The Rev. Dr. Patricia Ramsden         8/30/09

         All they wanted was a nice, quiet dinner out just like any other family, but before they even entered the restaurant the photographers were there and flash bulbs went off in their faces, blinding them.  Then came the shouts of the reporters.  “Is it true?  Do you have a comment to make?  After all, inquiring minds want to know….”

         The paparazzi hound celebrities day and night, looking for the next big story --- or at least the next story they can reasonably make up.  They follow the stars everywhere, intruding into their private spaces, taking the most unflattering photos they can and then passing them off for millions to see at newspaper stands and grocery lanes.  And we savor each and every headline and rumor.  After all, if we didn’t look, if we didn’t care, if we didn’t buy them, these rumormongers would go out of business instead of competing to get the first multi-million dollar picture of Brad Pitts’ new baby. 

         It’s insane, but no more insane than the crowds that crushed against Jesus.  He couldn’t even walk down the street without being pressed for a healing, without causing a stir, without everyone looking out for the next miracle he’d perform, until all He wanted was time away --- time alone --- and so He went where no one would follow --- to the region of Tyre – to a country of Gentiles.

         The scripture says He went to a house and did not want anyone to know He was there.  You can almost see he exhaustion in His face, the weariness of His body.

         But not even there, not even in the land of the Gentiles, could He escape from the crowds.  A woman found Him --- a desperate woman hounded Him – until He finally responded in the most shocking way possible.

         He refuses to heal her daughter, saying “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

         Jesus doesn’t just say no.  He says it in the most definite and insulting way possible.  And we can’t take it in.  This is not the Jesus we know and love, our Jesus, who loves us unconditionally, who died to save us all. 

         And so, throughout the ages, scholars have searched for a way out, a way to explain the words away.  The simplest one, of course, is that the woman had just caught Jesus on a bad day, and in His exhaustion He lost patience. 

         While one of the oldest explanations is that Jesus never even said such things --- that they were made up by a conservative Jew turned Christian, a Jew who did not want to accept Gentiles as believers, so he made up a story where Jesus speaks out against the Gentiles and then he inserted it into a gospel. 

         This position is given a different twist by those who say

That Jesus was explaining how He saw His mission.  He could not be all things to all people.  As a human being, no one can and Christ was not just God but a human as well.  So He needed to restrict His divine mission to one people --- the chosen people --- the Jews.  This is supported by Matthew 15:24 when Jesus says, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

         And, as is the way in theology, there is an interpretation that is just the opposite of that one --- an interpretation that says the scripture gives power both to women and Gentiles, for this desperate woman teaches Jesus that everyone, even the powerless and outcast, are included in God’s grace.  She has the audacity to teach Jesus and to even change His mind!

         Yet another explanation is that Jesus was just quoting a popular proverb of His day and wasn’t implying that the woman and her kind were to be treated like dogs – an insult in any language – and that He didn’t really mean it.  It was just a prelude to the healing that was always going to happen, a set-up if you will.

That leads into an explanation of why Jesus would ever compare the woman to a “dog”.  This theory maintains that what Jesus says is not the insult we take it to be, but that Jesus meant it to be a beloved lap dog, seeking scraps from the table, much like my poodle Honey did when she was alive.  I used to tell people who came to dinner that my job was to say she didn’t eat table food and her job was to prove me a liar.  The Syrophoenician woman proved the proverb a lie. 

The final explanation is that Jesus was saying the proverb just to “test” her --- to see how she would respond, to see how deep her faith really was, and having proven herself faithful she received the healing she sought for her child. 

         The closing of the story implies that after all was said and done, there would be enough of the bread of life left over to feed even to the “dogs.”  Jesus makes that clear when He says the woman ha s great faith and because of her faith, her daughter would be healed.  Despite all odds, because of her faith, this Syrophoenician woman held to the fact that God was a God of mercy and would ultimately meet her needs, saving her daughter.

         The story, then, becomes proof that it is faith and God’s grace that saves us --- not being a part of a “special” group.  Even those we believe to be beyond grace will be saved by Christ. 

         As you can see, there are as many explanations of this passage as there are theologians to explain it.  So what do I believe to be the answer --- because if you’re like me, you expect an answer.  I don’t have one.  I find some truth in each and every one of these explanations.  They all make sense to some degree.  And perhaps that is the answer.

         Too often we want the gospel to be nice and neat and tidy, put together with no doubt or questions, no layers of meaning, but this passage leaves us with layers upon layers of truth.  There is no final resolution.

         The truth of this passage is that this woman, who was a Gentile, went to Jesus knowing the odds were stacked against her, but still she went out of desperation to find a healing for her daughter.  And this woman, in the face of Jesus’ apparent rejection, stays firm in her hope for grace – and grace she received.

         So shall we.

         No matter what the odds are against us, we will find grace at the table.  That is the message for us this day as we come seeking scraps of love and find instead abundant grace and the love of a God who would give His very self to save us – for God so loved the world --- all the world, Jews Gentiles, undocumented workers, and terrorists as well as you and me --- that He gave His only beloved Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.  For God sent His Son into the world not to condemn the world but so the world might be saved through Him.