Healing is the children's bread?

The pop-culture image of Jesus is that he was a nice guy. He was compassionate and gentle with everyone and certainly didn’t deliberately put people down or antagonize them. Or did he? There is a fascinating passage in the Gospel of Matthew where a woman asks Jesus for healing, and Jesus not only initially denies this request but enters into a dialogue with her, repeatedly brushing her off and going so far as to compare her to a dog. It’s certainly not your typical image of nice-guy Jesus.

The phrase “healing is the children’s bread” does not exist in the Bible. The closest passage we have to this phrase is Matthew 15:21-28. A woman approaches Jesus and asks him to have mercy on her, because her daughter is demon-possessed. But Jesus “answered her not a word” (15:23). He explains that he was “not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (15:24), but the woman insists and begs for his help. His reply? “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs” (15:26), meaning that the woman is unworthy of his help and mercy, for it belongs to the Israelites, and that gentiles like her are “dogs” in comparison. What do you say to that? The woman says, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table” (15:27). In response to this, Jesus praises her faith and heals her daughter. What a confusing story!

Is healing really the point?

There are many ways to interpret this passage, but the kind of modern commentary that’s easy to find on the internet tends to focus on healing as the central issue. Namely, the “bread” she is asking for is healing, healing that properly belongs to the children of Israel, but which the woman asks to have for herself as well. Modern commentators tend to see this passage as a guide for how to receive healing from Jesus, as if Jesus is testing you and you need to say things in just the right way to get healing from Him. Others say that healing is something that belongs to you as a child of God, and that’s why the woman is so persistent, as though she “knew her rights” and insisted on them when God tested her. I’ve even heard someone go so far as to say that healing is a basic right of every child of God.

Reading the passage this way invites a strange way of looking at Jesus. It makes Jesus sound like he’s testing or provoking the woman, or that he’s only going to give her what she wants if she says or does the right thing, which sounds a little cruel in the context of someone coming to him in desperation and need. Is there a different way to read this passage?

Humility is what heals

Thinking of healing as a right or something you deserve from God doesn’t line up with the spirit of humility that is presented again and again in the New Testament. You’ll notice that Jesus never says anything about rights, nor does he insist on what he (or anyone else) owes you. In fact, he says the exact opposite.

Some of the most potent passages in which Jesus preaches humility and simplicity are when he rebukes his disciples for their moments of pride. More than once in the gospel accounts, the disciples are recorded as getting into an argument about which of them is the greatest—a quintessentially arrogant question. Jesus rebukes such behavior in different ways. In Matthew, Jesus tells them that “unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven,” and that “whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 18:3-4). In Mark, Jesus puts it this way, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all” (Mark 9:35). In Luke he says, “he who is least among you all is the one who is great” (Luke 9:47). In John, Jesus washes his disciples’ feet, an act of humility and service, and tells them that this is how they ought to treat one another (John 13:2-17).

Nowhere do we see Christ calling us to insist on what is owed to us or demand from God what we feel we deserve. To the contrary, Jesus frequently reminds us that the way to achieve greatness is – paradoxically – through humility. Jesus points this out later in Luke’s account, when he explains that “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 14:11). Because the early church fathers understood this idea, they read this episode with the gentile woman as fundamentally about the woman’s humility.

The interpretation of the church fathers

St. John Chrysostom, one of the greatest Biblical commentators of late antiquity, reads Jesus' discussion with the woman in a completely different way than the modern “prosperity” reading. In his account, Jesus reveals the woman's great virtue. He writes: “He would not that so great virtue in the woman should be hid” and it is “not in insult then were His words spoken, but calling her forth, and revealing the treasure laid up in her” (St. John Chrysostom - Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, Homily LII, 3).

In other words, Christ calls the woman forth to reveal her virtue. He arguably does this for the benefit of his disciples: Initially, when Jesus did not respond to the woman, they said, “Send her away, for she cries out after us” (Matt 15:22). While tries to get her to reveal her virtues, the disciples show their lack of sympathy.

What is this treasure that he is trying to get her to reveal? It is her humility. St. John sees the woman’s reply as humble acceptance of her position. She doesn’t argue with Jesus, but accepts being called a dog, and precisely on the basis of being a dog, argues that she is not in fact forbidden from partaking of Christ’s healing. St. John rewrites the woman’s reply in his own words to bring out this point:

“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.” (St. John Chrysostom - Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, Homily LII, 3)

The dynamic that St. John describes is totally different from modern readings of this passage: when Jesus points out that as a Gentile she is second to the children of Israel, she wholly accepts her status because she is humble.

Origen of Alexandria, one of the most influential Biblical interpreters of all time, agrees with this point in his own commentary on the passage. He explains that Jesus, “from this measure of power, then, He dispensed, giving a larger portion to those who were preeminent [i.e., who were first] and who were called sons, but a smaller portion to those who were not such, as to the little dogs” (Origen, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, Book XI, 17). In other words, a great portion was given to Israel, and a lesser portion to the non-Jews.

But, according to Origen, it is precisely because the woman acknowledges this hierarchy and accepts her place in humility at the bottom that she receives her reward. He writes:

“But when she, with intensified resolution, accepting the saying of Jesus, puts forth the claim to obtain crumbs even as a little dog, and acknowledges that the masters are of a nobler race, then she gets a second answer, which bears testimony to her faith as great, and a promise that it shall be done unto her as she wills." (Origen, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, Book XI, 17)

St. John points out that Jesus doesn’t merely say, “great is your faith, your daughter is healed.” Instead, he tells her, “Let it be to you as you desire” (Matt 15:28; emphasis mine). In other words, he doesn’t simply grant her request; he finds that she is so full of the right spirit of humility that he grants her whatever she desires.

“For to this purpose neither did Christ say, ‘let thy little daughter be made whole,’ but, ‘great is thy faith, be it unto thee even as thou wilt;’ to teach thee that the words were not used at random, nor were they flattering words, but great was the power of her faith.” (St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, Homily LII, 3)

To interpret this passage as encouragement to insist on your rights is, therefore, the opposite of how the early Christians understood it. It makes Jesus sound picky and harsh, and the woman sound proud or entitled, when the reality is that her virtue is humility. Jesus puts her in a situation where she can display that humility—perhaps to teach his disciples yet another lesson about what it really means to be great.