Proper 15, Year A

Matthew 15:21-28

One of the treasures of the Anglican liturgical tradition is the prayer we say together every Sunday just before Holy Communion: the Prayer of Humble Access (sometimes affectionately known as “the Humble Grumble”). “We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteous, but in thy manifold and great mercies.”

But some people find the second sentence of the prayer problematic. “We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table.” On one or two occasions, I’ve had parishioners complain that they find this line demeaning. Doesn’t respect for human dignity require us to acknowledge the inherent worthiness of all people to sit at the table, let alone forage around underneath it? Today, indeed, a great many Episcopal churches display welcome signs proclaiming, “There’s a place for you at the table.”

The key point that we’re apt to overlook, however, is that the sentence, “We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table” alludes to todays’ Gospel. In response to Jesus telling the Canaanite woman, “It is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs,” she answers, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” So, to understand what’s really going on when we recite the Prayer of Humble Access, it helps first to understand what’s going on in this rather odd exchange between our Lord and the Canaanite woman.

Jesus and the disciples have entered the region of Tyre and Sidon in what is today Lebanon. When this Canaanite woman starts crying out to him to heal her demon-possessed daughter, he’s initially silent and unresponsive. His disciples beg him to send her away; and he declares, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel.” Then, when she kneels before him and begs for his help, he seems not only to rebuke but to insult her: “It is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”

Biblical commentators have spilled oceans of ink trying to explain – and in some cases to explain away – his apparent rudeness to the woman. But his statement is best understood in light of what he’s already just said: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Those words open up deep questions. At bottom, our discomfort with the story stems from what’s sometimes called "the scandal of particularity." That’s shorthand for the difficulty many people experience with the idea that God chooses to work through certain specific individuals and peoples, and not others, in furthering his purposes in the world and carrying out his plans within history.

Yet the rest of Matthew’s Gospel indicates that during his earthly life our Lord understood his mission in precisely these terms. He begins his missionary charge to the twelve apostles with the instructions, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Only after his Resurrection does he expand the mission by telling them: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations …”

In my priestly ministry I’ve discovered that when I’m faced with competing demands on my time and attention, it’s necessary to sort out my priorities. At any given point in time, I could be doing many different things, all equally important and worthwhile. Yet trying to do everything would result in accomplishing nothing. One useful test is to ask the question: How well would acting on this suggestion serve to advance the specific mission of this parish or to fulfill my specific vocation as a priest? I certainly don’t claim always to get the answer to that question right. Far from it. But it’s the right question to ask. And before one can even begin to try to answer it, one needs a clear sense of one’s own mission and calling.

Well, our Lord did have a clear sense of his mission and calling. For the time being at least, he’d been sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. So, confronted by a Gentile woman from outside Israel claiming his time, attention, and energy, the substance of his response isn’t all that unreasonable: Sorry, I can’t do everything; and this just isn’t part of what I’ve been sent to do. Beyond that, he doesn’t owe her anything, and he says as much.

Why, then, does he relent in the end and grant her request? We could chalk it up to her courage, persistence, and wit, as many commentators do. But I think that we can go one step further. Her response – “even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table” – displays enormous insight into the mystery of God’s election of the Jews in relation to Gentiles such as herself. She reminds Jesus that the ultimate purpose of his mission to the lost sheep of the house of Israel is precisely to enable Israel to fulfill its vocation of being a light to the nations. Moreover, our Lord’s mission to Israel lays the groundwork for the Church’s mission to the world. Then the dogs – that is, the Gentiles – will indeed be fed by the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.

One problem is that contemporary church people reading this Gospel tend to identify with Jesus and the disciples and derive a message about how we need to be more inclusive and accepting of outsiders. But the real force of the story hits us only when we realize that we are the outsiders. The beauty and power of the Prayer of Humble Access is that it reminds us that the characters in the story with whom we’re to identify are precisely the dogs.

We are, after all, most of us Gentile Christians. God chose the Jews first. They’re the children who have the first place at God’s table. Any place we may have at (or for that matter under) that table is secondary and derivative – it comes to us through Israel and through Jesus, the Jewish Messiah.

Jesus doesn’t owe us anything, just as he didn’t owe the Canaanite woman anything. We have no claim to a place at God’s table on the basis of any inherent worthiness or merit of our own. Yet our Lord granted the Canaanite woman’s request on account of her great faith. And insofar as he grants us anything that we seek from him, it can only be on account of our faith and trust in his mercy, and nothing else.