Healed by the Scraps

In any modern day society, it's pretty easy to look around and observe some sort of hierarchical system. It can be observed in the way our government is set up, the way our neighborhoods are situated, and even the way most of our places of employment operate. There is almost always someone beneath you in the system, and those people typically don't receive the same recognition from you that the people above you do. 

Well, in Matthew 15, Jesus is walking along with His disciples in the region of Tyre when a Canaanite woman approaches Him asking for healing for her demon-possessed daughter. Jesus initially ignores her, but she follows them until the disciples had gotten so annoyed that they asked Jesus to send her away - most likely with the thought that he would heal her so that she would stop following them and begging.

Jesus replied, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel". This is an interesting response from a Man who was clearly sent to be the Savior to both the Jews and the Gentiles, although His time on earth was focused on teaching and preaching to the Jews, not charging them with going to the Gentiles until later. 

In response comes the following dialogue.

"The woman came and knelt before him. 'Lord, help me!' she said.

He replied, 'It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to the dogs.'

'Yes it is, Lord,' she said. 'Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table.'"

The wording here initially seems very harsh, but I believe Jesus was using this as a huge lesson for the Jews accompanying Him on this journey. He referred to Gentiles as dogs in order to meet the Jews where they were in a similar manner to how, at times, we perceive those below us in the social structures I discussed initially. He's not referring to Gentiles as acting like animals, but really trying to put emphasis on the social difference between Jews and Gentiles during that period of time. 

Jesus ends up healing her daughter because of the great faith she shows in Him during that interaction. She could have given up, but instead continued to follow and plead with Him to heal her daughter, knowing that He was her only hope, and that He had the power to make it happen. 

The biggest thing that stuck out to me in this whole interaction is the woman's final response. In this story, Jesus is clearly the master and the woman is the dog eating the crumbs falling from the table. Those crumbs brought healing to her daughter! It wasn't a four-course meal. It wasn't a home-cooked meal. It wasn't even a happy meal! The amount of love and healing that Jesus poured out on this woman, which amounted to crumbs, was enough to bring spiritual healing to her daughter!

Jesus loves us so much that a crumb of His love can change our lives. I also think that this is important to look at from the eyes of a master. Most of us have people following us, whether it's little children, employees, people at church, etc. Pay attention to those people - sometimes all they need to feel whole is a crumb of your love.