Mark 7.24-30
From there he 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.
Sartre said “hell is other people.” This week we have seen images and read news reports about the hell that is other people.
For a generation the phrase “asylum seeker” has become a dirty word. We forgot the Jews that we turned away from our boarders as they fled the Holocaust before the Second World War, and David Cameron wanted to turn away all but a handful of those fleeing Syria (a nation that Britain and America have destabilised in an area we deliberately kept in turmoil for decades.)
The moral cowardice is staggering: a government unmoved by people in desperate need, heeding only a public outcry – it’s profoundly depressing.
But what is the Christian response?
Reflecting on how many Syrian refugees should we take, Giles Fraser wrote in the guardian this week: “…why not all of them? Surely that’s the biblical answer to the “how many can we take?” question. Every single last one. Let’s dig up the greenbelt, create new cities, turn our Downton Abbeys into flats and church halls into temporary dormitories, and reclaim all those empty penthouses being used as nothing more than investment vehicles.”
Giles quoted Emma Lazarus’ famous words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty to illustrate than an open door can build, not destroy nations: “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp! Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Our Bible reading also talks about a foreigner in need, and a foreigner who does not receive a warm welcome. This story from Mark’s Gospel is a fascinating one. Jesus is becoming famous in Palestine, people wanting healing, people wanting to hear his teaching, and the Pharisees wanting to trip him up, were all after him. He escapes into the region of Trye and Sidon, Gentile country (the modern day Lebanon).
If you read this passage as a literary work it is unique in the Gospels. In every other story like this (scholars call them perecopes) the words or deeds of Jesus are the climax – but in this passage it is the woman’s words that are the climax:
Jesus calls her a dog, but the turning point is when she replies to Jesus, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
As we look at the harrowing images of the lengths refugees will go to to escape violence and how they are turned away, the words echo down the ages “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
The question of Jesus harsh words to the woman have provoked much debate:
We must wonder why Mark decided to records this event – it doesn’t portray Jesus is a very good light – he calls the woman who comes to her in need a ‘dog’ – ‘for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs!’
Up to now Jesus Ministry has been to the Jews only, so he thought foreigners (Gentiles) would not bother him. But a woman comes up to him in distress, a Gentile woman, her daughter is ill, and she begs Jesus to act. And Jesus seems astoundingly and uncharacteristically rude. He is often rude to the scribes and Pharisees, the hypocritical religious authorities of his time. But this is the only place in the New Testament where he is rude to someone in need.
There must be a good reason for including this bizarre little story, in the middle of lots of rather exciting tales of miraculous healings.
Some scholars have tried to reinterpret the Greek, but if anything ‘dog’ was a bigger insult in first century Palestine than it is today.
Some scholars have suggested it was a test of the woman’s faith. But that too seems cruel, and beneath the loving Jesus we read of in the rest of Scripture.
He seems to me that Jesus meant what he said.
The idea of the incarnation is a complicated doctrine, but whatever our interpretation of it, Jesus was fully a human being. Jesus was not God walking around in disguise. Jesus has to learn, like any of us, and Jesus had to learn his mission. Being brought up a Jew it is quite probable that up to this point Jesus thought his mission was to the Jews only. This Gentile woman comes along, and he dismisses her – she is not part of his plan.
But then the most startling thing of all happens:
Jesus allows himself to be corrected.
He realises that his mission is not only to the Gentiles, but to all people, this poor woman and her daughter included.
Jesus definition of moral responsibility is expanded to include the foreign woman.
Perhaps Mark recorded this story because it was a turning point. God spoke through this Gentile Woman.
Jesus allows a woman to correct him. The Rabbis of Jesus’ day would never teach a woman, never talk theology to a woman, some would not even look at a woman. Yet here and elsewhere in the Gospels, Jesus teaches and talks, and even allows himself to learn from women. Other Rabbis would never allow a woman to win an argument over them in public, it would be instant disgrace, their ability would be discredited. Yet Jesus knows what is right is more important than what looks right, so he allows himself to learn.
Perhaps even more shocking is that Jesus allows himself to be corrected by a Gentile! Gentiles were those who were of no religious significance, who were seen as unclean, and in error. But Jesus is open to learning not just from the learned Rabbis in the Temple, where he discussed the Law as a young boy, Jesus is open to hearing from God in all people. Even in those others hated, even in those who would tarnish his image by even speaking to.
We all need to learn from Christ’s humility, and be ready to lean from those we, or others, disdain. And live as Christ lived, a life of love. We need to expand our definition of moral responsibility, it is more important today than ever, as we see those fleeing Syria.
The idea of hospitality is at the heart of Jewish and Christian ethics. The ethics of our Jewish roots are summarised in the two words “remember Egypt” – the Jewish people are called to remember when they were poor slaves, oppressed, exploited, who fled seeking asylum in the Promised Land. Remembering the past we must today care for the poor, oppressed, exploited, those who flee seeking asylum
This week Justin Welby quoted from Leviticus, saying we must “break down barriers, to welcome the stranger and love them as ourselves.”
This is our challenge, in our personal interactions and in our national life.
Amen.
tadonnelly 