Many want to be the people other people think about, to be the main topic of conversation.
There’s a preoccupation, these days, with being the focus of every moment. But, if we're being honest, we'll admit that's not really a new thing. We've been caught up with being exceptional for quite some time. Decades. Centuries.
Maybe even millennia.
Part and parcel with this are certain phrases we toss about in our conversations, self-help books, and social media posts. Phrases like: "If you can't run with the big dogs, stay on the porch!" "Go big or go home!" "Cookies are for closers!" There are many of them, rendered all sorts of ways, but their messages all boil down to one thing: you want to be one of those people—a closer, a winner, a big dog.
But there's another side to that message: If you’re not a winner, you are, somehow, lesser. There’s a not-so-subtle subtext that you're either among the elite, or you're not worth our consideration.
In this week’s Matthew passage, Jesus is confronted by a non-Jewish woman. She is seeking His intervention on behalf of her daughter who is besieged by demons.
Jesus ignores her. (Wait. What?!)
But she keeps following Him, calling after Him, never letting up, really advocating on behalf of her suffering child. Even His disciples beg Jesus to address her—specifically, to send her away. Eventually, Jesus does engage with her, but the reader gets another surprise.
He does not give her what she's asked for.
He tells her that He was sent to the "lost sheep" of Israel. In other words: "Not you." Then, adding insult to injury, Jesus calls her a dog. He tells her it would not be right for the "little dogs" (house pets—as opposed to the big, feral dogs that ran in packs in those days) to have the food intended by the master for His children. She is one of the "little dogs," and, therefore, not due anything from Jesus.
Jesus is astonished by her response: "Even the dogs eat the crumbs from the master's table."
How often do you think Jesus is astonished by something we say or do? I can’t imagine it’s often. Here, Jesus is so affected by her perspective, He praises her faith. This is a faith that existed despite the absolute absence of any reason to believe it would produce a benefit for her or her daughter. He then grants her request.
We need to be like this woman—one of the "little dogs” in this world. We should seek Jesus even if we are convinced we are in no position to demand His attention, much less His action on our part.
Life is not about whether we're winners or losers, whether we're closers, or even if we can run with the big dogs. Desiring excellence can be a good thing. But it raises the question: With whom do we associate when we pursue that desire?
Maybe we should have been running with the little dogs all along.
_________________________
PHOTO: Adobe Express
_________________________
Join us Friday morning for DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast. We're in the back function room at Our Breakfast Place and we still start at 8:00-ish. Good food, good folk, spending an hour with a good God.
Blessings,
Steve.
SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY AND THE COMING WEEK
Find them here:
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=155
Print them from here:
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/pdf//Ax_Proper15.pdf
Genesis 45:1-15
Psalm 133
Isaiah 56:1, 6-8
Psalm 67
Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32
Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28
Proper 15 (20) (August 20, 2023)
_________________________
"The task is, not so much to see what no one has yet seen; but to think what nobody has yet thought, about that which everybody sees." —Erwin Schrödinger
No comments:
Post a Comment