Sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent: March 13, 2022 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

In today’s Gospel, a woman knelt before Jesus, saying,
“Lord, help me.” And He answered, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

Whenever the Gospel of Jesus is read in our midst, each Christian has but one job. We must each find a place to stand, not only literally stand on our feet for the reading of the Gospel, but also, in a matter of speaking, spiritually stand in that Gospel too. We must each locate ourselves inside its precious and true story. If you fail to see yourself standing in the Gospel, you also will fail to see Jesus and what He came to do for you.
Today’s Gospel does not give us very many options. Present here are only Jesus and a woman kneeling at His feet. Jesus calls her a dog.

Here is the thing to remember about Jesus, no matter what He might appear to be saying: your Lord Jesus Christ does not have a mean bone in His body! He NEVER speaks with cruelty. He ONLY speaks love and compassion. Even our Lord’s harsh Words—even His rough actions, like when He makes a whip and drives people and the money changers from the temple (Matthew 21:12-13, John 2:15) even those things are said and done for us and for our salvation. Do not consider it an insult that Jesus calls this woman a dog. Consider it instead a proclamation of the faith.

“It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” Our Lord did not call the woman a dog because of the way she looked, and certainly not because she was a woman. Jesus only called her a dog because she did not have any more Jewish blood in her veins than you do. It was customary for the Jews to call their gentile neighbors “dogs.” To the Jews “belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises” (Romans 9:4). To the dogs—that is to say, to people like this woman—belonged nothing. She deserved nothing. She did not qualify. She and her nation were on the outside.

Why, then, did this woman throw herself at Jesus’ feet? She was seeking the benefit of gifts that had been sworn on an oath to give to someone else. She wanted to receive the blessing that had been promised to Abraham and Isaac and their descendants forever—but not to her. This woman did not pretend that she had any inherent right to receive the things promised. She felt no sense of entitlement. She stood as a foreigner and stranger in someone else’s house. She made her appeal to “the Lord, the Son of David,” solely on the basis of His grace and mercy; solely on the basis of who Jesus is, rather than who she is. This woman had nothing, but she knew Jesus had plenty: “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” I know, and I believe with all my heart, that You have enough, even for me.

Is it really so insulting for you and me to identify ourselves with the dog in today’s Gospel? The good news here is quite clear: this woman’s lack of qualification, unfortunate as it was, did not prevent her from receiving the benefit of being with Jesus, and that is a VERY GOOD PLACE for you and for me to stand! Like this woman, we should not even try to offer Jesus our impressive resumes. Like this woman, we should each say: many other people are much more worthy to be with Jesus than I am. We should kneel in the place of the Gospel story where this woman kneels if we want to see Jesus as she sees Him. Above all, we should NOT be insulted by unbecoming analogies or unflattering figures of speech just because they sting the way they must.

He said, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
“Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” With these Words, this Canaanite woman spoke the very Christian faith by which you and I are saved. With these Words, this woman was saying,
“I am not worthy, Lord, but I firmly believe my merit or worthiness is NOT the point.”
“God’s promise of forgiveness and salvation in Christ extend beyond the bloodlines of Israel and reach even to those who are far from Jewish.”
“Just a tiny bit of Your infinite mercy will be fine, my dear Lord! A crumb is all I need!”
“It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

We could venture, while we’re at it, to take our Lord’s analogy a little farther than we see here, as a matter of illustrating what is in Scripture. There is, when you come to think of it, at least one very good thing about being a dog: Dogs become interested in the things that nobody else wants. Dogs pay close attention even to tiny morsels of food and they find nourishment where others see only a waste of time. They could be well-fed and even satisfied on their own food, and still crave those tiniest of scraps that happen to fall on the floor. It’s as if they’re saying, I may have just finished eating, but a crumb falls on the floor, and all of a sudden, I’m starving again!

Yet what is the Holy Communion, which we are about to receive? There is present in the Communion only a crumb, a tiny morsel of food; one that very few people desire, for various reasons:
The Jews did not want the Body and Blood of their Lord Jesus for the forgiveness of sins. For them it was enough that His body was pierced and His blood was shed—just so long as Jesus went away and stayed away. As St. Paul wrote in Romans, to the Jews “belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever” (Romans 9:4). But the Jews did not want Him!

To use the imagery of today’s Gospel, the children of the house wanted nothing of the lavish banquet of salvation that God had prepared in the body of His Son Jesus, the very bread that God had promised. What good thing resulted from their disinterest in the banquet of salvation? Thankfully, there resulted plenty of crumbs left for us dogs to live on.

Many Christians likewise share the same disinterest in Jesus’ Body and Blood. “The Holy Communion is merely bread!” they claim. “Jesus cannot possibly be present in a crumb,” they complain. These sadly mistaken Christians imagine that when Jesus said of the Bread, “This is My body, given for you for the forgiveness of you sins” (Matthew 26:26, 28), He must have been talking about something else. So they have no interest in our meal. They have interest only in making the meal something that it is not.

If you were to drop a dollar on the ground, even a guy with a backache will stoop over to pick it up. Serve the Holy Communion, and you’ll find most people cannot be bothered. Yet this woman was right. She demonstrated for us how we are to stand, to stand with our hearts squarely fixed in the Gospel. The children’s bread is here offered to you, and you are welcome to have it to the full. This woman gives us a good place to stand because she speaks the same faith that the Holy Spirit has planted also in your heart: “Amen, Lord! Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” And so you are filled, fed, forgiven, and fortified in body and in soul unto life everlasting.

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Readings:
Gen 32:22–32 a Man wrestled with him until the break of day
Rom. 5:1–5 having been justified by faith, we have peace with God
Matt. 15:21–28 even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters table