Puppies and Pigs
20th Sun in Ord Time
Syro-Phoenician Woman
What did we hear in our scripture
readings today? in our first reading the
Prophet Isaiah looks forward to the day when foreigners will worship with Jews
in the Temple so that it becomes a house of prayer for all peoples.
Then in the second reading St. Paul
in his letter to the Church in Rome presents his understanding of the
relationship between the new Christian communities and the Jewish communities
of his own time. He was confident that
God would one day bring us together, showing mercy to all of us as sons and
daughters of our divine Creator. Such
communities of Jews who accept Jesus as the Messiah exist, a few of them in our
own Archdiocese, but independently of Christian congregations.
And then the gospel tells a story of
Jesus blessing an insistent pagan woman with a miracle though he himself and his
disciples, too, both hesitate to even listen to her request. Today Let us look at that gospel story.
Imagine the disciples passing with
Jesus through the narrow streets of a small village on the edge of Israel where
Jews often mixed with people from different countries and different religions. A pagan woman who knows about Jesus’
miraculous powers moves quickly trying to catch up with them. She shouts out, “Jesus have pity on me. My daughter is possessed by a demon. Jesus, I must talk with you. Jesus please wait.” Jesus and the disciples know that she is a
pagan and pay her no attention.
But she keeps raising a ruckus and
the disciples plead with Jesus to at least recognize her, even simply to send
her away. Jesus tries to send her away
and declares, “I came only for the lost sheep of Israel.” But the woman is desperate and hastily falls
kneeling at Jesus feet and continues to plead her cause. Jesus sticks to his guns with a further
remark that seems so out of character, "It is not right to take the food
of the children and throw it to the dogs." Meaning, of course, that
his Father in heaven is giving graces to the Jews and there are none to spare even
for those who are not Jews.
But this woman will not be scared off
or offended. "Please, Lord,” she
says, “for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their
masters." She throws Jesus’
line right back at him. She expects
more from him and he finally relents.
Jesus praises her faith in him and cures the daughter. “Great is your faith; be it done for you as
youdesire.”
In this exchange with the pagan
woman, Jesus and his disciples come to understand that his Father’s power will
extend beyond the Jews. They
finally listen to the pagan woman and learn how God will let some graces fall
on her from the abundance with which God blesses the Jews. Jesus has already healed some pagans in
other circumstances but this incident brings out the tension between his
mission to the Jews and to the world at large.
Here Jesus shows his willingness to act on his compassion for non-Jews.
In today’s gospel the mention here by Jesus and
then the woman of “dogs” and the position of dogs in the culture of the day is
something to look at. Earlier in another
context, Matthew, our gospel writer today, quotes Jesus sending out his
disciples to preach and instructing them not to offer to dogs anything that is
holy or throw pearls to the pigs. We
know that pigs were considered unclean to the Jews in Jesus’s time but even
dogs are noted here as similar. With this expression Jesus is telling the disciples
not to waste their time with non-Jews and Gentiles. But he seems to place a harsh
characterization on them.
Indeed dogs in ancient Jerusalem were not loved
house pets. They were known, rather, as
unfriendly scavengers searching in the streets for something to eat. Yes, some shepherds used dogs in the
countryside to help them with herding of sheep but dogs had no place in the
towns and cities of Jesus homeland.
In today’s reading when Jesus refuses to heal
the daughter of a pagan woman, he describes the mother and daughter as dog-like scavengers not worthy of the food from the table. But the pagan mother out wits Jesus by
describing how often a puppy eats what falls from the master’s table, slightly
changing the word for dog to refer to a puppy, Here she speaks of the rare occurrence of a
puppy in the Jewish house. Jesus knows
that this scenario is unlikely in the Jewish household, nevertheless with the
woman’s image of the dog as a puppy, she softens Jesus’ heart. And he himself then yields to the deepness
of faith that this woman has in his own ability to bless her daughter.
When I was an adolescent, my older sister got a
mixed-breed puppy as a birthday present.
And we all enjoyed her. A year or two later she had a
litter of seven puppies who, to our delight, spent their first two months in
our basement. All seven puppies found
good homes with mostly word of mouth advertising. But the experience with these puppies helped
me understand how Jesus grew in compassion at the mention by the Gentile woman
of puppies eating scraps.
And I take this opportunity to share another
short conversation I had about dogs years ago after hearing the confession of a
nine-year-old farm boy. He shared with
me the duties that he had in the family farm yard, the care of several dogs and
cats. His older siblings, meanwhile, took care of the cows and pigs. I got a bit curious and asked him if he
thought that dogs went to heaven.
Without hesitation, he said, “Yes.”
And cats? “Yes.” And
then I asked about the pigs and he said, “I don’t know.” This lad would give something holy to the
dogs but would not be ready yet to give something holy or throw pearls to the
pigs.
But we do long for that day that Paul promised
us in the second reading, the day when Jews and Gentiles will sit together at
God’s merciful table and share their good fortune with the rest of creation.
