Matthew 15:21-28

[Spencerian]

21Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon.

22And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.

23But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us.

24But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

25Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.

26But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.

27And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.

28Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.

Who is the lost sheep of the house of Israel? and why does Jesus refer to those who are not of the house of Israel as dogs? I find this passage very confusing, from what I have researched on line some believe the house of Israel are the Jewish people others believe Israelites are a different people from the Jewish people. The Jewish people are from the house of Judah?

Learned a bit about this passage in a homily not long ago.

When the woman first spoke, she said, “Help me, O Lord, Son of David.” This would be a proper way to greet the Messiah or a known member of the line of David…that is, if you were a Jew in good standing.

But the woman* wasn’t* a practicing Jew in the traditional sense and Christ knew it.

First he ignored her because of this. When she persisted, He called her out on it strongly and refused to help, implying that He knew she was not in the proper or common teachings of the Jews of the time.

But it was her plea for mercy with humility, by acknowledging who and what she was but yet asking for whatever help He could give, that impressed Christ. He waited for her to be honest and contrite about herself and not to come to Him under a pretext. His language was stern because of this.

Christ’s actions would be similar to what a priest might do for a person in confession who does not appear to have contrition. If there is not a genuine act of repentance or acknowledgement of the person’s standing in the eyes of God, the priest, like Christ, could refuse to give help. In the priest’s case, absolution. In this passage, Christ heals.

Both examples would be miracles.

 

[Road2Damascus]

All the same, I believe the Samaritans are a ‘Semitic’ people. So, likewise, not sure if Samaritans could ever be called Gentiles.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samaritan

 

[catholicscot]

In reply to another discussion about this I wrote-

The episode reminded me of the earlier event at Cana in Galilee where our Lord responded to our Lady’s prayer “they have no wine” by saying My hour has not come yet and then going ahead and changing water into wine thus inaugurating His public ministry in response to His blessed mother’s prayer. Here Jesus responds to the Canaanite woman’s plea ‘Lord, Son of David, take pity on me.’ by saying I was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. As before He is laying out His game plan. He is the fulfilment of the Mosaic Law therefore His religious mission is only directly relevant to those people who embrace the Law or are embraced by it. Once the Law is fulfilled it becomes universal until then it is particular.

Undeterred the woman says ‘Lord help me’ which leads to the famous retort It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to little dogs. Let us be clear. The Law points to a community which is pure and an outside world which is impure, unclean. Our Lord is correctly restating that perspective. The things of the world are at enmity with the things of God and the community of the Law was a visible (and deeply flawed) image of the purity of God in relation to which the world was an image (profoundly accurate) of those things and people which are impure. It would be an affront to give what is pure to those who would make it impure simply by touching it. First the receiver of the gift must be purified and then the gift can be given. And gentiles could only be purified by being washed in the Blood of the Lamb not yet shed at this point.

Once more the woman was undeterred. ‘Ah yes, Lord; but even little dogs eat the scraps that fall from their masters’ table.’ Her persistence in prayer, her faith and the compassion of Jesus combine to produce the desired and expected result her daughter is cured. The cure consists of having a demon cast out of her which is symbolic in itself but I shall not dwell on that in this context. Now we have the next resonance with the Cana episode. After turning the water into wine there was no looking back. Our Lord went on to the full flowering of His Galilean ministry. After healing the Canaanite woman He goes on deeper into gentile territory.

29 Jesus went on from there and reached the shores of the Lake of Galilee, and he went up onto the mountain. He took his seat, 30 and large crowds came to him bringing the lame, the crippled, the blind, the dumb and many others; these they put down at his feet, and he cured them.

Proceeding from Tyre and Sidon, Gentile country, He goes over the mountains into the gentile lands at the top of the Sea of Tiberias. It is significant that throughout the Gospels when He heals like this He is also described as preaching and teaching but here He simply confines Himself to healing as teaching would not be appropriate here. Even so His audience recognises what is going on

31 The crowds were astonished to see the dumb speaking, the cripples whole again, the lame walking and the blind with their sight, and they praised the God of Israel.

When Jewish crowds praise God it is simply said “they praised God”. Here it is said “they praised the God of Israel” to make clear that it was not their own tribal or local God they were praising but that of the charismatic Jewish healer in their midst. He goes on to perform His second feeding miracle and afterwards seven baskets of scraps are collected. I am told that the Greek word used for basket here is different to the one used for the earlier feeding of five thousand event. One word was used for the kind of baskets peculiar to the Jews and another for that peculiar to Gentiles. However that might be the numbers have significance. Twelve baskets are collected at the Jewish event and twelve is a number signifying the tribes of Israel. Seven baskets are collected at the gentile event and, as I have written elsewhere, seven is a number signifying fullness, completeness and signifies here that the gentiles will eventually form part of the completeness of the people of God.

So the disparaging reference to “dogs” at the beginning of this sequence is merely the trigger for a sequence of events displaying the power of prayer and the compassion of Jesus.

 

[jcrichton]

All the same, I believe the Samaritans are a ‘Semitic’ people. So, likewise, not sure if Samaritans could ever be called Gentiles.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samaritan

…yeah, but the distinction, I believe, is not due to ethnic/racial background but rather it was a religious one (Hebrews vs. Gentiles); a Jew separating themselves from Judaism (religious worship/belief) would have seen as non-Jew (this is my personal understanding as many of the Jews I’ve have had exchanges with imply that the Church was founded by Christians (Gentiles) as they do not recognize/accept the Apostles’ Jewish origins (incidentally, non–so far–would even speak of Jesus).

Maran atha!

Angel