If you are anything like me, the interaction between Jesus and the Syrophoenician women has probably concerned you.
There are phrases Jesus speaks known as the “hard sayings of Jesus.”
This is indeed one of them.
When we encounter something in the Gospels that is hard for us to hear and understand, it is important that we slow down to understand what is going on, so come along with me on a journey trying to understand why Mark included this interaction in his account of the life of Jesus Christ.
Let’s begin this journey by remembering that while the Bible is the inspired word of God, it is also literature, and in the Bible, we encounter every type of literature under the sun. Historical narratives, poetry, epics, letters, and in the synoptic Gospels, biographies.
Mark’s account is a biography of the life of Jesus Christ. Often biographies tell the true accounts of someone’s life in an order that allows the reader to better understand the true nature of the person it is written about. Mark is doing exactly that today.
This section of Mark follows immediately after the section we covered last week. Jesus has just had a tense interaction with some Pharisees and is on the move. Jesus was in a heavily Jewish city last week, and from there he went to Tyre and Sidon. That is roughly a 25-mile journey northwest from where Jesus was. Tyre is a Gentile city. Jesus is there, we are told, because he needed rest.
Jesus enters a house hoping he could go unnoticed, and right away, or immediately as Mark tells us, a Gentile Syrophoenician woman fell down at his feet and begged him to cast a demon out of her daughter. Jesus’ response to her is the controversial statement we are dealing with today, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” She responds “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” And Jesus, in turn, responds by casting the demon out of her daughter.
To understand this interaction, we need to keep reading. After this, Jesus travels through Sidon, back to the sea of Galilee, and then to the Decapolis, which is a group of cities east of the Jordan River whose population, like Tyre’s, is Gentile. “In the Gentile world in the first century, there were many ‘miracle-workers’ who attracted popular followings.” Jesus has been dealing with these types of crowds in Mark already, and He did not want to perform miracles or bring the Kingdom of God to people who rejected His true nature.
Proof of this can be found in the interaction between Jesus and the deaf mute. A large crowd has surrounded Jesus, and that large crowd presents him with a man who is deaf and mute, and asks Jesus to heal him. How Jesus heals him is extremely important: Jesus does not heal him in front of the crowd there gathered, but instead, he takes him aside, away from the crowd, and there Jesus heals the man. Jesus then asks the man to keep this quiet, but the man has such zeal for the kingdom of God that he proclaims this miracle to all who will listen, and the people are amazed by Jesus.
In the next part of the story, which we did not read today, a great crowd gathers in the same area Jesus is in, and because the crowd has been with Jesus for three days, Mark tells us Jesus shows compassion on them, and using seven loaves of bread and a few small fish, Jesus fed all 4,000 people before departing. It is important to note that this is the second miraculous feeding in Mark’s account. The first was to a Jewish group; this to the Gentiles. A key theme seen throughout Mark’s account is every step Jesus takes has him bringing the Kingdom of God to people in need of its grace and power.
Jesus’ interaction with the Syrophoenician women was not a case of Jesus being insensitive and insulting her, but a case of Jesus being careful to make sure that the women understood what she was receiving. And it is also a narrative tool used by Mark to show the path to discipleship for Gentile Christian’s reading this Gospel. “The power of God is properly released not in the context of superstition and magic, but in response to faith. Jesus put before the woman a puzzling statement to test her faith.”
As is evident in her response to Jesus, she was not insulted by the comparison between children and the pet dogs, but she turned the whole thing on its head and turned the statement to her advantage. She never rejects Jesus’ statement, but she carries it one step further. She, in effect, says that the dogs eat under the table, while the children eat, therefore, they are fed at the same time, and do not have to wait to be fed! She illustrates the type of faith that can receive a miracle, and “placed herself unconditionally under Jesus’ lordship and received his acknowledgement and promise.”
Now here is the key to this three-part story of two healings and a miraculous feeding. While the Scribes and Pharisees continue to attack Jesus, and the disciples remain confused and hard-hearted, a simple Gentile woman shows profound confidence in Jesus, and from there, Jesus continues to heal Gentiles, and even feeds them a miraculous meal, identical to the meal he fed to the Jews.
Jesus’ questioning of the Syrophoenician women was not an insult to her, but a challenge to the entire Gentile population Jesus was amongst, and to whom Mark is writing.
Are you ready to receive the Kingdom of God? She emphatically replied, “Yes, Lord!”
And from there, Jesus spread the Kingdom of God to the Gentiles, who received it through his miraculous actions and through evangelists like Mark.
Are you ready to receive the Kingdom of God?
In doing so, you bear the responsibility to bring that kingdom to our society, not by being afraid of those who do not fit our image of a perfect Christian, but to those who challenge our view of the perfect Christian.
Accept the power of God’s kingdom, but be aware of the responsibility to love your neighbor as yourself, and to lovingly encounter all whom God puts in your path. Not only those in fine clothes, but also those who are poor and in dirty clothes, because in the Kingdom of God, there is no distinction between them, nor should there be in each of our lives.
Sermon preached by the Rev. Christian M. Wood
Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota Florida
16th Sunday after Pentecost
9 September 2018