Hand Wringing vs. Crumb Catching

Hand Wringing or Crumb Collecting 

Matthew 15:10-28                 

 August 16, 2026                                   

 by Kent Walley

 

Joy and I have a regular date night activity which we do more often than not, almost every Friday night if we aren't traveling.  Yes, we have a routine that keeps the romance in our marriage alive by going... to the grocery store together!  We rediscover our complimentary gifts by sending Joy to the produce and dairy section and me to the salty snacks and freezer section. Two carts, divide and conquer and off we go into the wonders of grocery shopping at ShopRite on Friday night!  How romantic right?

Alright, well, we do usually go out to dinner together beforehand too.  And truth be told that is really the date night part of our Friday routine.

But you know, I do find that going to the grocery store right after going out to eat is a really good time to shop.

It is amazing the discipline and self-control I have after filling my stomach with food!  I can find the strength to pass them by even when the Cheetos are on sale... Well usually.  Ok, sometimes at least.  I can limit the extras I want to buy, cruising right past those tempting cookies or ice cream treats with ease... when I am full.... Well, sometimes anyway.

The worst of all possible times for me to go grocery shopping is during Lent, on a day when I am fasting.  Then everything looks good.  When I am hungry, I find foods I haven't thought of in years suddenly very tempting.  Wow, look at those frozen waffles.  Now I have given up desserts for Lent, but waffles, covered in syrup, are not dessert, but breakfast right? 

But seriously, do you know what I mean?  It is such a different experience going grocery shopping when you are full than it is when you are hungry.

While not specifically mentioned in our gospel, but indirectly there is a spiritual lesson in this about how we approach our religious practice and God.  As you cruise through the grocery store of life what are you hungry for?  Do we come to God already filled up on the unhealthy treats of life or do we come to Him empty seeking to want more?  In our reading from Matthew this morning, one approach is commended by Jesus and one is rebuked.

Let me explain what I mean.

Just before today's reading, at the beginning of chapter 15, the Pharisees come to Jesus and say: “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders?  For they do not wash their hands when they eat."

And Jesus responds by calling out a certain practice of the Pharisees that exposed their hypocrisy.  Then Jesus says: "So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God.  You hypocrites!  Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: 'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”

The Pharisees had very strict rules about many things.  Their religious practice had been going on for centuries.  These rules have been described as a fence around the law.  They told you what to do to keep the commandments of God so you didn't even have to think about it.  Your heart didn’t have to be in it.  Just follow the rules.  And one of those rules involved strict hand washing.  The point was not good hygiene, as we might think today.  They were trying to remain separate from the pagan idol worshippers around them.  Not getting involved in idol worship was something God had commanded them to do, a good thing.

But the human tradition of hand washing took it further.  The idea was to be so literally separate as to not even touch anything that a pagan gentile might have touched.  What if unbeknownst to you, they touched a cup or a bowl and then you used it!  You would then be indirectly coming into contact with pagan idol worshippers.  Or what if some dust had been in contact with Gentiles and then landed on your hands!  If you eat without washing your hands you might swallow that dust which had been in contact with Gentiles.  It is a slippery slope.  Dust today.  Idol worship tomorrow!

Ok, that might not be exactly how they would say it, but it was the basic concept behind the human traditions the Pharisees followed.  It started with good intentions but became a legalistic extreme way of seeking to honor God.  Such rules, not specifically commanded in Scripture, but invented by humans then became their religious practice.

So here is Jesus, who is developing a following and quite a healing and teaching ministry and yet His disciples do not even wash their hands before they eat!!!

Jesus did not fit into the long-standing traditions and religious practice of the Pharisees and so it led to tension between them.

Then along comes a Canaanite woman, one of the very pagan idol worshippers the traditions of the Jewish elders were trying to avoid.  And she starts following Jesus around pleading with Him to heal her daughter.  She won't give it a rest.  She is constantly begging for help.  The disciples (who were Jewish, remember) ask Jesus to tell her to get lost for Jesus had been ignoring her. 

And then He says something very off-putting which sounds harsh to us, basically that He has come to minister first to the house of Israel not the pagans.  He says you don't give the children's food to the dogs.  I don't know for sure, but I suspect Jesus, knowing this woman's faith, is testing her, helping her strong faith to be clarified for her and emerge for the disciples to see. 

And the woman won't take no for an answer.  She is desperate.  Her daughter is not well, and she has heard the reports of the miracles Jesus has been doing.  And so, she is latching on to Jesus, fixing her hope on Him.  She says, “Yes, but even the dogs get to eat the crumbs that fall from the Master's table.”

And Jesus responds by saying, “Your faith is amazing!  Let it be done for you as you wish.”  And her daughter is healed instantly.

This woman has been persistent and filled with growing faith in Jesus.  And she is humble.  She doesn't even object to her people being likened to dogs.  She just says, "That may be, but even dogs have to eat.  I will gladly take whatever you give."

And so, this passage depicts a contrast between Pharisees whom Jesus blasts as hypocrites who are blind to the spiritual realities around them that are leading them toward destruction, and the pagan woman who is persistent, humble and fixing her faith upon Jesus.  I have entitled this sermon “Hand Wringing vs. Crumb Collecting”, because the Pharisees are wringing their hands that Jesus does not conform to their expectations, while the Canaanite woman is willing to humbly collect the crumbs that fall from the table.

And this is why I used the illustration of shopping!

The Pharisees were full -- full of their own ideas, full of human traditions, full of religious practices, satisfied that they knew the way to God.  They were full of self-sufficiency.  They had a long wisdom tradition and heritage behind them, convincing them that they were right.

They were satisfied with what they had chosen to fill themselves.  So satisfied and sure that they were securing in their practices the right way to God that when God came to them, they tried to get Him to conform to their practice, rather than be open to how He might call them to change and conform to God.

Jesus didn't follow the human traditions that were at the center of the pious living that the Pharisees advocated and practiced.

Their focus on doing spirituality themselves left no room for God, even though the original intentions of those practices may have been good.  Jesus is saying that they were focused on the outward while neglecting to care for the inward state of their souls.  They were so focused on externals that they were blind to what it was doing to them, to who they were becoming.  They had become so prideful and arrogant that they were essentially asserting their own way over God and in doing so they were missing so much of the blessings God had for them.

In contrast, the pagan, Canaanite woman came to Jesus empty.  She brought nothing and assumed nothing except for a firm conviction that Jesus could heal her son.  She came from an entirely different religious tradition, which was dominated by the worship of idols.  It was a religious worldview that God had in Old Testament times commanded His people to painstakingly avoid because it was a path that led away from Him.

This woman connects Jesus with that history by calling Him Son of David.  In doing so, she acknowledges Him as the rightful king over a nation that had conquered her ancestors.

She came empty not presuming that God owed her anything.  She came emptied of pride, of self-sufficiency, and of entitlement.  She came emptied of any assumption that she was right, that she had what she needed, that she knew the way.  She came empty of believing that there was anything within herself or her religious practice that could remedy her situation.  She came empty, seeking only to humbly fill her soul with the crumbs that fell from the Master's table.

Her all-out focus was on Jesus.  She came to fill herself with whatever Jesus would provide.  She came with a desperate persistence in her request of the Son of God.  She came empty of satisfaction with her life, seeking fulfillment only in one place, in one person, in Jesus.

She came empty leaving all ego and self-sufficiency behind.  She came empty, humble, faithful and persistent and she left satisfied and full of the Presence and power of God.

The danger with my grocery store image is that it can make faith and Christianity sound like it is all about me, self-centered.  Asking: “What I can get out of God?”  And that isn't the point here.  The point is how do you approach your faith, your religion, your life in Christ?  As if you are fully satisfied and have what you need so that you are self-sufficient and don't really need much from God.... Full like the Pharisees? or

Do you come hungry... Come to Him empty looking for Him to fill you, acknowledging your need of Him.

The question for us this morning is not really which of these are you like, as if it is simply we are like one or the other, but rather the question this passage prompts us to ask ourselves is: “In what ways am I living like the Pharisees, full, content, self-sufficient and sure that I am right; and in what ways am I living like the Canaanite woman, coming to Jesus empty, fixing my trust on Him, persistent and humble?”  If we are honest with ourselves, there is a little bit of both in us most of the time.

It is so easy, isn't it, for us to generally be self-sufficient, thinking we have what we need in ourselves, thinking we only need a little bit of God in our lives, a little bit of church to help us have good morals?  It is so easy to only pray when we need something or in time of crisis.  It is so easy to live life as if we are generally fine and not in need of God.  How often is it true that there isn’t that much room for Jesus in our lives because we are full?

But how often do we come to God recognizing that we are poor in spirit, empty, in need of His filling?  How persistent in prayer are we?  How all-out is our faith focused on Jesus?  How is our life focused on God?  Are we willing to humbly admit we might be wrong, that we need God to guide us?

The Canaanite woman was desperate.  She was at the end of her rope.  She knew she was in need.  The Pharisees were living large, feeling content and confident in their place before God.  Sometimes it takes going through a rough season of difficulty, sometimes it takes being broken, sometimes it takes being drained empty to test us, to prompt us to turn to Jesus.  Sometimes, just like He was with that Canaanite woman, Jesus is testing us to help us find that faith within us. Sometimes, quite often in fact, it is through such difficult seasons that we grow the most, as we realize how empty we truly are and how ready God is to fill us with blessings.

Today Jesus is among us encouraging each of us to make a fresh start, to empty ourselves of our pride, self-sufficiency, and tendency to focus on other things.  He invites us to come to Him empty so that He might fill us with all the blessings He has prepared to give us in the Holy Spirit.

I pray that Jesus would give us the grace to admit we might be wrong and our need of His guidance.

I urge you this morning as we think about being filled or being hungry, to come to the Lord’s table today empty, seeking to receive from Him the spiritual food of bread and wine, His body and blood that He so freely offers to nourish and renew us.

And I encourage you today to remember the next time you go grocery shopping to stop the hand wringing over ways God is not conforming to your expectations and remember to empty yourself and humbly collect the crumbs that fall from the Master’s table.  For if you do, you will find that those crumbs will become a feast that fully satisfies the longings of your soul.

To Him Be the Honor, Glory, Power and Praise, Now and Forever.  AMEN.

This was the Sunday sermon I preached on August 16, 2026.

You can visit the St Luke's Gladstone, NJ YouTube channel to watch it