Lectionary for Sept. 8, 2024
16th Sunday after Pentecost
Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23; Psalm 125;
James 2:1-10 [11-13] 14-17; Mark 7:24-37
This is the one passage that gives people more trouble than any other in the Gospels. What do we do with the Syrophoenician woman, especially this year? If I’m honest, I’m typing with fear and trembling because there’s a war. Some of our best minds and most compassionate hearts argue forcefully about whose side God is on. Calls to protect civilians too often devolve into this side versus that, with plenty of Scripture to support each position. I’ve lived in the area too long, too many times, and know too many kids who were traumatized. I know this: “[God] shall judge between the nations and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more” (Isaiah 2:4). May it come immediately! In the meantime, we have a story about Jesus coming for Jews and not their neighbors—and we must interpret it very carefully.
Jesus went to Tyre specifically to continue a pattern of teaching his disciples privately. He struggled to get focused instruction time for them because of the Galilean crowds (Mark 6:31, 34, 45, 54-56; 7:17). Hoping no one would notice him (7:24), he entered a house in the peninsula of Tyre (Alexander the Great connected the island to the mainland). Jesus and his disciples desperately needed a retreat.
Instead of a crowd pursuing him, however, a solitary gentile woman continually (the verb is imperfect active indicative) called out to Jesus, begging him to exorcise an unclean spirit from her daughter. The woman must have, in Mark’s telling, stood just outside the door and asked Jesus to free her daughter every time he entered or left the house. Jesus—again continually—told her every time he passed that it would not be right to take the children’s bread and throw it to dogs. In effect, Jesus’ healing ministry was not for her or her daughter.
After some time of this back and forth, the woman responded with an answer that gave Jesus pause: “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Jesus is explicit in his response: “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter” (7:29). It was the woman’s words that impressed Jesus and ended their daily back and forth.
If Jesus can open himself up to loving and caring for all neighbors, we who would follow him are bound to as well.
As we have heard for many weeks now, Jesus’ incarnational mission was to be the Bread of Life for the children of Israel. But the whole reason that Jesus and his disciples were in Tyre was to escape the overwhelming crowds of Jews who sought food and healing from them, if not necessarily leadership and teaching. The woman pointed out that Jesus had rolled himself off of the children’s table by leaving Jewish territory and coming to Tyre. Surely such a “crumb” could not be forbidden, could it?
Mark’s Gospel answers the question by being explicit about Jesus’ next destination: the Decapolis. These were the Greco-Aramean-Nabataean cities to the east and south of the Sea of Galilee, in which gentiles were in the majority. While there Jesus performed a sympathetic healing, touching the ears and tongue of a deaf and mute man. Again, he didn’t seem to be as enthusiastic about this healing—he gave a great sigh toward heaven and cried out in Aramaic for the man’s ears and mouth to be opened. The people were amazed, to be sure. Mark doesn’t note it, but Matthew’s parallel account records that the gentile crowd glorified the God of Israel (15:31).
We need to be honest—Jesus framed his incarnational teaching mission as to Jews alone. He framed our mission as to the entire world (Matthew 28:19-20). Indeed, God’s salvific mission is for the whole world (John 3:16). The Spirit is quick to extend the work, love and inclusion of God through Judea, Samaria, (Ethiopia) and to all the world.
Mark 7 represents a turning point for even Jesus. He went to Tyre as a last-ditch effort to get some alone time with his gospel. Remember, in Mark we read that Jesus came to preach and teach, not to perform miracles (1:38). But the witty faithfulness of the gentile woman of Tyre changed his orientation. From Tyre he went to the Decapolis where he healed many, taught and multiplied food, just as he had among Jews (Mark 8:1-9). After a brief return to Jewish territory, he went back to the deeply gentile city of Caesarea Philippi to speak with the crowds worshiping at the nearby Greco-Canaanite shrines.
What I am trying to show is that the Messiah of Israel, upon encountering and seeing the faith of the neighbors of the Jews, realigns his ministry to heal, teach and provide for beloved humans that Jesus’ Jewish neighbors considered their cultural, religious and national enemies. If Jesus can open himself up to loving and caring for all neighbors, we who would follow him are bound to as well.
