Matthew 15:25 “Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.”

Matthew 15:26 “But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.”

This is my dog “Boss”… you’ll see why I’ve attached a photo of him waiting at my feet at the lunch table at work by the time I’ve finished this!

… Matthew 15 and Mark 7 both tell the same story about a Canaanite woman who pleads for Jesus to heal her daughter spiritually… and he does.

What a story it is! At this time in the Bible, Jesus has gone on a bit of a field trip… he’s miles away from Jerusalem and all the Jewish towns, and he’s going through some Gentile towns, and amongst people who haven’t been as privileged as “his people” the Jews.

This woman’s people, the “Canaanites”, were meant to be totally destroyed back in the Old Testament, but they were spared… and MANY years later a Canaanite woman hears that Jesus is in town, and she doesn’t know a whole lot, she hasn’t been raised in a Jewish synagogue… and yet she does more with a crumb of information than what we with all Bible gospel truth exposure in the world will do in our lifetime.

It’s an amazing story, because she seeks Jesus asking for his help and mercy and she surrenders to the truth of his word… and it’s rare to ever meet anyone with those three attributes, even Christians… and even myself… and she’s like this even when Jesus’ disciples are telling her to get lost and Jesus himself says something very “offensive” to her!

And she shows us all up bigtime today just as much as she showed Jesus’ disciples and the Jews up back then.

Because the thing is, we have all grown up in a society that has it so good we are basically spoilt sick on the goodness of God. We can read our Bible whenever we fancy well please, we all know Jesus died on the cross sometime until we are sick of hearing it… we have been given sooo much light!

And yet we do so little with it… all while our table is so full. God’s put on quite a platter for us all, and then a crumb falls off, and someone who will value salvation and the things of God will do a lot more with a crumb than we do with the cheeseboard.

I’ve seen it happen, and usually the warmest spiritually alive people are those who don’t have religious “pedigree” and “breeding”, but those everyone else would turn their nose up at … just like those disciples telling Jesus to shoo her away. And there are many people in less fortunate countries and circumstances and at different times in different eras who did more with a scrap than we do with our smorgasboard.

This year, I’ve been able to taken my faithful dog to work with me, and it’s pretty cool to be able to do so, and at lunch time, he’ll wait at my feet or very close nearby hoping to hopefully get a bit of my lunch or someone else’s!

Every now and again I’ll throw him the worst piece of my meal, because I enjoy all the good bits of course, and yet he is more grateful and happy with the bit I refused than I am with all the choice meats and treats and sweets.

… All of us are going to be in for a rude surprise at judgment I think, and I can only fear for myself, but most people reading this probably have had a golden chance in life also… but what are we doing with all that God gave us?

God has been good to us, and we all have our complaints and grievances as part of living in the world we ruined… but reality is, we still mostly have had a pretty darn good go at life… and we all can be so unthankful and put so little value on something that someone else would just be dying to get… and that God will see does get. Remember, a beggar just wanting crumbs went to heaven in Jesus’s story while the rich man with the full spread went to hell.

… Why did Jesus find more faith out in a coastal town of the Gentiles than he did in the synagogues of Judea and Jerusalem? He finally found out here someone who didn’t get offended, someone who was seeking, pressing in with an honest open heart who would value even the small bit he gave her… which turned into a most amazing miracle in her life. … it’s not how much you have, it’s what you do, and what God does, with what you have.

In another scripture, Jesus had said “salvation is of the Jews”… God’s people had “privilege” … they had everything and yet were as cold as ice and deceitful as death in their religion… and what they didn’t want… a Canaanite woman gratefully took! Turns out there was more depth and spirituality in a woman “outside” than all those who were “in”.

And so Jesus did a lot with the words that came out of her mouth “For this saying go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter.” …This story may be a “crumb” in God’s word… but will we latch on to this woman’s exceptional faith though? Because while we live like kings, just maybe we are the true paupers. Her life was changed forever… but how come ours aren’t by the Saviour we claim?

…I’ve noticed that dogs aren’t offended by what they get given, they’re just as happy as if they had a feast if they’ve been thrown what nobody else wanted.

So we all need to wake up! Maybe the devil is still in us though, but through Christ God can and will get rid of that bad ungodly spirit that’s ruining our life as it was ruining this woman’s daughter’s life… and all you need is a crumb, and fair to say we’ve all had far more than that.

If Samuel as a boy didn’t let any of God’s words fall to the ground… so shouldn’t we! And if a dog won’t leave a crumb on the ground… how could we leave this world with our salvation untaken, fallen off the table and left lying on the ground for eternity… as the Bible says “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him;”

Have a great and blessed week people!

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