Weekly Meditation for September 6th

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Weekly Meditation
by Christine White
Mark 7:24-37

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.


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.'

The story of Jesus and the Gentile woman whose child needed healing has always filled me with mixed emotions. On the one hand, I'm offended by Jesus' initial conduct. He treats the non-Jewish woman with a severity that he has not shown to any of the others who have sought healing. On the other hand, I am filled with pride both for the woman who was able to engage the challenge posed by Jesus' saying and for Jesus who acknowledges the woman's word has overthrown his own word and has the humility to learn from her.

The socioeconomic situation that existed in the world of Jesus was that those who produced the food, Jewish peasant farmers, saw their work consumed by others. This probably caused the resentment on the part of those from Jewish villages producing goods for wealthy cities which we can see in Jesus' original reply. The use of the term "dog" was usually an insult intended to degrade those about whom it was used.

For me, the most amazing part of the story is the woman's ability to respond to Jesus' saying about dogs with a saying of equal power. Her response uses the ambiguity surrounding the term dog (she uses it to refer to a dog who is a pet and companion) to turn the demeaning metaphor to her advantage.

While it would be wrong to feed the dogs food that the children need, everyone knows that the dogs are permitted to eat what the children drop under the table. Jesus who usually overwhelms his opponents by using the ambiguity of their words against them allows a Gentile woman to do the same to him. The real miracle of this story is the overcoming of prejudice and boundaries that separate persons.

The discomfort caused by this story challenges us as a Church to examine how we treat the "other," a person who is different from us, one who comes from outside our social or ethnic group. Do we offer the same welcome to a homeless person that we do to a visiting elder?

Do we treat the poor and undereducated with the same deference that we give our pastors? I saw evidence at the 10:30 service on August 23 that some in our congregation have learned the lesson that this story offers. As she was walking from downtown with her three children trying to find our Church, a mother from the projects called the office.

Danny Gladden answered the phone and learned the family's dire straits and desire to worship with us. He asked Kathy Wallace if she would be willing to go find them and drive them to our building. Kathy did this willingly. When she came back, she asked Vickie Stricklin to help the family get settled.

Vickie served the family something to eat and drink, and then brought the mother into the sanctuary for the service and took the children to Children's Church. Danny, Kathy and Vickie have set the standard for how we are to receive visitors, not by allowing them to eat the crumbs from the ground, but rather by giving them the best of ourselves.

The challenge for you and for me is to live up to the standard set for us by Danny, Kathy and Vickie.