Today's Gospel, What did Jesus mean?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Simon_X
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
S

Simon_X

Guest
Matthew 15: 21 - 28
21 And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon.
22 And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and cried, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely possessed by a demon.”
23 But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, “Send her away, for she is crying after us.”
24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.”
26 And he answered, "It is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs."
27 She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table."
28 Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

I understand Jesus was perhaps testing the woman’s faith and showing that the Church was open also to Gentiles, but why the little tug of war in his exchange with her. Was that done more for those that were also witnessing this exchange or testing to see how much faith this woman had or something else? Our Lord, or course, rewards the woman by healing her daughter, but the exchange of words has always baffled me a bit.

Any comments? Thanks
 
The priest in his homily today said there were 3 parties to this exchange: the woman, Jesus, and and His disciples. Remember how they asked Him to make her go away, she was disturbing the peace.
In conclusion, Father said that this showed the kingdom of God would be open to all, irregardless of race (she was a Canaanite), or gender (female!), and whatever other differences were there - and that WE as His disciples need to take this lesson to heart.
Beautiful example of persistance in prayer, no?
We serve a great and loving God!!****
 
Yes, He was testing her faith like He tests yours and mine all the time. He tested it by
  1. Not answering - I can relate.
  2. Disciples want to send her away - imagine how that felt?.
  3. You are a gentile and I was sent for the lost sheep of Isreal - you are not worthy.
  4. crumbs cast to dogs - again - not worthy.
    She knelt before our Lord and showed her faith. I pray for that kind of faith in my life.
“One Day with the Lord is better than 1,000 without…” from today’s 2nd reading.
 
Brother Simon,

I was just wondering about that myself! It’s interesting, me and my wife were just reading the Holy Scriptures and trying to understand why, right as soon as you posted this. 😃

First of all, I’m not sure he was testing her faith, for he already knew what was inside in her heart. My biggest eureka into this mystery is how he refuses to answer and then talks about the children of Israel (the lost sheep of the house of Israel). I think that our Lord was pointing out how he came to redeem the lost children of Israel first, and the Gentile second. Note, his second response talks about throwing bread to the dogs, which was a Jewish word for Gentiles. (Read this note from the American Bible: usccb.org/nab/bible/matthew/matthew15.htm#foot10) After he makes this remark, the woman then says that even dogs (Gentiles) eat the scraps from their masters (By the way, her words make for a beautiful prayer 👍). So all in all my view of this is that it’s a kind of foreshadowing of how the Gospel will be preached even in the Gentile world, and it gives us insight as to how successful it will be throughout that world.

I think it’s good to point out, there is a reading in this same Gospel I believe, of how Jesus came to his home town, and the people there who knew him from his childhood had little faith in him, so he left and did not perform any miracles.

In Him,
 
Jesus was making a point.

The Jews were to be the first receive the message but they were taking only tibits here and there. It wasn’t yet the woman’s time, because she was a Gentile. The Gentiles were to come into Jesus’ family much later. Jesus came to “convert” the Jews first.

But, the woman persists; so much so that the Apostles wanted her to go away! It is because of her persistance that Jesus finally relents and grants her request. It is from the tidbits (scrapes) that the Jews don’t take that the woman takes and accepts that Jesus is the Messiah and proclaims Him as such! Not even the Jews had done that but the woman takes the scapes and appoaches Jesus in faith.

This is also good in explaining how Jesus will answer our prayers - if we just persist!
 
There is a really good sermon you can listen to about this gospel reading at this website:
wordonfire.org/

It’s now listed under “Last Week’s Sermon”.
 
My priest made a good point about this, he said first of all that Jesus was testing her faith, and then He also teaches us in this passage that we need to be persistant in our prayers to God, and speak out.

As far as Jesus sent to house of Israel, that does indicate that He came to them first before the Gentiles, and that was to give the Jews no excuse for their rejection of Him.
 
Thank you all very much for replying. Such a small Gospel, but so much wisdom…
 
Simon_X said:
Matthew 15: 21 – 28 . . .

Any comments? Thanks
Click to expand...
Laudatur Iesus Christus.

I would like to offer a few points that may add to what has already been said, all of which seems wholesome and true. The following is my reflection on the passage and is not offered as an official teaching of the Church. I do not intend it to conflict with anything that has been said; if anyone thinks it is in conflict with the Church’s teachings, I would be grateful for the advice.

If one focuses away from “racism” as an issue – not that this is not a legitimate message of the passage, but just that it is a pet theory of the 18th and 19th Centuries and a modern rather than an absolute concern – there may be an additional, more direct way to understand what Jesus is doing.

There are two points: The meaning of Israel’s priority in salvation and the definition of a “lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

Israel was trained by the Lord throughout the Old Testament as a preparation for the Gospel. Without the lessons learned through the “divine pedagogy” of the Old Testament (cf. II Vatican, Dei Verbum, 15), one cannot hear or understand the message of the Gospel. “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old,” (Matthew (RSV) 13:52).

This preparation was necessary. So, the gentiles, who had not been prepared, were not ready to hear the message. Certain essentials of the Old Testament must be accepted because they are an indispensable part of the Gospel. (This need was at the root of the many decisions that were made in the early administration of the Church about which formal actions were necessary and which were un-necessary in conveying to new converts the essential message of the lessons taught to Israel as a people.)

Taking the Lord at His word and assuming that He neither misleads nor changes His mind, one is challenged to see in what sense this “Canaanite woman” is “of the house of Israel.”

First, I would like to make a point made by G.K. Chesterton in The Everlasting Man: the gentiles were civilized. They were even cosmopolitan and “tolerant” in the modern sense of giving equal status to all religions and all “gods” venerated by the many peoples making up the Persian and then the Roman empires. The “house of Israel” was uniquely irksome because of its tenacious refusal to allow its God to be subsumed into the pantheon of all people’s gods. This stark monotheism was one of the hard-learned lessons of the Old Testament.

One might ask, is this “tolerance” or “indiferentism” one of the things that made the gentiles “dogs” (or as a closer translation of the Greek might have it “pups”), less than human, though domesticated and living in human habitations and dependent on humans for life. Was Jesus’ use of “dogs” merely a “rhetorical ploy,” meant to have an impact on the listeners, but the substance meant to be ignored? I submit that it was not. I would assert that the Lord was saying, for those who could hear, that to be a polytheist is to fail to realize one’s full humanity. It is to be a sort of pet, a hanger-on of humanity, but not to have all of the attributes of humanity. ““Christ . . . makes man fully manifest to man himself and brings to light his exalted vocation,” (II Vatican, Gaudium et Spes, 22, 1; cited in Catechism of the Catholic Church (1997), 1710).

The woman shows herself to be “of the house of Israel,” in part, because she does not dispute this need of the gentiles. She does not deny that the gentiles are “dogs” or “pups.” By this, she acknowledges what only a true Jew could see, that in an important way those outside of Israel’s house lived animal and not fully human lives.

Recall too what “Israel” means: “one who contends with God.” (Thy name shall not be called Jacob, but Israel: for if thou hast been strong against God, how much more shalt thou prevail against men?" (Genesis 32:27).) The unforgettable repartee between the woman and Jesus establishes her as having the true Israelite’s courage in talking to God; it also displays her assumption of God’s reasonableness and responsiveness to argument. In these too, the “Caananite woman” is shown to be “of the house of Israel.”

These two attributes, realizing that the non-Jew needs more than he has and familiarity with God’s rational and loving nature, which makes contention with Him possible, establishes the truth of what Jesus said: “I was sent *only *to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” (Matthew (NAB) 15:24; emphasis added).

In the passage in question, Jesus did not relent, rather, He taught that being “of the house of Israel” was not a matter of fleshy descent, but of receiving the gifts that God imparted to men through the “education” (leading out – “exodus”) of Israel.

We must all be “of the house of Israel,” if we are to hear the Gospel. It is not that Jesus was sent to the Jews “first” and then to *someone else *later, rather, we must all be “Jews” to hear the Gospel. However, one must understand that it is not circumcision, ritual washings, or descent from Jacob that makes one a “Jew” in the relevant sense, but acceptance of what God has given mankind through His love and care for the Chosen People.

I hope this is helpful.

Pax Christi nobiscum.

John Hiner
 
Simon_X said:
Matthew 15: 21 - 28
21 And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon.
22 And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and cried, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely possessed by a demon.”
23 But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, “Send her away, for she is crying after us.”
24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.”
26 And he answered, "It is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs."
27 She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table."
28 Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly.
Click to expand...
An interesting angle here is in the phrase about “crumbs that fall from their masters’ table”. The way I see it, what Jesus wanted to draw out from her was a lesson NOT so much that the Gentiles are deserving, too, but that the lost sheep of the House of Israel, the Jews, did not savor every crumb of what He came to feed them with - that is, the bread of life come down from heaven.

Their persistence in sin and their foreseen rejection of Christ amounted to carelessly letting these precious, life-giving “crumbs” of manna “fall from the table”. So why shouldn’t the “dogs”, the Gentiles, naturally come and scoop them up? If their masters couldn’t be bothered for the scraps or crumbs, then it is eminently just that the Gentile “dogs” are permitted to consume what has been carelessly thrown away, a crumb of which, itself, will bring salvation.
 
My Priest mentioned that there is also two types of dogs. The Greek word used here is for a pet or working dog. The other word that could have been used (wasn’t) is for stray or wild dogs. My Priest said that the context in which Jesus spoke would have been understood by the woman.
 
John_Hiner said:
We must all be “of the house of Israel,” if we are to hear the Gospel. It is not that Jesus was sent to the Jews “first” and then to *someone else *later, rather, we must all be “Jews” to hear the Gospel. However, one must understand that it is not circumcision, ritual washings, or descent from Jacob that makes one a “Jew” in the relevant sense, but acceptance of what God has given mankind through His love and care for the Chosen People.
Click to expand...
Brother John, I love what you wrote here and it makes perfect sense within the context of the faith. I would also add that this further reveals how God in Christ did not come to abolish the old law nor the old covenant, but to fullfil it, just as it written in the book of Revelations about the new world, and the new Israel.
 
M0nkey said:
Brother John, I love what you wrote here and it makes perfect sense within the context of the faith. I would also add that this further reveals how God in Christ did not come to abolish the old law nor the old covenant, but to fullfil it, just as it written in the book of Revelations about the new world, and the new Israel.
Click to expand...
Laudatur Iesus Christus.

Dear MOnkey:

Thank you for your kind comments.

It is important that one not fall into a racist interpretation of the Scriptures. To assume that Jesus recognized the racial distinction between the Israelites and the Caanaites and was merely willing to “ignore” the distinction in this case seems a dangerous reading. On the contrary, ““harbouring racist thoughts and entertaining racist attitudes is a sin against the specific message of Christ” (Pontifical Commission Justitia et Pax, The Church and Racism: Towards a more Fraternal Society, (1989), 24.)

To see in this Scripture Christ’s definition of the meaning of “house of Israel” which transcends bloodlines and fleshy descent thoroughly explodes the very idea of race as relevant, rather than tacitly admitting that race is a meaningful category in God’s view. (Race may be a sociological category of concern at times, but it is not an absolute category.)

I agree with you, this approach to this Scripture makes clear how the true Israel of the Church is the flowering of the Israel of the flesh.

I am reminded of a quotation attributed to Pope Pius XI: “Spiritually, we are all Semites,” (in audience 6 September 1938); and of the teaching of St. John the Baptist, ‘. . . do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones,” (Matthew (NAB) 3:9; Luke 3:8).

Pax Christi nobiscum.

John Hiner
 
You might want to take a look the short Bible study I prepared for this by going to the link below:
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top