13 February 2020 - dog food

Today's Readings

(Audio)

He said to her, “Let the children be fed first.
For it is not right to take the food of the children
and throw it to the dogs.”

How do we handle it when we meet resistance in our spiritual lives? Often we turn aside to such pleasures as the world can afford, from the more licit to the less so.

When Solomon was old his wives had turned his heart to strange gods,
and his heart was not entirely with the LORD, his God,
as the heart of his father David had been.

When God isn't first the only alternative is idolatry at least of an implicit sort. We believe, like Solomon that wives can give us the joy we seek. We see in Solomon the close connection between preferring them to the LORD and preferring their God's to him. When we are more concerned about entertainment, or the news, or our work, or indeed even our own families than the LORD they become idols that ensnare us.

What should we do, then, when we are trying to press in to the LORD but receive the apparent rejection of the Syrophoenician woman? We need to do what she did. We need to listen more closely and press in. The LORD never rejects us. Any apparent rejection is really an invitation to greater faith.

She replied and said to him,
“Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.”

Jesus had said that the children should be fed first, not that only they should be fed. The woman recognized that was still an opportunity there if she could embrace the humility of a puppy seeking after the scrapes. She did so without hesitation.

Then he said to her, “For saying this, you may go.
The demon has gone out of your daughter.”
When the woman went home, she found the child lying in bed
and the demon gone.

Where has the LORD seemed slow to answer? Are there places in our lives where we have all but stopped pursuing him? Let us learn from the example of the Syrophoenician woman. Rather than insisting on our request in a prideful way let us find a way to cling to it and press in with faith and humility.

Remember us, O LORD, as you favor your people;
visit us with your saving help.