From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, ‘Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ But she answered him, ‘Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.’ Then he said to her, ‘For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.’ So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone. Mark 7:24-30
This is the first part of Sunday’s Gospel reading. Coupled with a section of the Epistle of James it makes a point that God shows no partiality, no making distinctions according to people’s rank or occupation or moral character. God simply loves everybody and expects us to do the same.
But first, it gets messy. Jesus is in Gentile territory – and the ethnic tensions show up. When the Gentile woman asks for healing for her daughter, Jesus first says he comes principally to Jews: “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” Wait – did Jesus just call that woman a dog? Actually, yes he did – and we’re shocked. To say that to a woman desperately worried about her daughter would be harsh if we heard it today, but it’s even worse in a culture where dogs weren’t beloved pets but flea-ridden scavengers. Some commentators rightly point out that it’s a diminutive: “dogs” doesn’t mean big fierce dogs, but little ones, puppies; as if calling someone a chihuahua rather than a rottweiler makes it OK.
Somehow the woman comes back with a response, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” What are we to make of this? Trying to claim Jesus didn’t really mean what he said is, quite frankly, a cop-out. One ancient scholar proposed that Jesus knew everything and therefore knew how brilliantly the woman would respond and wanted to give her the chance to make the quick come-back so he could also praise her for her faith and insight. Others suggest that Jesus here is trying to teach a lesson to those around him. Which doesn’t really help – because using a desperate mother as an object lesson for other people’s edification isn’t something we can respect. So what are we to make of this?
Maybe what we encounter here is a very human Jesus. Maybe he was just really tired that day, and when he came out with that harsh response it was his tiredness talking: this can happen with us, can’t it. Possibly another sign here of the humanness of Jesus is the way he’s at this point susceptible to the prevailing cultural and ethnic tensions between different groups. Again, we can recognise this from our own day. Perhaps we can interpret this as a conversion story, where Jesus is converted out of cultural prejudice.
Because let’s be honest here, this is a theological argument which Jesus does not win. The Syrophoenician woman’s rapid come-back leads to Jesus commending her and healing her daughter. Here at last is something worth imitating in Jesus: the grace with which he responds to her, the lack of defensiveness in how he concedes defeat in the argument. She’s made her point, he accepts this, and heals her daughter. Here we can see Jesus’ humanity and his divinity coming together: the Jesus who loses an argument – and loses his cultural prejudice along the way – is the Jesus who can cure her daughter.
And there might be something else going on here. In the woman’s implicit acceptance of the insult, her lowering of herself, as someone beneath the table, her acceptance of crumbs, all so that healing can come to one who needs it – all of this anticipates Jesus’ own definition of discipleship as lowly service, and Jesus’ own lowering of himself so that healing could come to humanity. The woman is the hero of the story, and the one who has most in common with the Jesus we serve.
Comments