She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”
This retort to Jesus stings. There really is no way around it. Jesus makes a trip to Tyre and Sidon, north of Israel. It is a Gentile country, and a Canaanite woman approaches him asking for help. Jesus' response is to say "It is not fair to take away the children's food and give it to the dogs."
Now. AT BEST. Jesus is trying to make a joke. AT BEST. No matter how you interpret this, he is likening Canaanites to dogs and reminds his disciples that he is only called to the lost sheep of Israel. There may be many a lot of contextual reasons for Jesus' comment, many likely lost to history. We can even go ahead and put the blame on Matthew, the collator of this Gospel. But we still have to wrestle with Jesus saying this and, perhaps even harder to deal with, that the woman talks back to Jesus and he agrees with her.
There are a lot of directions you can run with this text. But for me, as a man in a position of power, I prefer the simplest.
It is not a sin to be wrong. It is not a sin to correct your bad actions. And it is not a sin to acknowledge when you messed up.
Let me say that again:
It is not a sin to be wrong. It is not a sin to correct your bad actions. And it is not a sin to acknowledge when you messed up.
When you are in leadership - whether in the church, government, the private sector, or even in your own home, humility is such an important and yet often forgotten attribute. But as Jesus demonstrates, there is tremendous power in humility. Jesus is able to both model to his disciples how to recover from a mistake, and to model to the Canaanites how to break down barriers between cultures, especially when there is mistrust and pain involved.
It would have been easy for Jesus to follow his disciples lead and ignore the woman, or to respond antagonistically to the challenge. But he takes another path. A path that perhaps more leaders today should take.
He listens. He reflects. and he responds by changing not just his words but his actions, then AND going forward. This is not a one off appeasement to avoid getting cancelled. Jesus from this point on changes his view on salvation for the gentiles which is pretty good news for us.
What else could change in your life if someone showed a little more humility? What could change if you did as well?