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Chapter One Healing from Feelings of Unworthiness "... even the dogs eat the crumbs..." Matthew 15:21-28 Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon." But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, "Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us." He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." He answered, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." Then Jesus answered her, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed instantly. "Throw it to the dogs" —I have always found these words, and this whole story, difficult to digest. Why did Jesus call this woman a dog? This doesn't sound like a message from the Lord of Love. Facing this and other such challenging passages can send us spiraling into a whirlpool of doubts. Arriving at the conclusion that the allloving God couldn't possibly utter such words, we may feel forced to believe either that Jesus didn't actually say these words or that Jesus isn't actually God. In either case, our faith is compromised. We might get so upset at Jesus's words that we overlook the fact that he healed the woman's daughter according to her fervent request. It is important that we come to understand why Jesus spoke as he did. When we face a difficult story like this, it is an opportunity to increase our conscious contact with God. If left unresolved, doubts in our Lord or his Word will likely dilute our faith. But if we come to see the love and healing within these words, we have grown deeper in trust and understanding of the Lord of Love. This is vital to our spiritual development, and it is also necessary in making our faith living and dynamic. So, why, indeed, did Jesus address this poor woman in such an apparently derogatory manner? I have found a very useful tool in coming to understand difficult passages in the Word of God, namely to assume a message of love exists in all of scripture and search for that message. We can base our examination of this story on a faith that Jesus is the all-loving God whose essential message is, as he himself states, "Love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends" (John 15:12-13). Despite his initial words in this account, Jesus's actions make it obvious that he did indeed love this woman and her daughter. He wanted healing for them. And knowing Jesus to be infinitely more loving and wise than any mere human, we can rest confident that he behaved and spoke in exactly the way that was needed for this healing to take place. Time and again I have discovered that using a meditative imagination to empathize with the characters of the Bible is a powerful key to unlocking God's messages hidden within. The meaning of this story unveiled itself to me while I was meditating on it. After arriving at a meditative state of mind, I began imagining myself in the place of the Canaanite woman. God desires that we develop empathy, so it is little wonder that searching God's Word with the lens of empathy will yield much fruit. Let's imagine the situation of this poor mother. Start with the fact that she is a woman—a woman in a culture completely dominated by men. In that culture, women were considered little more than property, servants for men. The primary purpose of marriage was not companionship, but to produce children. The second most important reason for marriage was to increase family wealth and status. A woman was not viewed so much as a human being in her own right, but as a tool for achieving these ends. It was perfectly acceptable for a displeased husband to divorce his wife (Matt. 19:7-9). There was no concept of commitment on the part of a husband. The fact that a man could for any reason divorce his wife with nothing more than a signature illuminates the negative cultural attitude toward women. Again we see that a wife's value was measured by her capacity to please and serve her husband rather than by her inherent value as a daughter of God. Further revealing the prevailing derogatory attitude held toward women in ancient Jewish society is the fact that scholars and teachers simply didn't interact with women in public. His disciples were shocked when they found Jesus engaged in conversation with the Samaritan woman by the well (John 4:27). Their upset was in part because she was a non-Jew and in part because she was a woman. Thus, the Canaanite in the story of our present consideration surely believed herself a second-class citizen at best, simply because she was a woman. She probably valued herself not as a daughter of God, but as a servant to men, the same men who belittled her. Compounding this woman's sense of insignificance and unworthiness was the fact that she was not a Jew. She was from Canaan, a gentile nation despised by the Jews. She was not of the chosen. As she approached this Jewish man, Jesus, she felt intimidated because she was of the wrong gender, wrong culture, wrong nation, and wrong religion. As if all of this wasn't enough, there is little doubt that she considered herself flawed and sinful. In ancient cultures people believed that defects and deformities in offspring were the result of the sinfulness of the parents. A demon-possessed child would have likely brought shame to the woman. She may have received silent, condescending disdain from her neighbors or possibly outright blame and cruelty. Looking at all of these facts, we begin to understand how this woman must have felt about herself. She undoubtedly considered herself to be of little or no value. These general feelings of unworthiness were only compounded by the initial responses she received from the disciples and then Jesus himself. First, she was ignored. Then she was told to go away. She heard the disciples ask Jesus to shoo her off. And then came Jesus's own stinging words, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Amazingly, she still didn't give up. Rather, she worshipped him and begged again. But even this act of devotion only served to elicit the final attack against her sense of worth when Jesus answered her with these searing words, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." Imagine how you would feel if, when you approached your pastor for help, his response was that he didn't have time or desire to help "dogs"? How would you react? Most of us wouldn't deal too well with such words. If at this point the woman had become enraged and left Jesus in self-righteous defiance, we would understand. We would see justification if she had given Jesus a piece of her mind and reprimanded him for being so rude. Would we have done otherwise? But this woman, amazingly, did no such thing. The vital quesHealing tion for us to ask ourselves is what made this woman so strong. How was she able to rise above the sting of first the disciples' responses to her, and then Jesus's responses? From where did she find the dignity and strength to calmly keep pushing for her cause? The answer is her passionate love for her daughter. The hope and desire for her daughter's liberation from severe inner torment was so powerful that all other concerns were as nothing in comparison. The potential barriers of fear, sense of inadequacy, indignation, and rage did not distract her from her sole concern. This wonderful woman is inspiring in that she refused to let anything take precedence over her love for her daughter, not even her pride. And from that love she spoke, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." We cannot help but feel deep compassion for this woman. And finally Jesus responds to the woman in a new way: "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed instantly. Now how does the woman feel? Surely she felt unimaginably elated. She must have wept profusely as she rocked her now-sane daughter within her arms. She must have felt a depth of gratitude to which no words can do justice. And Jesus's message must have rung through her mind over and over again: "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." Jesus didn't just heal her daughter, he healed her. In his final words to her, he obliterated a lifetime of feelings of worthlessness. He showed her that she was powerful-that she was important. He showed her that it was her desire and her faith that enabled the healing. And he showed her all of this in a way that would never allow her to again sink into the same quagmire of shame and feelings of unworthiness. From that moment onward, every time she saw her healed daughter, she would witness the living evidence that she was a worthwhile human being. She would remember that it was her faith and persistence that had facilitated the healing of her daughter. Her healed daughter was proof of the truth of Jesus's encouraging and empowering message to her. Now we are able to see why Jesus treated this woman with such apparent disdain. Jesus knows the hearts and minds of all of us. He knew Nathaniel before having met him. From the beginning, he knew what Judas would do. He knew of Peter's denial before Peter could even fathom such an act. Jesus knew the entire life history of the woman by the well in Samaria. And surely Jesus knew all about this mother whose daughter was demon-possessed. He knew that she felt very insignificant and worthless—like a little dog. He knew, too, that her love for her daughter was so powerful that she would not accept no for an answer. Now, having known all of this, what if Jesus had simply said to the woman, "Oh my dear woman. Don't worry. Your daughter is healed. Also, I want you to know that you are a very important and valuable human being." We have to put ourselves in the shoes of the woman. Obviously, we feel grateful for the healing. We feel immensely grateful. But I doubt we feel the overwhelming sense of empowerment that comes only after we tenaciously push through all resistance and obtain our daughter's healing. An easy victory just doesn't carry the punch of one that is grabbed from the jaws of defeat. Jesus wanted her to know this second kind of joy: the joy of overcoming all odds. And how would we feel about ourselves after Jesus's encouraging words—"I want you to know that you are a very important and valuable human being"? We'd likely feel curious that Jesus offered this kind of emotional bolstering. We would wonder how he knew we held ourselves in low esteem. But because we have felt this way since birth, we ourselves may not even realize how poorly we value ourselves. At any rate, we'd likely feel comforted for a few days, and then the feeling would fade. We'd go back to the self-depreciating attitudes we held before. Words don't pack the punch that experience offers. What Jesus did was prove to the woman her own worthiness and power. He absolutely forced her to exert her strength far beyond what she felt was within her capacity or position. He made her struggle and push even against himself, God. And in the end, he showed her that her faith and love were so powerful that she, like Jacob, could wrestle with both man and God and overcome. Because of this, he didn't need to tell her that she was worthy or powerful; he had proved it to her. She knew it in her heart and there was no denying it. She wasn't a weak and pitiful recipient of the crumbs of mercy from the Healer. On the contrary, she was the strong mother who wrested a blessing out of Jesus by her powerful love and tenacious faith. It was her strength, faith, persistence, and ultimately love that led to the healing of her daughter. And the only way Jesus could have achieved this healing for both the daughter and the mother was in the miraculous and paradoxical way he did it. What looked on the surface like cruelty was an act of deep love—provoking the woman to assert herself. Simultaneously, Jesus also initiated the healing of society by publicly validating the worth of a woman and of a gentile. He sowed the seeds of change, the fruit of which still grows today throughout the world. Jesus's healing is for all—the daughter, the woman, society, and us today. This story is precisely written to exorcise our minds, today, of the same demon that bodily possessed the little girl then. Jesus's healings transcend time. By means of this story, we too can access Jesus's healing. Jesus wants to cast out of our lives the demon of feeling worthless and unworthy of God's love. We might call this the "dog" demon. If we feel self-loathing, worthless, depressed, or the like, we can know that this demon has possessed us. The messages that arise from a feeling of self-loathing are very convincing. Our thoughts tell us that we are worthless, and we wholeheartedly agree with this dismal assessment. Self-hatred captures us, its victims, in such a way that we cannot see any reality outside of that self-hatred. It is therefore impossible to escape self-hatred without external intervention. We need God's help. When we feel ourselves to be nothing but a little street dog, we aren't able to come to God. I sometimes wonder how many people who drift away from God do so because they subconsciously feel unworthy of God's presence, that is, unworthy of love. But God is for the people, all of us, saints and sinners alike. We don't feel worthy of God's time and attention and so do not approach him—and as a result, we can't be healed. Because we don't approach God, we are unable to contact God's truth, which is that he loves us fully and desires that we feel loved and worthy to be alive. So when we suffer from a sense of worthlessness, we are trapped in a cycle that seems hopeless. Jesus wants to cast this false notion out of us. This story is the means by which he does it. First, just as Jesus forced the woman to push hard for her healing, so Jesus forces us to push hard for our healing. The meaning of this story is not easy to come by. Just to understand the message of this healing, we had to delve deep and push hard. After reading Jesus's harsh words toward the woman, it would be easy—seemingly justifiable—for us to leave off faith in disappointment and upset. But just as the woman's persistence led to a great reward, so our persistence in seeking Jesus's love within this story leads to a great reward in our lives. By persevering through the surface to the inner message of this story, we suddenly see the astounding depth of Jesus's love. His love is wiser and deeper than we'll ever know. It doesn't matter how unworthy we feel; Jesus's love reaches out to everybody. Just knowing this wins half the battle for us. But merely seeing the love of God within the story isn't enough—there is more. After having pushed through the difficulties of understanding this story, we must again tenaciously push through the difficulties within our own spirits. When we are possessed by feelings of unworthiness, we are wise to follow the ways of this woman. We need to be persistent in our effort to access Jesus. Like the Canaanite woman, we must desire healing so fervently that we are willing to struggle with God. The Lord tells us in one parable that sometimes it will seem as if he is an uncaring and unjust judge, but that if we are persistent, even such a judge will yield to our desire for justice (Luke 18:1-8). We should also notice the way in which the woman was persistent. She wasn't belligerent or rude about it. Even after Jesus's apparent disregard for her problem, the text shows us that she worshipped him. Only in a worshipful, hopeful approach to Jesus do we access the healing revealed in this story. Lastly, we should remember the woman's motivation. She succeeded in winning the healing from Jesus because the passionate love she felt for her daughter empowered her. Spiritual healing and growth are inherently based in love. If we think about it rationally, we come to see that a sense of worthlessness hinders our ability to give and receive love. It makes us morose and trapped within ourselves. This state of mind affects those around us negatively. Our sense of worthlessness causes us to medicate our emotions with bad habits and addictions. These, in turn, hurt those around us. When we are tired of hurting those around us, love will lead us to Jesus's healing. If we are tired of the way our self-depreciation inhibits our ability to love and connect with others, if we are saddened by the way our self-hatred affects others negatively, then we will be empowered to tenaciously petition God for healing until we receive what we want. Love will drive us to take God to court, his own court, and quote back to him his own words. We might pray in this way: Dear Lord Jesus, You made me. You know everything about me and I admit to you that I feel worthless. I have tried my best and failed. I did not ask to be born like this. I need help! You have promised to help those who come to you. You have promised to be a faithful God. I am knocking on your door. I am seeking for you to be real in my life. I am asking you for help! I can't do this on my own. I don't know what else to do but beg you for help. You must help me. By your very words, you are obliged to help me! But there is another angle within this story. We read that the disciples were dismissive toward her. Unlike Jesus, they did not heal her daughter. It is likely that they could not have healed her even if they had tried. And unlike Jesus, they were condescending toward her because they believed themselves to be more important and worthy than a Canaanite woman. We see the disciples' propensity for a sense of self-importance in the repeated arguments between the disciples about who would be the greatest among them. There's a part of us that, like the disciples, feels self-righteous and condescending toward others. This is often true even when we loathe ourselves and deem ourselves unworthy of life. In fact, I have noticed that the two appear to be yoked together. The more I judge others, the more I judge myself. The more I judge myself, the more prone I am to judge others. The two, self-deprecation and disdain for others, are intrinsically united. It is as Jesus said, "Do not judge, so that you may not be judged" (Matt. 7:1). The two attitudes of worthlessness and smugness are bound together in the false notion of hierarchy. Feelings of worthlessness can only arise when we believe in a hierarchy of humans. But hierarchies don't apply to a person's inherent value. It is manifestly clear that our God, Jesus, loves all people equally. We are all his children. We are all worthy of his love. Jesus does not play favorites or withhold his infinite love from anyone for any reason. Think of the prodigal son. When we know that there is no hierarchy, that we are all equally made in God's image and likeness, then we know that we are neither less worthy nor more worthy of God's love, healing, and life. So part of the healing Jesus is offering us in this story is contained within the truth that all human beings are equally God's beloved children—Jew and gentile, man and woman, healthy and ill, disciple and non-disciple. This truth not only heals us of feeling like a little dog, it also empowers us to love other people without reservation. The woman was suffering under a society based in hierarchy. Males, Jews, and healthy specimens were at the top of the heap. Non-Jewish women with sick daughters were at the bottom. Jesus proved to her that the societal hierarchical beliefs were totally false. Many of us suffer under a different internal hierarchy. We may believe that people who are successful are more "valuable," which, when we think about it, means more worthy of life and God's love. Or maybe we believe that people of a certain faith or culture are at the top of God's list. We may believe that people who are emotionally and spiritually strong are better than those who are weak. When our consciousness is ordered in a hierarchical way, we suffer the plight of this woman. We at some level feel unworthy of even of being alive. We feel like a little dog. And this diseased attitude is just like the demon that possessed the little girl. This miracle has shown us how to let Jesus heal us of a constitutional sense of worthlessness. This is the first detailed account of a healing in the New Testament, and this is also the first miracle that must take place in our lives as we progress along the lines of spiritual growth and healing. Shattering the delusion that we are unworthy of God is ground zero for our spiritual journey. Breaking the delusion that humans exist in a hierarchy of value is essential for this to occur. Until the notion that we are unworthy of God and life is dispelled, we can't move forward. We need to be able to approach God if we intend to receive his help with our problems. The truth is that we are all God's children. We are all his beloved. We are worthy of a rich, joyful life based upon true union with him and others around us. We are all worthy of God's love and worthy of life! I well recall the moment the constant self-disparaging self-talk that plagued me for years was dramatically silenced. That experience opened up into two weeks of the most potent spiritual sense of awakening I have ever had. I pray that if you too suffer from a "little dog" spirit, you might be healed so that you can accept yourself and awaken to the palpable presence of Divine Love permeating all of life. Meditations 1. After entering into a meditative state of mind (see appendix), search for and focus on any feelings of unworthiness. After some time, imagine yourself as the Canaanite woman with the demon-possessed daughter. Imagine your daughter as vividly as possible. First, see yourself holding her as a tiny, normal infant; then as a happy toddler. Build your feelings of love for her to be as powerful as possible. Now see her as seven-year-old looking with love into your eyes and running up to you for your embrace. Hold her with your love. Now see her at age twelve. She curses and thrashes. She mutilates herself. Feel the depth of sorrow that your wondrous daughter has been seized by a demon. Get in touch with the emotions that flow through the story—the tender love for your daughter; the sense of desperation; the mounting determination. Now relive this story as vividly and fully as possible from the perspective of the Canaanite woman. See the dusty roads and the press of people. Hear the noises; feel the heat and bumping crowd. What smells do you encounter? Make it real. You bring your daughter toward Jesus. His followers tell you to go away. You cry out for mercy, but Jesus ignores you, and the disciples tell Jesus to make you go away. You hear Jesus say, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel." But you bow down and worship Jesus and say, "Please help me!" You hear Jesus say, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." You reply, "Yes Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." You suddenly feel a change within your spirit—you feel Jesus's presence within and you hear him confirming this feeling. "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." You look at your daughter and she is clearly healed. She is smiling and laughing even as tears are flowing down her face. Your tears flow too as you embrace her. She is back with you, restored to her former self. 2. Again after entering into a meditative state of mind, focus on the singular truth that the Lord loves you and all people infinitely and perfectly. Leaves 1. You are loved infinitely by the Lord. You are created to be loved and so love. 2. Sometimes love masks itself to accommodate and best serve us in our current state. 3. There is no hierarchy of human value. All of us are equally loved and important. Fruit 1. As a way of identifying and exposing the "dog demon," write down all the self-belittling messages that are repeated or stored up inside of your mind. Write down all the reasons you don't like yourself. 2. Write down all the ways that this self-hatred affects those around you. 3. Come to a decision that for their sakes and for yours, you want healing and are willing to do whatever it takes to extract it from God. 4. Make a list of the ways in which you have thought of human beings as existing along a hierarchy of value (e.g., people who sin are less valuable than those who do not; people who are accomplished are better than those who are not accomplished). 5. Throughout the week, notice all the times you begin thinking in terms of one of these false hierarchies and then replace these thoughts with the fact that all humans are equally valuable and worthy of the love. 6. Repeat this or a similar prayer daily or as needed: "Lord, I am suffering from a demon that makes me feel unworthy of love, unworthy of life, unworthy of you and your healing. I cannot overcome this demon by myself. I am your child. You have promised to not leave us as orphans. I am sick and need your healing. You have promised to give to those who ask. I am asking, Lord, that you heal me of this false feeling that I am worthless. I pray for my own sake, but I also pray for the sake of those around me who are negatively affected by my sense of worthlessness. Lord, show me you love me. Let me feel your love for me. Thank you, Lord Jesus." 7. Contact your phone partner midweek and talk about how the process of this healing is going. Discussion Questions 1. Has anything remarkable happened to you this week; did the Lord touch you this week in a special way concerning or not concerning the message of this miracle? 2. Have you ever had an experience where you felt insulted or belittled by someone of a "higher" status? How did you respond? How do you see that situation now? 3. What was your experience of the meditations? How did it feel when Jesus turned you away? How did it feel when you persisted and your daughter was healed? 4. What was your experience of the exercises? Did you find any of them particularly helpful or meaningful? If so, why? 5. If any value was gained from this miracle, how can we incorporate it and sustain it in our daily lives? 6. How can we support one another in relation to this miracle?