I can only imagine the desperation with which the Syrophenician woman approaches Jesus in Mark 7:26-30. When I read this story, I see a woman far from her homeland—unpretentious, humble, and alone in a strange country and desperate to save her dying daughter. When she approaches Him, Jesus is arguing with the Pharisees and scribes about the law. It is a sophisticated argument and Jesus is fully immersed in His own culture, weighing the fine points of requirements for living a faithful life.
She knows this is an inopportune time, but her hopelessness makes her daring and she interrupts. “She besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter.”
Jesus’ initial response is one of dismissal. She, an outsider, has no place to call upon Him. He rejects her, “Let the children first be filled; for it is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it to the dogs.” Unquestionably, this woman loved her daughter very much. You can almost feel her heart breaking as she gathers her courage to continue confronting Jesus. She combines pleading with challenge in the way anxious mothers filled with fear for their children have done for time immemorial.
“Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs.” In my mind’s eye, I can almost picture Jesus looking at this frantic woman, made rash through despair, whispering a long, slow “hmmm.” It is an important moment in Jesus’ ministry. He is stretched by this woman to see beyond His own people—to see all humanity as children of God.
This moment of understanding for Jesus is an important story in Mark as it defines the scope of His ministry—a new radical understanding of the breadth of the kingdom of God. The movement to include all of humanity and not just the children of Israel in the fundamental message of God’s experience now and in the future has moved through cultures and time, remaining vital for two thousand years. Certainly it has been misused. It has also given hope and strength to the dispossessed and the downtrodden. Certainly it has been exploited. It has also been a model for generations of people to live their lives simply and with quiet purpose. One of the great beauties of the message is that it cuts across time and through cultures. As the message moves, it melds to different cultures at different times. Where ever it lands, it supplies the answers that are needed in ways that can be understood. A gift from a Greek woman.
Requests
•We invite God to remind us of all that we have to be grateful for during this season of thanksgiving.
• Pray for CPT partners in an organization of small-scale gold miners in the Southern Bolívar region of Colombia. Their communities are facing the encroachment of large mining companies and violence from armed groups, which profit from gold mining.
• Pray for the families of Sterling Olmsted, Rudy Haag, and Priscilla Makhino and Nellie Malloy’s husband, all of whom have been called home recently.
She knows this is an inopportune time, but her hopelessness makes her daring and she interrupts. “She besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter.”
Jesus’ initial response is one of dismissal. She, an outsider, has no place to call upon Him. He rejects her, “Let the children first be filled; for it is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it to the dogs.” Unquestionably, this woman loved her daughter very much. You can almost feel her heart breaking as she gathers her courage to continue confronting Jesus. She combines pleading with challenge in the way anxious mothers filled with fear for their children have done for time immemorial.
“Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs.” In my mind’s eye, I can almost picture Jesus looking at this frantic woman, made rash through despair, whispering a long, slow “hmmm.” It is an important moment in Jesus’ ministry. He is stretched by this woman to see beyond His own people—to see all humanity as children of God.
This moment of understanding for Jesus is an important story in Mark as it defines the scope of His ministry—a new radical understanding of the breadth of the kingdom of God. The movement to include all of humanity and not just the children of Israel in the fundamental message of God’s experience now and in the future has moved through cultures and time, remaining vital for two thousand years. Certainly it has been misused. It has also given hope and strength to the dispossessed and the downtrodden. Certainly it has been exploited. It has also been a model for generations of people to live their lives simply and with quiet purpose. One of the great beauties of the message is that it cuts across time and through cultures. As the message moves, it melds to different cultures at different times. Where ever it lands, it supplies the answers that are needed in ways that can be understood. A gift from a Greek woman.
Requests
•We invite God to remind us of all that we have to be grateful for during this season of thanksgiving.
• Pray for CPT partners in an organization of small-scale gold miners in the Southern Bolívar region of Colombia. Their communities are facing the encroachment of large mining companies and violence from armed groups, which profit from gold mining.
• Pray for the families of Sterling Olmsted, Rudy Haag, and Priscilla Makhino and Nellie Malloy’s husband, all of whom have been called home recently.
