"A Lesson for Jesus – and Us"

It was one of those times that I wished I had kept my mouth shut.

It was in a New Testament class in seminary. I have forgotten what the passage we were discussing was, but I remember being struck by a sudden insight, one I felt compelled to share.

“It seems like Jesus is growing into his role as Messiah, becoming stronger and more confident,” I said.

My professor looked at me in horror.

“Jesus did not grow into his role,” he said emphatically. “He was born the Messiah, the son of God. He didn’t require on the job training.”

I thought about that professor this week and wondered what he might have to say about today’s gospel reading. Because its message is pretty clear – in this story Jesus learns a lesson about being the Messiah. And his teacher is a lowly woman.

Jesus has just had yet another run in with the religious authorities, who are indignant that he and his followers do not have the proper regard for the religious purity codes.

They have been seen not ritualistically washing their hands before eating, and eating food that may not have been prepared by Jewish kosher laws. Even worse, they have been seen eating with people who are considered unclean – like tax collectors and prostitutes.

Jesus’ reply is scathing. Purity is determined not by external factors, but by what is in one’s heart, he says.

The confrontation must have tired Jesus. He immediately goes to the region of Tyre, in what is now known as Syria, an area that was not heavily Jewish. He goes into a house and does not want anyone to know he is there.

Obviously, Jesus wants some time away, a chance to be by himself. No confrontations, no requests for healing, no words of wisdom. Just some badly needed time apart.

It isn’t to be. Even in those days before instant communications, word somehow quickly spreads that Jesus is in town. Immediately someone appears, demanding something of him.

That someone is a Gentile, that is, not a Jewish, woman. She comes to Jesus and bows down at his feet, begging him to heal her daughter, who is possessed by a demon, or what we would call mentally ill.

Talk about impure. It would be harder for a Jewish man to come into contact with anyone less pure than this – a woman, a foreigner, and a nonJew. According to the thinking of the day she must have committed some grave sin for her child to be so ill.

And she is inappropriately assertive, since she must know a woman of her station has no business approaching a Jewish man.

But this is not just any Jewish man, this is Jesus. And since he has just declared that none of these outward appearances are indicators of what is in one’s heart, we expect that he will treat this woman with respect, as a fellow child of God.

That is why his response to her is so shocking.

“Let the children be fed first,” he says. “For it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

The implication is clear. Jesus insults this woman, calling her a dog. He wants nothing to do with her, has no sympathy for or obligation to her.

In Matthew’s version of this story, Jesus is even blunter. “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” he says.

In other words, I am here for the Jews. You are not a Jew, so go away. Leave me alone.

It has been amusing this week to read commentaries by learned Biblical scholars, leaping to Jesus’ defense, explaining that he wasn’t really rude, that he didn’t really mean what he said.

It was a word play that the woman would recognize, one said.

Jesus was just testing her to see how strong her faith was, another suggested.

He never intended not to help the woman, another declared.

But the truth is that not just one, but two gospels tell us that this is indeed what Jesus said, and that he apparently meant every word of it.

He was tired, he wanted to be alone, and he wanted to put this woman who was bothering him in her place.

The problem is that the woman refused to be put.

Think about what tremendous courage it took for her to approach Jesus in the first place. She knows her place in society. She knows the rules of the culture that forbid someone like her from talking to someone like Jesus.

But she is desperate.

We can imagine that she has tried every way she knows to get help for her daughter. Nothing has worked. Her great love for her daughter emboldens her to keep pushing, to refuse to walk away from even the dimmest glimmer of hope.

She doesn’t even flinch when Jesus calls her a dog.

Instead, she fires back, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

We can imagine that at this moment there is a long silence. Jesus must be astounded at the woman’s brashness and audacity.

But he also realizes how desperately this woman must love her daughter, how courageous she is.

And then Jesus shows us how to graciously lose an argument.

“For saying that, you may go,” he tells the woman. “The demon has left your daughter.” And the girl is healed.

This unnamed, uneducated, Gentile woman is the only person in scripture who verbally spars with Jesus and wins. Religious scholars and leaders try to debate him, to trip him up, to get the best of him – but they always fail.

It is not the woman’s great intellect that challenges Jesus, but her courage and love for her daughter. Because of that courage and love, the woman and her daughter’s lives are changed forever by her encounter with Jesus.

But Jesus’ life is also changed forever by his encounter with the Gentile woman.

This person, who started out as an unwelcome interruption and intrusion, becomes God’s representative and bearer of truth to Jesus.

She challenges Jesus to exercise his ministry in a new way, to venture beyond the familiar voices of tradition and hear a new word from God.

From this moment on, Jesus’ ministry is changed. The Gentile woman opens his eyes, broadens his perspective, and changes him and his mission.

Jesus’ very next recorded act is to heal a man who is not Jewish. And soon he tells his disciples not just to preach, teach, and heal the people of Israel, but to go and make disciples of all nations.

With all due respect to my New Testament professor, what this woman does is give Jesus a lesson in how to be the Messiah, not just to serve and save the Jews, but to serve and save the world.

This Gentile woman’s comment about “even the dogs under the table eat the crumbs” hit me this week as I read an essay by Garrison Keillor about health care reform.

Keillor happened recently to tune into a radio call-in show with a veterinarian taking calls about pets’ health problems.

“The vet was fielding questions about Addison’s disease among basset hounds and a cocker spaniel’s hypothyroid problem and what can be done about a bulldog who snores, and it was interesting to discover the excellent medical care that dogs have come to expect these days,” Keillor wrote.

“The vet was herself a dog parent, as she put it, and there was genuine feeling in her voice when she discussed the basset’s hormonal problems, something I haven’t heard in the debate over healthcare for humans this summer.”

It is ironic, he pointed out, that a country that spends $10 billion a year for healthcare for pets has 48 million people who are uninsured.

Now before you get upset, let me quickly say that I am not criticizing spending on animals’ health care.

I vividly remember racing out of church after a Palm Sunday service one year for the two-hour drive from Chattanooga to Knoxville to visit my cat who was in ICU at the University of Tennessee’s vet school hospital. There have been many years when I have spent more money on my animals’ medical bills than my own.

But there is not a week that goes by that I don’t receive at least one phone call from someone who cannot afford their insulin or blood pressure pills or other medication, or who is forced to decide between buying food or medicine for their child.

Their desperate calls to churches begging for help are not unlike the Gentile woman’s plea to Jesus. They are God’s representatives and bearers of truth to us.

“Even the dogs eat the crumbs under the table,” the Gentile woman said to Jesus, giving him a lesson in what it means to be the Messiah.

Her spiritual descendants are calling us today, giving us a lesson in what it means to be Christian.

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Readings

Isaiah 35:4-71

Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.” Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water.

James 2:1-10, 14-17

Mark 7:24-37

Jesus set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone. Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”

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