“Master, help me!” she cried, bursting past the astonished householder and throwing herself before the weary traveler. “I couldn’t stop her, Rabbi,” said his host, “shall I throw her out?” Jesus motioned him to be silent. The woman knelt before him in an attitude of utter desperation. “What do you want from me?” he might have thought. “Isn’t it enough that Tyre consumes most of the food we grow in Galilee? Isn’t it enough that Jewish children go hungry to feed your city’s wealthy? Isn’t it enough that your leaders kill our people whenever they think Rome won’t notice? What a nerve, asking me for help!” It’s almost as if a rich Brahmin were to drive up to the Sisters of Charity in Calcutta and ask Mother Teresa to leave a dying pauper to come sit with her daughter. Tyre and Galilee were as hostile to one another as Judea and Samaria. Of course Jesus isn’t going to do what she asks.
But wait a minute!
Jesus always responds. Jesus doesn’t buy into the local feuds, Jesus doesn’t follow the party line, Jesus talks to tax collectors and Jesus touches lepers. Jesus always does the surprising thing. What’s going on here?
“Jesus was a racist,” was the astonishing premise of an article I recently read on this passage. He was, so the author claimed, a product of his time and culture, a representative of a patriarchal and ethnocentric society who needed to have his consciousness raised. The Syrophoenecian woman did Jesus a favor, said the author, by opening his eyes to the possibility of expanding his message to include people beyond his original, somewhat narrow, objective. The lesson that we should learn from this episode is to examine ourselves for prejudice and to celebrate diversity.
As you can imagine, I had a pretty negative reaction to this interpretation. Of course I believe that prejudice is a bad thing, and that God’s people not only come in both sexes, but also in all shapes, sizes, colors and cultures. But I am absolutely unable to swallow the notion that Jesus was a racist who needed to be taught a lesson in inclusiveness by the courageous woman who confronted him with his mistake.
And it struck me that the article was an object lesson in pride, while the text is, in contrast, an illustration of humility. Let me explain what I mean.
Here you are, reading along in the book of Mark, about Jesus the son of God, the very embodiment of selfless love. And the next thing you know, he calls a desperate, grieving woman a dog! How can he? This is terrible, shocking, not the Jesus you’ve been told about. Something must be wrong. So you read onward a little further, and you notice that the woman talks him into changing his mind. “What a relief,” you think, “I don’t have to challenge any of my assumptions, Jesus is behaving the way he ought, this fits right into my world view.”
What you don’t notice is that somehow your world view manages to include the idea that Jesus was a sinner. You take the easy way out. It’s easier for you to accept that Jesus was wrong than that you might be. What you don’t realize is that you’ve recently swallowed with no trouble at all the fact that Jesus has called the Pharisees names, too. It’s acceptable in our culture to look down on Pharisees. Pharisees are bad.
Does that ever happen to you, when you read the Scriptures? Do you ever find yourself explaining away the hard parts rather than accepting the notion that either (a) you don’t understand or (b) you may be approaching the message from the wrong angle? Or do you let the hard parts challenge you to look more closely at your own biases? Are there parts of Scripture that you simply discard, saying, “Well, that doesn’t apply any more” or “We know better than that now”?
Don’t get me wrong. I believe that we DO have to understand Scripture in context before we can apply it to our own situation. Some things ARE applicable only to particular cultures and times, like washing your guests’ feet, or not piercing your ears, or wearing sackcloth and ashes to mourn. But the easy answer, the one that results on our looking down at either Jesus Christ or the Word of God from a position of smug, progressive superiority, is ALWAYS the wrong answer. It is not our place to call God to account when life doesn’t please us, or when Scripture doesn’t reflect or affirm our biases. It is God’s place to call US to account, and his tool is the Holy Spirit working through Scripture. Only when we approach God’s word with humility and a willingness to be taught does the Spirit lead us into truth.
Let’s look at the passage once again, starting with the assumption that Jesus had reasons for what he said and did.
"...a Syrophoenician woman, whose little daughter was possessed by an unclean spirit, heard of [Jesus], and came and fell down at his feet. . . And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. And he said to her, “Let the children first be fed, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”
This is not an easy passage. I have struggled with it, too, and so have generations of scholars. They’ve offered all kids of explanations to sugarcoat Jesus' harsh language. Some contend that Jesus spoke in a gentle tone of voice, with a twinkle in his eye. Others suggest that since the word he uses really should be translated “puppy” rather than “dog,” it’s not really an insult. Still others have speculated that Jesus is testing the woman’s faith. But no one of these explanations has any more to recommend it than the others; they are all simply our attempts to wrestle with a mystery.
And that, I think, is where we find our lesson.
How do you wrestle with mystery?
How do you handle the mystery of God’s seeming injustice when life deals you a bad hand?
How do you respond to the mystery of God’s apparent silence when you cry out for relief?
Do you react with anger, with impatience, with bitterness and despair? Do you turn your back on God, taking matters into your own hands or seeking other gods that promise to do your bidding more quickly, more surely?
Or do you persevere, with humility, hope, and trust, as the woman in today’s story does?
I do not know why Jesus spoke as he did. The text does not tell us. We will not always know why God acts as he does. Sometimes God will give us answers to our questions, sometimes he does not. It’s nice to know why bad things happen, but it is not necessary. We simply start from the premise that God is good, and that Jesus is, too. What is necessary for us is to know how we are supposed to act. And I think that is what we can learn from this story, from this woman.
The first thing she does is accept the fact that she doesn’t have any rights. When Jesus says, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs,” she accepts her second-class status. She knows she doesn’t have a right to any attention from a Jewish healer. She is not entitled to any favors from this man. She wasn’t born into the favored class and she hadn’t earned any special consideration. And guess what? We don’t have any rights where God is concerned, either, although we often talk and act as if we do, because we are so accustomed to our privileges. Everything we have been given is because God is good, not because we are deserving.
The second thing this woman does is acknowledge the extent of Jesus’ power. “Yes, Lord,” she says, “yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” She’s not asking for Jesus to change his priorities; she knows that if she hangs around the edges even the spillage from his mission is enough to change her daughter’s life. To be in the presence of the power of God is enough, whether you’re a main player on the stage or not. Unlike James and John, who argue over status while missing half the point of Jesus teachings, this woman doesn’t ask for a starring role. To be a bit player is enough, just so she can be present at the feast. Excuse the mixed metaphor.
And the third thing she does is to take Jesus at his word. “For this saying you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter,” said Jesus. And she went home, and found the child lying in bed, and the demon gone.
So the next time you find yourself wrestling with the mystery of why God does as he does, check your attitude.
Are you approaching God as one who has a right to demand a response, or with humility, as one seeking a gift?
Are you approaching God with patience, willing to let him decide how and when he will answer?
And are you approaching God with trust, knowing that his grace is sufficient for all things?
If not, why not?
