Our gospel reading today is one of those Bible passages where scholars have spilled untold gallons of ink trying to make sense of it. No matter how you look at it there is no way to get a clear and concise meaning from it, or even multiple meanings layered together.
And it is so unsettling! Does Jesus really refuse to cure this woman’s daughter? Does he really call her a dog? (Or perhaps some other word we’re not supposed to use in the polite family friendly setting of a sermon?) Is this a sign of Jesus’ humanity that he is so tired that his compassion is down? Or, does this woman really best Jesus in an argument? She, a woman; a non-Jewish woman; a non-Jewish uneducated woman… does she really outthink Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, in an argument while the brilliant religions leaders perpetually fail to do so?
I think that last question puts us on a path that does help us understand what is going on.
Before we turn to that, I want to say what this text clearly is not. I have heard this text interpreted to say it is about sexism and racism, and that Jesus’ systemic sexist and racist attitudes are challenged and broken by this strong uppity foreign woman. But interpretations like that are pure nonsense. They are imposing current day arguments and categories onto ancient texts, and then interpreting those texts to give you a meaning you can use to support your own pre-conceived conclusions. That’s bad biblical interpretation and bad logic.
Let’s be clear. The author of this gospel has no reason to include a text that would make Jesus look anything other than good. He had plenty of material to choose from. He didn’t have to include this. He did include it because he wants to teach us either something about Jesus or something about ourselves. This text was probably problematic right from the beginning. A different version of the same story is included in Matthew’s gospel. There Matthew tweaks it a bit and uses it as a story to teach about the strength of faith. Luke’s gospel, which like Matthew’s gospel, uses Mark as the foundation to tell the story of Jesus, leaves this story out completely.
No, Mark chose to put this story in the gospel for a reason. We may never know exactly, but I think we can make some pretty logical guesses. And I think those logical guesses teach us something.
Last week in worship we read the passage just before this one. You may remember that some Pharisees and some scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus. So far so good. There is nothing problematic about them wanting to see what Jesus is up to. But they noticed that some of Jesus’ disciples were not observing traditional Jewish cleanliness rituals before meals. They question Jesus about this. Let’s remember that these scribes from Jerusalem aren’t just locals with petty grievances. These are the top people.
Scribes were not the same thing as lawyers. They may have been similar but weren’t the same. Lawyers dealt with the law. Scribes may deal with the law, or deal with scripture, or deal with economics, or hold government offices, or the like. These scribes from Jerusalem were not just local guys who dealt with wills and deed transfers. These guys were like high end corporate executives. They knew the law frontwards and backwards. They knew both the letter of the law and the intent of the law. They knew the nuances of the law. They knew precedents. They are the top in their field. So when they challenge Jesus they are posing quite a challenge indeed!
Let’s not turn them into sour faced disagreeable legalists either. They are people who care about their faith and genuinely want to live out what God wants.
If you can remember last week you’ll remember that Jesus does not throw out the religious laws at all. He roots the religious laws in God’s constructive purposes. From there he challenges their beliefs. In that way he takes down a number of barriers: barriers about food, barriers about religious rituals, barriers about intentions, and barriers about righteousness. That same theme continues on in what we read today.
It must be said that this Syrophoenician woman is bold! Or perhaps she’s desperate. Make sure you picture the scene correctly. Jesus has left Jewish territory and is in the region of Tyre. He has gone into a house and he doesn’t want the public to know where he is. Presumably he wants to rest from the constant demands of the crowds. Anyway, Jesus is not out walking in the countryside. He’s in private. She disregards this. She barges in anyway. Can you imagine having an important guest in your house… say, a famous person who just wants to come and have a quiet peaceful time? You do not want the local news stations, or tabloid reporters, or the paparazzi barging in. But that is just what this woman does.
She does deserve credit that she bows down at Jesus’ feet. So she does show him honor and respect. She’s not so bold as to come in and be confrontational and demanding. But she is still bold.
She implores Jesus for help. He refuses. This is not intended to be a test of her faith. This is about Jesus staying true to his purpose. His purpose is not to run all over the countryside fixing people’s problems. Sure, this woman’s daughter is suffering. But hundreds, if not thousands, of women had suffering daughters. Was Jesus to just hop from place to place healing them all? No. That’s not his purpose. He points that out 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.”
Ouch. That hurts. But I don’t think it was intended to. Look at all aspects of early Christianity. Jesus was a Jew. He focused on Jews. Jewish scripture and faith was then and is now the foundation of what Jesus was doing. By far the biggest portion of the writings we Christians consider to be scriptures are not our own, but are Jewish. Judaism is the core. Jesus knew the connections to the core needed to be firmly established before things moved outward. Jesus is not at all against women or foreigners, or against helping people. But if he is going to accomplish in his ministry what he needs to accomplish he needs to stay focused. This woman was breaking that focus.
He gives her very valid logic using an easy-to-understand image. The children are to be fed first. But unlike Jesus’ highly educated opponents, the Jerusalem scribes, who we met previously, she fully accepts the strength of Jesus’ argument. Then she counters with her own. “Yes, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
She has not outwitted Jesus. She has not out argued him. She has simply countered Jesus’ sound logic with a different line of sound logic. Jesus acknowledges that. He has no logical reason to deny her request. So, he grants it despite it not being his focus.
If we look at this scene in the context Mark puts it, in the scene we had last week the barriers of food and tradition have been broken. Here barriers of race, education, and status are broken too. This woman stands at the complete opposite end of the spectrum from the educated elite who challenged Jesus previously.
What does the whole collection of scenes mean? It means to us, who read it centuries later, that in the faith of Jesus there aren’t stratifications. Intelligence, educational level, gender, race, etc. don’t ultimately matter. That may not be news to anyone who grew up in Christian faith. But it was a radical idea then. No one gets to say they have an inside track into God’s favor, nor an inside track on doing God’s will. In eternal life no one gets a superior seat, or an inferior seat.
That also means that no one gets a pass on responsibility. You can’t say, “Someone smarter or more holy or with a better personality should do the work of faith. I don’t have to do it.” Not so. You do what you can, whatever you can. It is everyone’s privilege and everyone’s responsibility.
Let us, like the Syrophoenician woman, be bold in our faith, but also respectful. For despite her boldness of entering the house, she also made her request of Jesus by kneeling before him. And may God give us energy and creativity in all that we do in his name.
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