Mark 7:24-30<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\nThe Children\u2019s Crumbs<\/strong><\/p>\nGeography is important in Mark and so we have to know where places are to understand what is being communicated.\u00a0 Jesus\u2019 own people saw the world divided into two; between their people and all other people.\u00a0 They believed they were the chosen, good people, the ones God loved and they live here and all others are the bad people that God and they want nothing to do with. They live there. Every town, every region, every area was seen in light of this division The text makes it clear that Jesus is setting out to visit regions they all know as alien.<\/p>\n
This territorial awareness reminds me of growing up north of Randolph, Nebraska; my town and a town inhabited primarily by people of German descent. Being north of town we lived near the territory that belonged to Wausa; Swedish people: \u00a0Swansons, Johnsons, and Andersons; tall blonds with advantages in basketball.\u00a0 Driving west through their territory had a different, more foreign feel for me.\u00a0 Now this is all irrational and even humorous but I felt it as a kid and still feel it when I go back sixty years later.<\/p>\n
Recently something new has developed.\u00a0 With the changes in agriculture most shallow wells in the land have either gone dry or become polluted and so our farm is being hooked up to a new source for our drinking water.\u00a0 And of all places, our water is being piped from Wausa!\u00a0 When I visited there this summer I found myself drinking water drawn from wells of people of Swedish descent!<\/p>\n
Does that give you a feel for what\u2019s happening with Jesus and his disciples as they travel into the foreign region of Tyre?\u00a0 Jesus had been traveling along the safe and familiar north shore of the Sea of Galilee and now he heads toward the region of Tyre, the territory of Gentiles. This is an opportunity to explore how we relate to people different from us.<\/p>\n
For some reason \u201che entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there,\u201d but \u201cHe could not escape notice.\u201d Of course Jewish people didn\u2019t enter gentile houses so he would naturally stick out.\u00a0 \u201cA woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him.\u201d\u00a0 This woman came and bowed down at his feet. \u00a0She is Gentile, a Greek of Syrophoenician origin.\u00a0 She is from Wausa, only more so!\u00a0\u00a0 She is a foreigner and a daughter of the ancient enemies of Jesus\u2019 people.<\/p>\n
She is an outsider, for Jews a person who can be officially ignored and a woman and she has a daughter with an unclean spirit.\u00a0 She fails in almost every purity code category by which Jesus\u2019 people ordered their world.\u00a0 This woman who can\u2019t pass a single test \u201cbegged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.\u201d\u00a0 She knows she brings nothing, has no rights and must appeal to his mercy alone and she does.<\/p>\n
Jesus\u2019 response is notably grumpy.\u00a0 \u201cHe said to her, \u2018Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children\u2019s food and throw it to the dogs.\u201d\u00a0 What a mean thing to say!\u00a0 He suggests that he has responsibility to feed his own people and since she is not one of them, she and her daughter are no better than a dog to him.\u00a0 This is one of those texts I would never touch if I weren\u2019t a lectionary preacher.<\/p>\n
How will this foreign woman respond?\u00a0 Will she take offense like the Pharisees and legal scholars when Jesus called them hypocrites?\u00a0 \u201c\u2018Sir,\u201d she answered him, \u201ceven the dogs under the table eat the children\u2019s crumbs.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 She does not take offense.\u00a0 Instead she addresses Jesus with respect.<\/p>\n
Interpreters have always struggled with this passage.\u00a0 Some people simply doubt that Jesus said it.\u00a0 It\u2019s too un-Jesus like.\u00a0 Well then why did Mark say he said it?<\/p>\n
Others have taken an almost opposite approach.\u00a0 They like a very human Jesus who might have bought into the stereotypes of his people.\u00a0 So like all Jews of his day he was prejudiced against gentiles and said this without thinking. \u00a0But, to his credit, he is a quick learner and the persistence and cleverness of the woman teach him to be more open to Gentiles.\u00a0 With this approach Jesus models being willing to learn from a woman who teaches him tolerance.\u00a0 Not a bad lesson. \u00a0Jesus models how to listen to the ones we deem as outsiders.\u00a0 This is a good lesson to learn in this time of \u201cBlack Lives Matter.\u201d We might learn something about our own distorted and dismissive way of seeing people of color.<\/p>\n
But approaching the story from this angle makes it very modern.\u00a0 Would Mark write it this way to answer these sorts of questions? \u00a0I have my doubts.<\/p>\n
In last week\u2019s gospel the Pharisees notice that some of Jesus\u2019 disciples did not wash their hands before eating.\u00a0 Since this is an important ritual rule for them, they want to know why Jesus doesn\u2019t make his disciples wash their hands too.\u00a0 They are talking to Jesus like one religious leader talks to another and comparing notes.<\/p>\n
Jesus cuts them short by calling them hypocrites who insist the outside of their bodies be clean while they exude filth from the inside. \u00a0A vast abyss separates them yet they think Jesus and they are just alike.\u00a0 Jesus offends them to bring them to the crisis of needing to decide who he is.\u00a0 Is he just another religious leader who has followers and rules or is he the Son of the living God come from another place?\u00a0 \u00a0Until they recognize the differences they can\u2019t chose to follow him.\u00a0 Right now, he is just another religious leader for them and a rival; and so they are offended.<\/p>\n
Could it be the woman accepts \u201cthe offense\u201d because she knows her place and she knows who he is?\u00a0 She dares stand up for herself with wisdom and humor because she sees Jesus\u2019 offensive comment as a straw man meant to test her and this is a test she passes brilliantly.\u00a0 She can\u2019t pass the purity code test but she passes the test of faith with flying colors.<\/p>\n
Today we all get to eat the crumbs from this table of love.\u00a0 Even those at the bottom, those who dwell under the table, those who consider themselves unworthy have been invited to eat the crumbs.\u00a0 This Syrophoenician woman, the one from another religion, who had nothing going for her in terms of justifying herself, had a powerful insight that we are still being stretched to understand.\u00a0 She sees that there are no differences with God and all are loved.\u00a0 The love she has for her demon-possessed daughter that compelled her to seek healing from Jesus is the same love God has for all God\u2019s children.<\/p>\n
The Syrians, Palestinians and Iraqis heading north into Europe and the Europeans already there who are afraid of them are equally valued and loved.\u00a0 God wants all his people to find a home.\u00a0 Hispanic people pressing our borders and those already here are just as loved as those of us who have been here for decades.\u00a0 Those prejudiced eyes we look through are clouded by our own inhumanity.<\/p>\n
The Syrophoenician woman has pushed the dialogue outside the box of who\u2019s in and who\u2019s out.\u00a0 She anticipates Paul who says in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female.\u00a0 She has no puffed up notion of herself to protect.\u00a0 She isn\u2019t in rivalry with Jesus and can see him for who he is. \u00a0She sees the radical reversal he brings the whole world and opens to it.<\/p>\n
When this woman came and fell at his feet it was not a manipulation.\u00a0 It was worship.\u00a0 When she claimed her place as his follower he replied, \u201cGo on home.\u00a0 The demon has already left your daughter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Is the demon that left the powerfully distorting idea that some humans are more worthy and loved than others?\u00a0 It is a demon with many heads and hard to get rid of.\u00a0 Jesus went to the cross and God raised him from the dead to caste it out.\u00a0 It changes everything!<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Syrians, Palestinians and Iraqis heading north into Europe and the Europeans already there who are afraid of them are equally valued and loved. God wants all his people to find a home. Hispanic people pressing our borders and those already here are just as loved as those of us who have been here for decades. Those prejudiced eyes we look through are clouded by our own inhumanity. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2321,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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