Baby Moses crawled for the first time a couple weeks ago!  But I wasn’t able to celebrate this developmental landmark the way I wanted to.  I had swaddled him in a blanket and laid him, sleeping sweetly, in the middle of our massive bed for a nap.  Thirty minutes later I heard a thud in the other room.  The thud shuttered throughout my entire body and at that moment something in me switched.  A primal parental persona swept over me, I leapt a couch and raced into the darkened bedroom.  There on the bed were the empty swaddling blanket – left like a pile of Houdini hand-cuffs.  But where was my son?  A siren cry erupted from the other side of the bed.  I hurried to his side.  He lay on the floor and under his head there was something dark on the carpet.  I reach down and touched it with my hand… a black sock.  ”I will never, ever leave my socks lying around again.”  I promised myself.  Scooping Moses up in my hands, I laid him on the bed, turned a lamp on and examined every inch of his body, “… could that be a bruise?  Was that scratch there before?  Are all his bones in tact?”  He had survived the 18 inch fall off of our bed.  He was perfect, just a little frightened.  I on the other hand was not.  It took me another hour to calm down.  Other parents  that I told the story to acted like I had just fully entered into the club of concerned parents, “Each of my kids have fallen on their heads at least five times.  They’re like rubber.  But those feelings like ‘my baby is hurt and I can’t do anything about it’, those feelings only get more intense with age.”

That’s who we meet in todays story from the gospel (Mark 7:24-30 – read here) – A desperate mother who’s baby is hurting and she can’t do anything about it.

And what does Jesus say to her? “Why should I help you before my own people? It’s like giving the children’s food to the dogs.”  Totally Offensive!  This woman comes to Jesus on behalf of her tormented daughter and Jesus denies her and calls her a dog, adding insult to injury.  How rude of Jesus, how insensitive, how “unchristian” of Jesus.  Jesus looks like a racist, a mossoganist, and just plain mean.  This is the moment of suspense.  Will Jesus withhold mercy from this desperate mother? We feel the suspense for this woman within us because we fear the same thing for ourselves.  Will Jesus withhold mercy from me?  And here’s the reality – When Jesus makes this distinction between children and dogs, he’s talking about the chosen Jews vs. everyone else who is outside the house of Israel.  And guess which one you are?  I suspect almost all of us here are Gentiles.  The offense of his comment is not simply for this woman, but an offense to you also.  It’s getting personal. Jesus is calling you a dog.  Will Jesus withhold mercy from you?

But what do we know of Jesus?  Is he a massogonist?  Does he hate women?  No way, Jesus does things for women in the Gospels that was totally unheard of.  His compassion crosses all kinds of cultural gender lines.  Is he a racist?  Does he hate other ethnicities?  Now way, Jesus goes way out of his way to include all people in his ministry.  His compassion crosses all kinds of racial barriers.  So something else must be going on here.

Even though we might be offended that Jesus calls this desperate mother a dog, the weird thing is she doesn’t seem to be offended by the comment.  She doesn’t let this offense deter her faith in Jesus.  (Will you?)  She refuses to let this comment be the excuse to leave Jesus, instead she digs even deeper into the language of the offense.  “Yes Lord, I might not be a child at God’s table. I might be a dog, but I‘m here asking your help. And that means that, even though I’m a dog I’m a dog under God‘s table and my only hope is that if I wait here long enough I know something is going to drop from that table.”  And Jesus says, “Yep.  That’s right. And your daughter is well.”

The last time I was in England I stayed with some friends who are Anglican priests and trained in the ’smells and bells’ division of the church.  Among our conversations I mentioned that it wasn’t unheard of for Jerry, the church dog, to clean up the crumbs around the communion table.  This absolutely mortified my high Anglo-Catholic friends.  In their eyes, I had committed a haenous, blasphemous sacralige by permitting the body of Jesus Christ to go to a dog.  Being good chaps, they playfully debated about what would have to happen to rectify this mishap and finally, they concluded that it would be their priestly duty to eat the dog.

Now, I wasn’t necessarily willing to start communing every canine that came to the Eucharist, but I also wasn’t willing for them to eat Jerry, so I asked, “In your tradition, what happens to the bread and wine after communion?”

“Well, the priest eats and drinks the remainder of the elements.”  I asked, “And when you wash the chalice of whatever wine remains in the cup after drinking it, what happens to the water that washes the cup?”

“Well, in the sacristy there is a special sink that drains into a garden right outside so that the wine, which is washed out of the cup goes to feed the garden and cannot be used for any ill intentions.”

“And you believe that the grace of God in Jesus Christ came to reconcile not only human beings with God, but all of Creation, including the garden outside the sacristy?  And even the pug underfoot?”

“Well, yes.  Of course.  But how can they understand the depth of significance in the Sacrament.”

“Is understanding the depth of significance in the mystery of the Eucharist the qualification for receiving the bread and the wine?”

“Of course not.  It is the gift of God.”

Well, in the end I didn’t convince them.  And I made a mental note that if they ever flew to this side of the pond I would keep them far away from Jerry.  But later that day we all went to a noon Eucharist together.  Words were spoken, bread was broken and everyone very politely received communion.  Then I thought of what Martin Luther told some of his students who he had invited over for dinner and conversation.  He took piece of meat from his plate and held it over the edge of the table.  The dog at his feet snapped to attention.  The dog’s mouth was salivating and eyes were locked on the morsel.  Luther said to his students, “What if… what if we would hunger for the Word of God, Jesus Christ, half as much as this dog?”

That’s what Jesus saw in this woman – a hope that was not based on what she thought was her birth-right, but based on the generiosity of God.  She trusted that the gift of God was greater than her deserving.  When we are insulted it’s our sense of priveledge that’s insulted.  If we are dogs, then let us be dogs under the table of God!  For it’s this type of trust, which reveals the children of God dressed in dog’s clothing. And we serve a God who loves to make children of dogs.