Today’s Scripture Reading (September
5, 2014): Matthew 15
Last week a
preschool student was kicked out of his school because of a comment that his
mother made on Facebook. Mom’s defence was that she had the right to put
whatever it was that she wanted on her “private’ Facebook account. And the
incident highlights a couple of unfortunately common misconceptions of our
current culture. The first misconception is that Facebook is somehow “private.”
In this incident, Mom also tagged the preschool in her complaint. I have to
admit that I have done exactly the same thing. But in tagging the comment, I am
hoping that the company that I am complaining about will read the comment and
know that I am displeased. But at the same time, in complaining I am opening
myself to whatever the company wants to do against me. And with an industry
like preschool where there often seems to be more kids than openings, especially
in quality programs, the practice can be risky.
But the
second misconception is that somehow I have rights. I have commented on this
misconception before, but especially in the cultural west we seem to have an
overblown opinion of ourselves. We have been told so often to stand up for
rights that we often begin to believe that we actually have them. And the
things that we believe are our rights would have astounded even our
grandparents of a couple of generations past. We seem to expect things to be handed
us, and are upset when that turns out not to be case.
This is one
of the hard passages of the Bible, especially for our modern ears. If it was
us, we would probably have demanded something out of Jesus. We deserve to have
Jesus come and take care of our lack. But Jesus does not respond to the request
the way that we think that he should. Instead of giving to the woman what she
needs, he turns her down with this strange comment that he was not sent to her
racial group. And then he comments that he cannot take away from the ones who
he was sent to in order to give what he has to others – like this woman.
There have
been those that have used this passage as proof that even Jesus himself did not
believe that he was sent in order to save the whole world – that there were
some that were outside of Jesus’ purpose. But I think that what Jesus want us
to really hear is the woman’s response. Instead of stressing her rights, she
asks for nothing more than the crumbs that fall from the Master’s table. She is
okay not to have any right to Jesus, she just wants to be allowed to be in
position to collect the left overs.
Our truth is
that that is often all we need. And if we are willing to put away the things
that we believe are rightfully ours and settle for the crumbs, we will find
that we will receive much more from God then we need. It was the truth that
this unnamed woman seemed to understand as she asked for nothing more than the
crumbs that fell from the Master’s table.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Mark 7
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