Man's Best Friend

In Nomine Iesu
St. Matthew 15:21-28
August 20, 2017
Proper 15A

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus~

It’s not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs. That’s one of the first and foremost rules of dog

ownership. You don’t take food from the table—pricey food, carefully prepared for human consumption—and hand it off to your little puppy. It’s not that your little puppy wouldn’t like what it is you’re eating. And it’s not that his little digestive tract might react unfavorably to your rich fare. No, the problem is that dogs fed from the table come to expect it—maybe even demand it. Sit down, say grace, pass the potatoes . . . but then prepare for the whining, the whimpering, the begging, the big sad eyes, and the little paw tapping you on the thigh. No, Jesus has definitely made the right call here. It’s not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.

Of course, when Jesus first said this concerning canines, there wasn’t a single furry four-legged friend in sight. There was begging, and there was whining, along with big, sad eyes—but all that came not from a dog, but from a pesky Canaanite woman. She just wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. No matter what the Savior did or didn’t say, she just kept coming back like a bulldog. She latched onto the Lord like a terrier latches onto a soup bone. She pursued Jesus with a dogged faith that just wouldn’t let go no matter what. And even more amazing, she was an outsider—a gentile dog—a non-Israelite. But that’s what this text is ultimately all about: God’s grace to all people in Jesus Christ, the outsiders becoming insiders, and God’s house being a house of prayer for all nations. Oh, and there’s also a little something about man’s best friend.

Jesus was doing what a healthy percentage of our members are doing right now—He was taking time off up north. But “up north” for Jesus meant gentile country. One of the locals—a woman, no less—approached Jesus. Right away, she’s got two strikes against her: a woman didn’t approach a man in public, and a Canaanite wouldn’t dare approach a Jew—let alone a Rabbi. But this woman had good cause for her carelessness. She was desperate. Her little girl was being terrorized by a demon. And she was powerless to stop it. No one could help. For some unknown reason, this woman clearly knew and believed that Jesus was her last, best, and only hope.

What do you say? What do you pray when Jesus is your last and only hope? What words are the right words when you’re rendered helpless while demons have their way with your daughter—when life caves in, and crisis comes, and there’s not a doggone thing you can do about it? This woman found the perfect words to pray in her terrible time of trial: Lord, have mercy. Kyrie Eleison. For as long as Christians have been gathering together for worship, Christians have been praying those words—Lord, have mercy. To our ears it might not sound like much of a prayer. But those words speak volumes. Those words perfectly express our helplessness and our total dependence on the mercy of the Lord.

But as you probably noticed, even the perfect prayer is sometimes met with silence from the Savior. Jesus gave the woman no response at all—did not answer her a word. Jesus may have kept quiet but His disciples sure didn’t. Send her away, Lord. She won’t shut up. She keeps following us and begging. Get rid of her! Sound familiar? It’s the voice of exclusion—of prejudice, hatred, suspicion toward the outsider—an instinctive aversion for the unclean, the unwashed, the unsaved. It had been drilled into the disciples’ heads since they were little boys: “Don’t go near those people—those Canaanites. Don’t talk with them. Don’t eat with them. And for heaven’s sake, don’t marry them.”

Finally, Jesus says something, but not what you might expect. He reminds the woman that He was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel—reminds her that she’s not one of those sheep—that she’s just a dirty Canaanite dog. It’s not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs, He tells her. It was an insult to her ethnicity. Generally speaking, dogs in those days were not the pampered pets of today, but garbage-eating scavengers on the streets—beasts that had no business in the kitchen or at the table with the children. “Yes, Lord,” she said, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”

Wow! Beloved in the Lord, this is what faith sounds like and looks like. She refuses to be refused. She prays without ceasing. She endures the silence and sternness of the Savior. For her, crumbs from the Savior’s table are a feast for her famished soul and she won’t be denied. Oh, she may be a dirty Canaanite dog, but she clings in faith to Jesus, believing that His mercy is big enough to embrace even the likes of her. O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire. And her daughter was healed instantly.

Boom! It’s a nice story, don’t you think? It doesn’t start out that way, but it ends in a happy place. A little girl is healed. A woman of great faith is praised. Jesus extends the mercy of God to include those who had always been excluded before. It must have left the disciples scratching their heads—wondering what on earth Jesus was up to. How can an outsider have even greater faith than insiders like them?

You and I have walked in those same sandals. We’ve done what the disciples did. We too have judged the outsider. We’ve excluded those who make us uncomfortable. We think we have a flair for figuring out who’s in good with God and who isn’t. O, we say and pray that Jesus is the Savior of the whole wide world. But we act differently. By our actions we too often say that Jesus is the Savior of the smart and salvageable—that He’s the redeemer of religious folks like us—the Shepherd of the special—the Lord of the Lutherans (make that the Lord of the conservative Lutherans!) But today Jesus shows us that He really is the Savior of the whole world—including the parts of the world and the people of the world that we aren’t particularly fond of.

We need to see just how inclusive our God really is—see Him as the one who welcomes even dirty dogs right into the kitchen for a feast from His table. Because if we can’t see that—that the grace of Jesus Christ is all-inclusive and designed for everyone—then we run the risk of taking pride in ourselves—pride in our purity, pride in our religion, our doctrine, our liturgy or whatever other credentials we think make us special and smart and (in some tiny way) deserving of God’s mercy.

But God’s mercy is the very thing that no one deserves. We’re all like that poor Canaanite woman. We don’t have single bargaining chip that we can lay on the table. We’re not purebreds. We have no pedigree. We’re all just mangy mutts—sorry scavengers who can offer God nothing greater than a simple prayer: Lord, have mercy. Kyrie Eleison. Each Sunday when we come here, the Lord’s liturgy puts us in the doghouse, as we confess, “I, a poor, miserable sinner.” The Law of God declares that we’re all dirty dogs. There are no tricks we can perform, and there are no treats we can earn with our good behavior. In fact, where the law of God is concerned, we’re not just dirty dogs, we’re dead dogs, cut off from the Master’s table.

But take heart. For with the Lord Jesus, dogs get the crumbs that fall generously from the Master’s table. And those crumbs for us turn out to be rich fare indeed: Take, eat; this is my body given for you. Drink of it all of you, this cup is the New Testament in my blood, shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. This is Jesus talking—the same Jesus who went to the dogs in His death on a hill outside Jerusalem. There on His crucifixion cross Jesus dealt with your sins and (yes) the sins of the whole wide world, once and for all. He was ostracized and crucified as an outsider; but the blood He shed that day is what makes all of us insiders—children of the heavenly Father, brothers and sisters in Christ. And three days later His resurrection brought life from the dead for all who follow Him in faith and hope.

It’s not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs. Because you know what will happen! Those dogs will keep coming back to the table—wagging their tails behind them—bellying up to the buffet—eager and excited to scarf down whatever the Master’s hands deliver in their direction. So picture yourself as one of those pooches. Place your paws on the path to the Master’s table. Come with the hope and expectation of a dog that gets fed right from the table. Whining and begging aren’t necessary. For the Lord is serving up something wonderful here at this table—the forgiveness of sins and life that lasts forever—and nothing would delight Him more than to share it with you. This is why! This is why the Son of Man . . . is man’s best friend.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.