A Feast of Crumbs

This is my sermon text for September 9, 2018. The texts for my message were from the Gospel of St. Mark, Mark 7:24-37, and from James 2:1-17.  + pBRC

Lord God, help us to know your ways; 
teach us your paths.
Lead us in your truth, and teach us, 
for you are the God of our salvation; 
for you we wait all day long. Through Christ, our Lord. AMEN. 


May God’s Grace through the Good News of Jesus Christ be at the center of your lives forever.  AMEN.

We are uncomfortable with today’s Gospel lesson for two reasons, one we admit and one we don’t want to admit. We struggle with Jesus looking down and talking down to the woman, even though we are guilty of doing that to those who we consider to be the other, or lessor, in our lives.

But we don’t want to admit that we are unworthy dogs hoping for the crumbs of grace and love that may fall off of God’s table.

Jesus doesn’t just say no to the Syrophoenician woman who begs him to heal her daughter, ‘He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”‘

 In saying that his ministry is first and primarily to the people of Israel, he dismisses her, and all Gentiles, as dogs. It isn’t just a no, but an insult as well.

I wrestled and researched and tried to come up with an explanation for what Jesus said. I wanted to explain it away. I found a theory that Jesus said this as a way to test his disciples, except his disciples aren’t mentioned anywhere in the lesson.

Maybe Jesus meant it. "Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." Jesus’ ministry was first to the people of Israel. He came to them as a fulfillment of the promises God made to their ancestors. Jesus is the promised Messiah. He came to them first.

But what is he doing in the far North in Gentile territory? He’s waiting for someone to see the abundance. He’s waiting for someone to see that the cup is overflowing.

The Syrophoenician woman said, "Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." God’s love and grace and mercy and forgiveness are so abundant that those seated at the table cannot take in all of what is set before them. God’s blessings, through Jesus Christ, are so abundant that the People of God, the Children of Israel, cannot use them all. The blessings are spilling onto the floor, available for those who were not first invited to the feast.

The Syrophoenician woman was an outsider, someone who doesn’t fit in, but who needs help. She isn’t one of the people Jesus came to help. And she knows it. It takes an audacity to hope that you will be helped. Despite being called a dog, nonetheless, the Syrophoenician woman persisted.

We have no reason or expectation to believe that God could, would or should love us. We sin and rebel from God’s ways and God’s rules. We are told that we should first Love the LORD our God with all our heart and mind and soul and strength. And we are proud that we dedicate an hour (as long as the preacher doesn’t wander too far afield) a week to worship God. We are told to love our neighbor as ourselves, and we try to find every excuse to deny who our neighbor is, especially if they aren’t like us.

But the banquet of love and grace and mercy and forgiveness provided by the death and resurrection of the Son of God are so abundant that the crumbs spill from the table and onto the floor, where we can lap them up.

They are so abundant, we do not need to fight over them or hoard them, but we try. As we live off the crumbs of grace from God’s table, we tell others to go away. We try to make them feel unworthy and unwelcome.

In his letter, James describes the favoritism of a rich man over a poor man that could be played out in almost any church on any Sunday. You could take that example, change out a detail and demographic – race, age, education, sexual orientation, political leaning, place of birth, attire, and other ways we sort and separate one another – and it probably rings more true. Throw in such intra-church differences like preference in worship style, reception of communion and hymn selection, and it hits really close to home.

James reminds us, “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. … Judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.” We are unworthy dogs begging and hoping for the crumbs of mercy that may fall to us, having the audacity to hope God loves us, and feeds us, and forgives us. That audacity of hope, that persistence in reliance of the promises is our faith. It is waiting to feel that love, to taste that grace, to hear that forgiveness.

Faith is the fuel that keeps us going. But that faith should also keep us growing. Faith, waiting under the table for a crumb to fall to us, trusting it will happen is not enough. Just sitting under the table is resignation. Faith is bringing others to the table, or under the table in this metaphor. Faith is trusting there will be enough crumbs for all.

That is what James warns against in verse 17 of this lesson. “Faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead”  As he points out, prayers and blessings for the hungry and homeless are useless. In reality, they are an insult. It is as if you said the blessings we have are for us; they should not be given to the dogs.

We are fed by the crumbs from God’s table, and its abundance is more than enough for all of the world. May we always be audacious enough to share with others who come to Christ’s table as beggars, persisting in putting our faith into action to continually call others to the feast of crumbs. AMEN.