The Scraps

I goofed up at the cluster Lenten service this week. I was supposed to read from Mark 16, but was a good deal into Matthew 16 before I realized I was reading the wrong thing. Matthew 16 is one of those passages of scripture that I really struggle with. In which a woman who was not Jewish comes and begs Jesus to heal her son, leading to a very uncomfortable conversation about how even the dogs deserve scraps.

The idea of thinking of oneself as a dog. As one who only gets the left overs. The scraps. And to have Jesus taking part in that conversation has some ugly implications. But when read with Mark 16, which speaks about Simon the Cyrene being tapped to carry Jesus’ cross and the Roman centurion who was able to declare that Jesus truly was the son of God, the idea of scraps took on a whole new meaning. Are there ever really scraps with God? Or are even the littlest bits of faith and tasks given by the Lord life changing? Simon carried Jesus’ cross and it is believed that his life was so changed by that event that one of his sons went on to be a critical member of the early church whom the apostle Paul praises. The Roman centurion found faith a the foot of the cross. Once again, is anything ever really small with God or is only our own perception of the Spirit that limits us?