A Glimpse into the Theology of Crumbs
Crumbs. We dust them off our clothes, and out of our crumb catchers after meals. If we discover some in our bed at night they rudely awaken us, tiny and wholly unwelcome visitors that somehow seemingly snuck into our bed from the pit itself. And did you ever get one in your shirt? They are a nuisance in our times of plenty. They are so undesirable that over centuries we have even taken the word crumbly and in the modern vernacular turned it into the word crummy to describe things that we find lousy, inferior, or poor. We have often heard the term used to describe things, such as in a crummy life, a crummy job, a crummy marriage, a crummy paycheck, a crummy church, or a crummy sermon.
But crumbs are just smaller portions of some greater whole, little bits as the Greek of our gospel lesson literally states, and are not always a bad thing.
During World War II, many children were orphaned by the devastation of war and persecution. They were on a journey they didn’t chose, relying on crumbs. Communities across Europe took these children in – offering them a safe haven, for at least a time. When the children arrived, they were scared to death. Even though they were assigned to homes, had warm beds and full meals, anxieties about their past invaded their sleep. Fears of being uprooted, fears of no food, fears of yet another loss were all pervading. Unable to sleep, they became more and more worked up. Finally—I don’t know who thought of it or how—someone came up with a saving revelation. The adopted families began giving the orphaned children small pieces of bread to hold onto while they slept at night. It worked. What was given to them was just a crumb, but it got them through the long dark nights. The children slept with those crumbs given to them and held onto them for dear life.
In our bigger-is-always-better supersize-me culture crumbs get a bad rap. Our gospel lesson today illustrates this “theology of the crumb” as it were, quite well.
The Gospel lesson begins innocuously enough.
JESUS went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. 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.
Jesus after having dealt with the Pharisees yet again, went up into the region of what is modern day Lebanon. He was not in the cities, but traveling through the countryside. A woman, a distraught mother, found Jesus and pled for her daughter. Who among us as parents has not had a time of illness or other adversity in regards to our children where at one time or another we went to the Lord pleading on their behalf? We do not know the exact symptoms of the girl’s condition, nor do we know what distance this woman had travelled to see Jesus. We do know the deep concern she had for her daughter.
But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us.
Jesus initially and quite uncharacteristically ignores the woman’s pleas and lets her go on pleading. The only measure we are given in Scripture of how long or how vigorously this dear mother pled is that it was long enough to really get on the disciples’ nerves. Imagine the situation. You’re walking along in your small group and this woman meets you on the road. She begins pleading with your teacher, begging for assistance. He ignores her, and her pleas grow louder and more insistent. She is following you down the road and it is beginning to make a scene. You are embarrassed. Oddly, your teacher just ignores her. You wonder, is he hoping that if he ignores her she will go away? Well, she’s obviously not. After going a little further she is still there pleading. She is really grating on your nerves now. Why won’t this person just shut up and go away? Finally, you and your friends speak up and ask the teacher to just send her away.
Note that we have no record of the disciples saying, “Lord, would you please help this woman?”, or “Throw her a bone, Lord” or even “Lord, would you please heal this poor woman’s daughter so she will shut up and go home?” but rather “Please get rid of her, she’s bugging us.”
But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
This rather blunt and abrupt answer is probably headed in the direction the disciples hoped for. This answer on the surface appears as if Jesus is turning around and telling this worried mother, “You are a Canaanite, we do not serve your kind here.” The disciples are no doubt breathing a sigh of relief and thinking, “finally”.
But this woman is not deterred.
Then came she and worshiped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.
We see this principle of which the mother speaks displayed in the story of Lazarus the beggar in Luke 16 who was laid at the gates of the rich man, desiring to be fed on the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table.
Chrysostom goes as far as to state in regards to today’s gospel passage that :
For, “that food is necessary for the children,” saith she, “I also know; yet neither am I forbidden, being a dog. For were it unlawful to receive, neither would it be lawful to partake of the crumbs; but if, though in scanty measure, they ought to be partakers, neither am I forbidden, though I be a dog; nay, rather on this ground am I most surely a partaker, if I am a dog.” …
… Seest thou the woman’s wisdom, how she did not venture so much as to say a word against it, nor was stung by other men’s praises, nor was indignant at the reproach? Seest thou her constancy? He said, “It is not meet,” and she said, “Truth, Lord;” He called them “children,” but she “masters;” He used the name of a dog, but she added also the dog’s act. Seest thou this woman’s humility?
This Canaanite woman reminds me of another woman in the Bible, humble and wise who was not ashamed to glean the crumbs of the harvest one planting season long before. Ruth was exalted as well to be part of the line of David. Surely the crumbs of the Lord are great indeed.
Bishop Sutton has spoken in other courses on what he terms the theology of gleaning, taking from the edges. Examples of people doing this in Scripture include not only Ruth but Jesus and the disciples walking through the grain fields eating. Gleaning is the taking of the small bit, the left-overs, the miniscule. It is the principle of the crumb.
Sometimes this theological image of the crumb is not obvious. For instance in the feeding of the four thousand which immediately follows the gospel reading today we usually think of plenty, God making not only enough for everyone, but more than enough, in fact, many of you have heard a homily on this very point from my lips in this room. Yet today in light of our gospel lesson, I would like to have us step forward and take another look considering the crumb.
Imagine for a moment that you are a disciple of Christ present at the feeding of the four thousand. Jesus has just asked you how much food you have. “Seven loaves and a few small fish” is your reply. Jesus then has everyone sit down and you are left standing there wondering what is going on as you look in the basket, look to the crowd, look to the basket, look to the crowd, in your head you’re doing the math. You’re thinking “crumbs for you, a few crumbs for you, and you, how is that going to feed anyone?” Yet it was more than enough. How great are the crumbs of God.
The disciples probably did not realize till later the crumb that they themselves received at the encounter with the concerned Canaanite mother. Their later lives testify that, excepting Judas Iscariot, they did indeed understand this crumb well as the others they received in their training with Christ.
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.
She did not change Christ’s mind for He knows all and is unchangable. She did exalt in the crumbs from the table. She did become one of the children saved by the very faith that saved even Abraham – and her child, the daughter she so adamantly cared for was healed. She was blessed by the crumbs. Chrysostom compares this woman to the Pharisees from our reading last night in John 8:
Hear the proud language of the Jews. “We be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man;” [18]and, “We be born of God.” [19] But not so this woman, rather she calls herself a dog, and them masters; so for this she became a child. What then saith Christ? “O woman, great is thy faith.” [20]
Just like the Roman centurion who asked Jesus to heal his servant from afar because he did not consider himself worthy to have Christ in His home. He needed only the smallest crumb of Christ’s thought or consideration.
Just like the woman who only needed the smallest of touches of Christ’s garment to find healing.
Like the woman at the well.
Like Moses who despite all could only experience what amounted to a crumb of what God had for him in this life. A bigger crumb than most, granted, but a crumb nonetheless. For when wanting to see it all God told Moses that “No man shall see me and live.” Moses, the man whom God called friend, could not experience more than a glimpse of the back of God, a crumb, a part of the greater whole. Even after speaking to God without seeing Him Moses glowed so brightly he frightened the people. Great are the crumbs of the Lord.
But what of us and our crummy lives? We are, I’m afraid, often like the disciples in their training, not seeing the crumbs for what they are. We are prone to be rather negative, a fault to which I freely confess that I myself am prone. We like to look at our lives through the lenses of self-centeredness and sometimes self-pity. We moan and complain about the crumbs. Sometimes we don’t think that we get enough, crumbs just won’t do. Books and indeed whole movements take advantage of this dissatisfaction teaching people to pray in regards to their material wellbeing, “Supersize me, God!” Other times we see what we consider our trials and think that if God is giving me crumbs right now it’s only because he’s been eating crackers in my bed. Yet, look back at your life. Was there a time when you were prone to despair, when things really looked dark that now you see had some real benefit to you or another you would be in a position to minister to later? Such are the crumbs of God. Romans 8 verses 28 through 30 says:
28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. 29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.
Take heart, for we shall be glorified and these crumbs of life, all of them, whether we in our shortsighted humanness see them as for good or ill, are a trail of crumbs leading us before the very throne of God. Crumbs laid in front of us led us to where we first heard His call, crumbs that justify us, sanctify us, in preparation for what God has for us. These make up the very fabric of our lives. The crumbs of the Lord are great indeed, whether we always see or appreciate them or not. They are a framework that supports us and shapes us.
In the movie National Treasure there is a treasure map hidden on the back of the Declaration of Independence that can only be seen through special glasses. The crumbs of our life are kind of like that map. They look like one thing to the naked human eye, but if we put on the lenses of Scripture and faith we will be truly amazed at the wondrous sight before our eyes.
Our collect for the day tells us we, like the concerned mother in our Gospel reading have no power of ourselves to help ourselves, none, not one bit. We are totally and absolutely dependent on the crumbs of God to keep us, to strengthen us in body as related in our Epistle reading, and body and soul as in our Gospel reading. We rely on crumbs. In the Murdock Peshitta Matthew 15:27 reads, And she said: “Even so, my Lord; yet the dogs eat of the fragments that fall from the tables of their masters, and live.”
In a moment we will join with Christ at His table in communion. We will dine on spiritual crumbs, from the bread of life a small, small portion of the whole as we join at Christ’s table. Yet, like for the Canaanite woman and the oth ers we have highlighted here, it will be enough. Their lives were crummy. How blessed they were by the crumbs of the Lord.
Crumbs. Turns out they aren’t always what we think they are. Our crummy lives – are really crummy – more so than we even thought – just not in the fashion that we thought they were. The crumbs of the Lord are great indeed. Take the crumbs and live.
