King’s Cross 8

Tim Keller’s newest book, King’s Cross: The Story of the World in the Life of Jesus, examines big questions through the Gospel of Mark. Chp 8 is called “The Approach” and is about how we learn to approach God if we approach God properly.

Mark 7 contains a story about a woman who comes to Jesus, but as Keller describes her so well: “she is a Phoenician, a Gentile, a pagan, a woman, and her daughter has an unclean spirit. She knows that in every way, according to the standards of the day, she is unclean and therefore disqualified to approach any devout Jew, let alone a rabbi.”

Then adds: “But she doesn’t care.” [He observes that parents don’t take No for an answer when a child is in need.]

He probes her response, and he probes how Jesus responds — the food is for the children (Jews). Her response is to observe that the children’s puppies gather up the crumbs on the floor.

Keller observes that she doesn’t insist on her rights as we would today. What we find with her — and this is a very good observation — is “rightless assertiveness” (88).

He then puts these words into her mouth, and it raises this question: Is this what she was saying? Here is how he sees her: “Lord, I am not saying to you, ‘Give me what I deserve on the basis of my goodness,’ I’m saying, ‘Give me what I don’t deserve [I’m a Gentile] on the basis of your goodness  — and I need it now.'”

He sees her a paradigm of how sinners are to approach God: not too proud to accept what the gospel says about our unworthiness but counting on the grace of God’s acceptance. [He sees two obstacles: we either think we are too worthy to need God, or we think we are too unworthy for God to respond to us.]