Daily readings 08/17/2014 or If you get too full, everyone can bring home a doggy bag!

"“It is not right to take the food of the children
and throw it to the dogs.”
She said, “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps
that fall from the table of their masters.”
Then Jesus said to her in reply,
“O woman, great is your faith!
Let it be done for you as you wish.”
And the woman’s daughter was healed from that hour." -MT 15:26-28

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time 08/17/2014

Anyone who reads the gospels and knows about Jesus is pretty aware that he didn't go around regularly calling people dogs. He did, however, often do things and say things to illustrate a point. And being God in the flesh, it's probably safe to assume he could read people's hearts and know how they would respond to his words and actions. This leads me to think that he was using the reference to the Canaanites as 'dogs' to illustrate a point, knowing full well that this woman would respond to him in faith and that he would go on to heal her daughter.

The point he is making is that he intends to open salvation up to everyone, not just the Jews. In a sense, it could come off like he's taking them down a peg saying, look, this woman is a gentile, she is not one of God's 'chosen people', but because she has faith in me, I am going to respond to her. But in a very real sense, he's not taking them down a peg as much as showing them that there just aren't any pegs?

He's not denying the dignity of the Jews in the least. Certainly he's calling out their false sense of superiority and their overblown pride, but he isn't lowering their dignity at all. He is showing them that all people have the dignity of being created in the image and likeness of God, and all people are deserving of that respect.
Considering what Isaiah, one of their own prophets, wrote in the first reading, quite frankly, they shouldn't have been surprised.

But then again, here we are with God, in the flesh teaching us this lesson and we still can't get it right. Well, I guess that's something we can all work on changing this week, right?

God bless,
P.D.O.