Sermon: The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost- August 17, 2026

Matthew 15:10-28

The Rev'd Ezgi Saribay Perkins, The Rector

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:00

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Jesus answered, It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs. What do we do with gospel text that records Jesus saying something so manifestly unchristlike? Jesus' words to this Gentile woman are unmistakably bigoted, nationalistic at best, and racist at worst. How are we to make sense of them? Conservative Christians tend to interpret the offensiveness away, arguing that Jesus wasn't promoting exclusion but simply asserting the priority of his mission to fellow Jews. Takeaway, it's okay to be a prick if you have a good reason. Progressives, on the other hand, tend to read the passage with pearls clutched and Christology low. They suggest that the very human Jesus was sadly a product of his time, and his unfortunate microaggression demonstrates that even good people can be blinded by implicit cultural bias. Bottom line, even Jesus needs saving from prejudice. But both ends of the spectrum, of course, are wholly entitled to their theological opinions, but in this case they both suffer from notable and unfortunate disadvantage of being wrong. Something far bigger but subtler is going on in this passage. Specifically, I'd like to take a few minutes to show you how the context of this story within Matthew makes it clear that Jesus is deliberately confronting his disciples' own cultural bias and preparing them to carry his gospel beyond the boundaries of Israel. Two weeks ago, we read Matthew's account of the feeding of the 5,000. This event took place near Bethsida, a predominantly Jewish area on the northeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. You'll remember that after Jesus fed the 5,000, the disciples collected twelve baskets of leftovers, one basket of takeout for each tribe of Israel. And last week we read that after the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus hurried his disciples onto a boat and compelled them to sail westward without him across the Sea of Galilee. And in the wee hours of the morning he caught up with them, walking as one does on the sea. After saving Peter from a watery grave and a calming storm, he arrived with his disciples at Gennesaret, a Jewish city on the western shore, where he performed some healings and provided distinctively Jewish teachings about ritual purity. And that brings us to today's gospel. From Gennesaret, Jesus and the twelve headed northwest into the region of Tyrion Sidon, now a Gentile territory. And there they encountered a Canaanite woman. The word Canaanite is doubly loaded. It refers not simply to the woman's non-Jewish heritage, but more pointedly to the fact that she's a direct descendant of the people that Jews were supposed to have exterminated when they entered the promised land fourteenth centuries ago. To say that this lady was a persona non grata to observant Jews would be quite the understatement. To their thinking, she should not have been there because she should not have been alive. This detail explains the disciples' reaction to the woman's entreaty. The disciples don't say to Jesus, Lord, just heal this woman, maybe she'll shut up and leave us alone. No, they say send her away. Imagine the level of cultural prejudice it takes to hear a woman beg for the healing of her child and then respond by begging a proven healer just to send away. And that is the dynamic of the scene. And what is sadder is the disposition of Jesus' disciples. Interestingly enough, Matthew doesn't tell us whether Jesus answers the woman or the disciples or both when he says I wasn't sent out. The word here is related to our word apostle, except for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. When the apostles heard this, they are likely engaged in the first century. Fist bump. Yea, Jesus, way to put this piece of human garbage in our place. When the woman hears it, she feels one more crack form in her already breaking heart. But what if she heard and what what if what she heard and what they heard wasn't exactly what Jesus tries trying to say? What if Jesus' lost sheep exception was inclusive of the woman instead of exclusive? As both the woman or the apostles probably thought. Nevertheless, she persists. She kneels before Jesus and cries, Lord, help me. We can't know whether she is using Lord as a title of human respect or divine recognition, but it is abundantly clear that she wants healing and she thinks Jesus is going to give it. And again, Jesus answers. Matthew does not specify precisely the whom. It's not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs. What an offensive statement of an offensive belief. Palestinian Jews of the day often referred to Gentiles as dogs, believing them to be human equivalent of strays and scavengers. These words must have cut the Canaanite woman to the quick, while causing the chests of Jesus' apostles to swell with pride. But then again, I believe something else is going on. In Matthew's Greek, two interesting things are going on in the text. First, the two verb stems in the verse are mirror images of each other the take and the throne, Lobain and Balain. Second, the word rendered simply as dog in the translation we read earlier is actually in a diminutive form. It means little dog, that is puppy or a pet, something that is beloved. In this verse it's placed in parallel with the word which means little human or a child, again, something that is beloved. Think about it. Two verbs that mirror one another and two diminutive nouns both in parallel. Is that an accident? Maybe it sounds like poetry or at least prefabricated prose. I know what some of you might be thinking. Yes, that's what the Greek says, but Jesus didn't speak Greek, he spoke Aramaic. Here's the question. What makes us think that Jesus only spoke Aramaic, particularly when he was speaking to the Gentiles in a Gentile region? Jesus would have known some Greek as a tradesman, son of a tradesman in a Hellenized area. It was the common language of the Roman Empire. Even more importantly, Mark's version of this account clearly states that this woman was Greek speaking. Since neither Matthew nor Mark gives any indication that Jesus was speaking through an interpreter, I think we can safely guess that he was speaking to the woman in Greek. So this is Jesus' words, not prefabrication. If this be the case, then it becomes more than just conceivable that Jesus' harsh but very polished words were actually an allusion to a Greek proverb, one that both the apostles and the woman may have known, but would have interpreted very differently. The apostles likely would have taken Jesus to be saying, It isn't good to take bread belonging to the children of Israel and throw it to the Gentiles stray dogs. They would have had the feeding of the five thousand fresh in their minds. They would have associated bread with mana from heaven, God's divine provision for his chosen people. The Canaanite woman, however, obviously heard Jesus' words differently. She heard it isn't good to take bread from the master's children and feed it to the master's pets. We know this from our response, yes, for even the dogs eat the crumbs under the table of their master. Stray dogs don't eat falling crumbs, but household pets do. This woman makes a sophisticated theological argument that is easily missed. She is saying, I'm not asking to sit at the children's place at the table to eat fro from their plates. I just want to eat the leftovers. And what an insight this person has. She realizes that in the master's household, those already seated at the table didn't have to lose anything in order to hungry outsiders to eat. And there is plenty of bits of bread to spare. And hearing these words, Jesus must have smiled from ear to ear. For the first time in this passage, Matthew tells us clearly that Jesus directs an answer specifically to this woman. O dear lady, great is your faith. Let it be done for you as you wish. And Matthew concludes by telling that her wish has come true. The daughter is healed. But that wasn't the only healing in the story. If we were to keep reading in Matthew's gospel, we discover something amazing. After this, Jesus does another healing mission and feeds another multitude, as he did in our gospel two weeks ago. But this time he moves on from a Jewish region to a Gentile region. So it is clear from the text that the healings were Gentile healings. And the Matthew writes, The crowd was in awe when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled healthy, and the blind seeing, and they gave glory to the God of Israel. And what is more, in the second feeding story, the feeding of the four thousand, the number of baskets containing leftovers is a twelve, but seven, the Hebrew number of completion and fulfillment. The implication of this is stunning. In a sense, the lost sheep of the house of Israel, to which Jesus was sent, have been found amongst the Gentiles, and by the way, they are Gentiles. And they too have eaten God's bread in the wilderness. And guess what? There is plenty of food left for anyone who's hungry. So what about the twelve disciples? You know the ones who wanted to send the dogs away hungry? Well, in a sense they are healed too of their bigotry. Because in the second feeding story, we find them eating with the people they earlier considered to be dogs and gathered up their leftovers to share later. In a dramatic reversal, the disciples witness the extension of the blessings of the kingdom to non Jews, and they are sent out to share Israel's blessing with a restored Israel, gathered from every tribe, language, tongue, and nation. The problem that arises from today's gospel is not the need to justify Jesus' priorities and prejudices, but to account for our own. As disciples of Christ, we all too often want to silence the barks of those we consider to be society's dogs. We want to shoe them away from the table and deprive them even of our crowns. They don't share our priorities. They run afoul of our prejudices, and we are afraid that they may take ours. Yet Jesus calling us to hear them, to speak to them in their own languages instead of ours, and to invite them to share in the master's bounty. But this is a toll order because we are sinners, but it is made possible because Christ is a great savior. At our master's table, there is plenty good room and more than enough for everyone to eat. The difference between the child and the stray exists only in the eyes of the human beholder, not in the eyes of God. And everyone eats the same food and dines at the same table and dwells in the same household, and shares invitation of the same master. To God, all our beloved children, and if God had pets, you can be assured that He would love and treat them better than we do ours. Amen.