The Table That the Crumbs Fall From

...even the dogs...

In one of the most unusual stories of Jesus in the New Testament, a gentile woman comes to Jesus on behalf of her demonized young daughter. Jesus seems to at first ignore her (Matt. 15:23), and then rebuff her (Matt. 15:24), and finally insult her by comparing her to a dog (Matt. 15:26). At this time dogs were not so much pets as they were scavengers. Dogs are always depicted in a negative light in Scripture. Dogs eat what humans discard. To compare her and all gentiles to dogs is a sharp insult, one that echoes the attitudes of most Jews of Jesus' day--especially the Pharisees.

This doesn't sound like Jesus, does it? Yes, he insulted the members of the religious establishment, but He never once rebuffed anyone coming to Him for help, let alone insult them for trying. Yet, here...

Let's let the dissonance settle in for a bit. Jesus seems to go along with the Jewish assumptions about their superiority. His response to this woman seems to suggest that He also thought that the Jews were not only God's chosen, they deserved to be! Or, at least, the gentiles deserved it less.

But... But... That doesn't sound like Jesus, does it?!

I don't take it that way either. This story comes immediately after challenging some deeply held Jewish beliefs about what makes a person clean or unclean (in both Matthew and Mark's telling of the story). The very context makes us question the assumption that Jesus is playing the Jewish race card here, as racial purity was just as significant as dietary purity for the Jews at this time.

Let's suppose Jesus has already decided what He's going to do in the end--that He's going to grant this woman's request. Let's also suppose that He sees this as a teaching moment. Both assumptions seem to me to fit the way Jesus often responds to new situations. When He was told about Lazarus being sick, He deliberately stayed two more days, in order to teach His disciples about the power of God over death. It was a set up then. I read the "offensive" part of this story as a setup too.

By echoing the assumptions of His day, Jesus exposes these assumptions for what they are: assumptions that fail to reflect the character of God. When He accedes to the woman's statement "Even dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table," He confirms her assessment as correct theology: we do not receive from the hand of God because we are deserving, but because His table is bountiful.

This Got Me Thinking

What if she is right on another level? What if she not only recognizes that God will give her what she needs because of Who He is, rather than who she is, but that what she is asking for is trivial? What if she recognizes and Jesus affirms that healing and deliverance are crumbs that fall from the table and not bread eaten at the table?

For one involved in power ministry, especially coming out of a functional cessationism*, it is quite easy to see healing ministry, or the power gifts as the bread, compared to the crumbs of trying to live out of mere theological truths.  It's pretty cool when someone gets healed in front of your eyes, or their life is set free from years of demonic oppression. It really is! It's amazing! I wouldn't trade it for anything and I'll never go back to trying to do Christianity that has no demonstrable power in it.

But what if this woman is right: that compared to eating the bread of the Master's table, healing and deliverance are like crumbs that fall? What if the greater thing actually is eating at the table, in fellowship, as part of God's family?

I don't mean to diminish the importance of the miraculous, the importance of showing God's love for His children demonstrated in healing, deliverance and the like. As I said above, I don't want to ever live without that anymore, and I don't believe for a second that God wants us to!

On the other hand, I've been a part of healing ministry, where someone got healed and then returned to their same lifestyle as before--even doing the things that required them to come for healing! I've seen people delivered in amazing ways, only to return to bitterness and envy. It's crazy! Or is it? Maybe it's just that "crumbs" aren't enough. Maybe we should stop trying to understand crumbs as bread. Maybe we should stop trying to confuse a demonstration of the love of God with an encounter with the love of God.

The Bread At the Table

There is a bread for the children of God that feeds and fills. This bread is more than crumbs that fall from God's table. This bread is bread that is eaten at the table.

If the crumbs that fall are demonstrations of God's power and love, then the bread is that powerful love.

When we consider ourselves outsiders, undeserving ones, anything other than God's real children, we can find ourselves content with crumbs. We deserve no more--and apart from what Jesus has won for us, that's true. But what Jesus has won for us is this: Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God (John 1:12).

In Christ, our proper place is at the table, not fighting for the scraps that fall from it, nor being satisfied with crumbs. Our proper place, our rightful place is as children at the table.

Jesus' purpose for us was to make a way to the Father (John 14:6), and to receive the Father's love (John 14:21, 23). Yet for so many of us, whether within our outside of the charismatic camp, we live our Christian lives expecting no more than crumbs. We live with the assumption that we are dirty dogs, scavenging for crumbs. Yet our proper place is at the table, in loving fellowship with the Triune God. Our proper food is bread loaves, and not merely bread crumbs.

How do we do this? What does this look like to eat bread rather than crumbs? Mostly this is a matter of understanding who we are in Christ, and coming to believe that what Jesus accomplished for us actually applies to us and has been applied to us.

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. (Rom. 8:14–16)  

 

It's a done deal. It's accomplished. And while there is more to come, we are sons and daughters now. When we were born again, God became our true Father; we were born into His family. That's not a metaphor, that's the new reality.

As God's children, His sons and daughters, we sit at the table as if we belong, because we do. We go to Him in prayer knowing He'll hear us as our Father. We go out doing what He asks because we trust that as Father He asks us to do what is good, and that He will be with us. We minister to His children knowing He loves them more than we do and wants to show them His love. We spread the Good News so that all God's children can find their proper place at the table too. So much more than getting our head on straight, bodies healed, people delivered, and even sins forgiven, we invite people into their place in God's family.

I hope these musings make sense. I've not said everything that could be said on this story, nor on this topic. I'm pondering what this might all mean, but I know that Abba loves me. Do you?

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*Cessationism is the belief that all so-called power ministry (healing, deliverance, miracles, even speaking in tongues) ceased when the Bible was assembled in the form we have it today (that is, when the canon was closed). A "functional cessationism" doesn't hold to this assumption as theology, so much as simply does not function in any of the so-called "power gifts."