Matthew 15 – Little dogs

If you were to say to me, “Matthew 15” my immediate response would almost certainly be, “Little dogs!”

How did such diverse topics manage to become so inextricably linked in my mind?

I thought you’d never ask…

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It was a Parsons Drive evening, and I was parked in my usual spot under a conveniently-located lamppost, half-listening to the muffled sounds of my daughter’s music lesson coming from the house across the street.  Over the years I’ve learnt the hard way that you can’t sit reading with the interior lights on for two hours solid without risking a flat battery, an “Oh Dad!”, and a long wait for the breakdown van at the end of an already long evening.  But tonight I was fully prepared for my weekly stakeout, strategically parked under a handy streetlight, with flask in one hand and Pocket New Testament in the other, and looking forward to spending another typical evening in the life of Dad’s Ace Taxi Services.

As it happened, this evening was our first at Parsons Drive since the clocks, if not the weather, had decided it was now British Summer Time, so I wouldn’t be reading by the insipid orange glow of streetlight for a little while yet.  And as I turned to Matthew 15 and began to read, I noticed that at the far end of the street – the end which would normally be sitting in darkness by this time of day – there were a couple of lads playing football with a little dog.  I say the dog was playing football, but it was more like a game of “piggy in the middle”, with the dog very much in the role of “piggy”, and from what I could see, not likely to lay a paw on the ball anytime this side of Christmas.

But what the little dog lacked in natural ball skills, it more than made up for in enthusiasm.  Though it stood no more than six or seven inches high, it tirelessly scampered back and forth on its comical little legs, doggedly determined (no pun intended) to pursue that ball to the ends of the earth if need be, and ready to savage it mercilessly, with an anything but savage looking set of canines, if even the slightest opportunity should arise.

As I watched the one-sided competition unfolding, I found myself actually starting to root for the little guy – “Go on little dog; you can do it boy!”

Then, with one eye still on the game, I decided I’d better get back to my reading, and Matthew 15, verses 21-22…

15:21 Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon.

15:22 And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.

And though I’ve read the story many times, verse 23 always gets me every time…

15:23 But he answered her not a word.

Throughout his brief but intensely busy public ministry, Jesus responded to all kinds of pleas for help, in all kinds of ways, but of all his responses, this is somehow the one I never see coming – complete silence.  (Can this really be the same Jesus who by verse 30 was gladly welcoming “great multitudes” and healing “those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others”?)  And when his disciples pressed him for a response, not out of concern for the woman’s plight, but because her constant nagging was getting to be a bit of a pain (verse 23), Jesus’ words were perhaps even more surprising than his silence…

15:24 I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

But back on Parsons Drive, I was beginning to think I might have a slight inkling of what Jesus was up to.  I was thinking back to the previous chapter of Matthew, the feeding of the five thousand, and how Jesus responded then to the disciples’ bright ideas – “There’s no need for them to go; you give them something to eat!” (Matthew 14:16).  I was remembering how Jesus liked nothing better than to provoke a reaction.

Still if verse 24 is surprising, verse 26 is positively shocking.  The woman, perhaps taken aback by the coldness of her reception, had now been reduced to a desperate three-word appeal – “Lord, help me” (verse 25).  To which, Jesus answered…

15:26 It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.

And back on Parsons Drive, as up and down the street the lights started to flicker on, another kind of light suddenly came on between my ears.  As I read the words of verse 26, I suddenly remembered an obscure fact I once picked up from some obscure source.  In the Greek, the word used for “dogs” can apparently be literally translated, “little dogs”.  To a contemporary audience, verse 26 would most likely conjure up an image of children and their household pets – their “little dogs”.

15:27 And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table.

At the end of the street the game was still afoot, and the little dog was still going strong – just like the woman in the story.  Did neither of them know when to call it a day?!  Apparently both of them were doggedly determined (no pun intended) to pursue their goal to the ends of the earth if need be, if that’s what it would take to come, even for one instant, within touching distance of it.

Sometimes life can give you the run-around.  And at those times when you need him most, those are often the times when God is most difficult to lay a “paw” on.  Perhaps at times, that’s the only way he can provoke a reaction.  Perhaps at times, that’s the only way of getting our attention.

But one lesson I’ve been trying to learn lately is the art of keeping my eye on the ball, of letting everything else go to the wind, but to keep my eye on that one source, that one centre, that one focus of attention.  And if the “ball” is slippery and elusive, as it inevitably will be to the comical little legs of my soul, then to learn a lesson from a little dog, and to keep after it, keep pursuing it, and never ever stop chasing it down.

15:28 Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.

Back on Parsons Drive, I looked up from my reading.  At the far end of the street a certain little dog was tearing into a certain football like there was no tomorrow, while a certain couple of lads made increasingly desperate but futile attempts to prise it away from him.

“There’s no discouragement,” wrote Bunyan, “shall make him once relent.”  It’s doubtful whether the woman of Canaan and the little dog of Parsons Drive were the kind of “pilgrims” Mr Bunyan had in mind when he penned the words of his well-known hymn – but there could hardly be a more fitting epitaph for either of them.