Scraps from the Table

Matthew 15:22-28

And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.” But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, “Send her away, for she is crying out after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, 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 masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone (Vol. 1)

The Canaanite woman does indeed have great faith. Not only does she clearly believe that Jesus can heal her stricken daughter. She addresses Jesus as “son of David,” the Jewish messianic title which the disciples themselves were only gradually coming to associate with him. . . . If Israel is indeed the promise-bearing people, then Israel’s Messiah will ultimately bring blessing to the whole world. The dogs will share the scraps that fall from the children’s table.

The woman’s faith broke through the waiting period, the time in which Jesus would come to Jerusalem as Israel’s Messiah, be killed and raised again, and then send his followers out into all the world (28:19). The disciples, and perhaps Jesus himself, are not ready for Calvary. This foreign woman is already insisting upon Easter.

Being a Christian in the world today often focuses on the faith that badgers and harries God in prayer to do, now, already, what others are content to wait for in the future (200-1).

A. Orendorff

Five times in the gospel of Matthew Jesus refers to his disciples as “O ye of little faith,” or, as Wright puts is, “you little faith lot.” Yet here, and in a number of other similar cases, Jesus openly commends the faith of an outsider. Why?

First, the woman is desperate. She isn’t coming to Jesus to examine him. She isn’t approaching him to simply “talk religion.” Instead, she falls before this wandering Jewish rabbi, addresses him as a king, and begs shamelessly for mercy.

Second, the woman is humble. She endures not only the disciples’ strong rebukes, but Jesus’ insults as well. She is content to be called a “dog”; content to eat the measly scraps that fall thoughtlessly from the “master’s table.”

Third, she is persistent. In Wright’s words, she “badgers and harries God in prayer to do, now, already, what others are content to wait for in the future.” She is unwilling, in other words, to take “no” for an answer.

These are not the immature demands of a spoiled and disrespectful child. These are the desperate, humble and persist pleas of a woman at the end of herself, who knows who Jesus is, and believes in what he can do. This is prayer.