. Of all the types of healing and deliverance recorded in Scripture, that seems like the ultimate example of God’s good power bringing healing from the bondage of spiritual wickedness in high places.
Other stories of signs and wonders that Jesus performs in us as recorded in Scripture and throughout history. We see all kinds of ‘crumbs’ that are good for the world. Matthew has recorded this story between the Feeding of the Five and Four Thousand, so talk of “bread” and “crumbs” brings to mind how the leftovers were collected after everyone in Jesus’ audience had eaten his or her fill.
The woman appeals to Jesus’ love and generosity: “All right. I am not one of your children at the table, but what’s on that table is good, and there’s more than enough on that table for everyone.” The Africa Bible Commentary notes, “By faith, she saw herself, as a Gentile, benefiting from the blessings of Israel.”
My sense is that she arrived and left a God-fearer[18] like Cornelius but not a worshipper of Jesus.[19] I don’t think this is a conversion story. I think it’s a provision story, because it doesn’t stop Jesus from providing for her need from the Kingdom storehouse. Consider this tory from the Talmud:
“There was a famine in the land, and stores of corn were placed under the care of Rabbi Jehudah the Holy, to be distributed to those only who were skilled in the knowledge of the Law. And, behold, a man… clamorously asked for his portion. The Rabbi asked him whether he knew the condition, and had fulfilled it, and then the supplicant changed his tone, and said, ‘Nay, but feed me as a dog is fed, who eats of the crumbs of the feast,’ and the Rabbi hearkened to his words, and gave him of the corn.”[20]
The language of crumbs and dogs was applied within the Jewish community; Jesus applied it to the Gentiles as well. Here, I think, is the fullness of the Gospel:
Jesus came to earth to save, deliver and heal first in the hearts and souls of humanity and second in the entirety of a creation that groans as it awaits redemption.
His life, death and resurrection have confirmed that the King has arrived to establish His Kingdom in the midst of fallen empires.
The church establishes outposts, oasis…es, fighting spiritual principalities and powers, and taking cups of water and Living Water to the spiritually and physically thirsty; bread and the Bread of Life to the spiritually and physically hungry, clothes and clothes of righteousness to the physically and spiritually naked; practical provision to the economically poor and riches of Christ to the spiritually bankrupt; doctors and the Great Physician to the physically and spiritually sick; declaring freedom to those in spiritual bondage and working for freedom for the physically oppressed.[21]
Jesus, the Bread of Life, the fountain of Living Water, offers the nourishment of life everlasting, with even the crumbs and the sips of his grace and goodness pointing toward the deep, deep love of Jesus.
The Gospel begins with God so loved the world that He gave His son, and whoever believes on him will not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16). The Good News does not end there. God is at work through Jesus mending all that is broken. And when that happens, it’s a signpost pointing toward Jesus. The Good News of the Kingdom of Heaven touches every part of life. Nothing is outside of its scope. It changes our hearts and then guides our hands. “The least of these” around us should be rejoicing when Jesus brings us sinners into his family, because that means their lives are about to get better. These crumbs leave a trail that points to the feast.
But…they are crumbs. Delicious, to be sure, but crumbs. But a trail of bread crumbs can lead hungry people to the Baker, right? What did Jesus tell the demon-possessed man after he healed him? “Go and tell people about this crumb of the gospel.” Crumbs remind people that there is a feast. To where do the crumbs lead?
· “The bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world.” John 6:33
· “Then Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.’” John 6:35.
· “I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.” (John 6:51)
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[1] NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible
[2] (https://www.thedodo.com/9-touching-epitaphs-ancient-gr-589550486.html)
[3] Here’s a concise overview of dog ownership in Judaism. https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/judaism-dogs/
[4] Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Of The New Testament
[5] She was a descendent of those seven nations of Canaan. (Pulpit Commentary)
[6] Per Josephus (Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary Of The New Testament)
[7] Elijah had also helped a non-Jewish woman in this area (1 Kings 17:8).
[8] “The disciples used [the language of] releasing someone from prison or from a debt…or a painful condition. Likely, they were not asking that Jesus… grant her petition to keep her quiet.” https://www.cbeinternational.org/resource/jesus-and-canaanite-woman/
[9] In his answer Jesus was probably quoting a popular proverb. (New Bible Commentary)
[10] “First” implies that this is not the final word, especially since the people of Israel just ate with much left over (Mark 6:42–43) (NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible)
[11] The Greek word includes the nuance pets.
[12] “Lord” seems to be a respectful title rather than a divine one. (Thayer’s Greek Lexicon)
[13] “Not merely the crumbs which by chance fall… but morsels surreptitiously dropped by the children to their pets.” (Expositor's Greek Testament) “[Jesus is] likely referring to how Greeks view dogs… that’s clearly how this Greek woman interprets Jesus’ words.” https://www.rethinknow.org/jesus-and-the-canaanite-woman/
[14] The same word by which he addressed his mother, Mary. It’s a term of tenderness.
[15] From “The Canaanite Woman of Matthew 15” by Lynn H. Cohick, https://zondervanacademic.com/blog/the-canaanite-w. “A similar story is told by Dio Cassius about a woman who calls out a request to the emperor Hadrian. At first he said he hadn’t the time, but when she declared “Cease, then, being emperor” he stopped and granted her a hearing.”
[16] https://www.cbeinternational.org/resource/jesus-and-canaanite-woman/
[17] https://zondervanacademic.com/blog/the-canaanite-w
[18] “In the New Testament and early Christian writings, the Greek terms God-fearers and God-worshippers are used to indicate those Pagans who attached themselves in varying degrees to Hellenistic Judaism without becoming full converts…” “God-Fearer,” Wikipedia
[19] She does not identify herself as one of the children. Jesus doesn’t disagree. He doesn't say her faith has saved her as he does in some other places. He says her daughter will be healed.
[20] Ellicott’s Commentary For English Readers
[21] The early church modeled it: they helped not only the spiritually lost and sinfully broken by introducing them to the saving power of Jesus, they also addressed injustice by helping the poor, the homeless, the sick, the imprisoned, the abandoned. They eventually built hospitals and schools and established economic safety nets.