Part 29 – Three Invitations and a Whole Lot of Crumbs – Matthew 15
November 17, 2019Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Speaker: Jerry Cisar
We were created for belonging. We were created to belong in a family, a people, a tribe. But the fallenness of this fallen world tends toward isolation, fragmentation, and shattered relationships. So we all find ways to cope with belonging. If we are doing the inviting, we comb the list to make sure we invite the people that will make others want to come to our party. If we are invited, we evaluate whether going to this event will better our status before those we think matter. This is the stock-in-trade of social maneuvering in the world. But how do we deal with not being invited? With rejection?
The HuffPost published an article on how to deal with not being invited to an event that most of your friends are going to. After describing how not being invited can sometimes hurt and walking through the ways one typically will console themselves (excuses for why), it offers 5 steps to take if your hurt is still unresolved. It’s a good thing the Canaanite woman in our text had not read this article, or the outcome may have been very different.
Matthew 15 is about belonging: Who belongs and who doesn’t. Therefore it is centered around meals (bread), since being welcome to a table to eat in the world of Jesus and his disciples was about belonging: inclusion and exclusion.