The Woman Who Caught the Crumbs

(Some Christian denominations hear this reading this weekend: Matthew 15:21-28)

I yelled to attract his attention in that crowd, competing with noises of braying animals and bellowing vendors. But he said nothing. My last chance vanished.

Sunk in exhausted depression, I couldn’t consider what must’ve raced through his mind: that precarious history of Israel, a tiny band of nomads meandering through a postage-stamp-sized country, their improbable survival, outgunned and surrounded by superior forces, their clinging to identity, his mission to those dear and familiar, whose scriptures he revered, whose psalms he sang and whose customs he observed. Could he brush aside all that for me? No wonder he was silent.  

When he insisted on his mission to the “lost sheep of Israel,” it called for a response more powerful than shouting. Abandoning any shred of status I had left, I knelt before him, right there on the rutted path, rocks digging into my knees. I had nowhere else to turn and my daughter’s image haunted me: the spastic jerks, the face etched with pain. I’d do whatever it took to heal her.

Totally defenseless, I cringed at his racial epithet, the worst insult ever: comparing me to dogs? Well, so be it; at times they’re treated better than women. But from long fatigue, I dragged one last spark of spunk. If it’s all you’ve got, give me the crumbs.

His response startled: it was the first time anyone had ever called me great. Chattel of my father, then my husband, this was probably the first time I’d ever raised my voice. And he commended me for sass? I was so bewildered, I almost missed the next sentence; “Let it be done as you wish.”

Did that mean her healing? He had intuited my heart’s deep desire; that had to be his meaning. In that moment, expanded when I saw her cured, I knew we must always stand in hope. It felt like I sat enthroned at a big table, chewing the whole, fat loaf. Or, to put it poetically:

You might ask why I spoke of crumbs.

My days a trail of them, prayer beads

of desperation as I scan the dirt floor.

I’ve harvested scraps, pitifully grateful for

kernels others ignore. Hunger can numb

a woman, make her mean. Bossiness

hardens her bread.  What broke me,

finally, was seeing the grim cycle repeat in

my daughter’s haggard eyes. Not her,

too! Awkward and stiff, I bend.

I never dreamt how crumbs would serve me well,

small pivots to humor, juicy dollops after grinding need.

I who scavenged from garbage, served a heaping plate!

With a lopsided grin, he awakens her.

Her eyes fill with merriment; she holds health

like a bouquet. Even in hunger, we break abundant

bread, chewing morsels with the relish of gourmets.

Excerpt from More Hidden Women of the Gospels, Orbis Press, 800-258-5838, OrbisBooks.com.