8 September 15th Sunday After Trinity
Readings: Isaiah 35. 4-7a; James 2.1-10 (11-13), 14-17; Mark 7. 24-37
Theme: Jesus and the Syro-Phoenician Woman
After five weeks of reading John’s gospel, last week saw us return to continue our reading of Mark’s gospel until the end of this church’s year in November with the feast of Christ the King, the Sunday just before Advent. The issue of the acceptable foods to eat was the subject of last week’s gospel and this theme of tribal identity and identity markers continues this week with this wonderful story of the dialogue between Jesus and the Syro-Phoenician woman who pleads with Jesus to heal her daughter from a demon.
We have two versions of this story in the gospels. The one we read this morning from the gospel of Mark, and the one in St Matthew’s gospel (Mt. 15.21-28). Interestingly, the version in St Matthew’s gospel has the woman as a Canaanite, and both designations of her indicate that she is outside of the Jewish community; she is a gentile, but a gentile bordering on the land of the Jewish people. She is an outsider, but one who is looking in.
This theme of the relationship between Jesus and the gentiles is a fascinating one because in this passage particularly, we gain a sense of the mind of Jesus with respect to his religious and national identity. It is evident from the dialogue that Jesus is clear that his first addressees for the message of the kingdom are the Jews. Yet, Jesus, the Jewish messiah, is here confronted with an outsider who is clearly full of insight about him and even appears to aid Jesus to expand his horizons about his mission.
The dialogue itself takes place in the region of Tyre. This setting provides the backdrop to the encounter because Tyre was the region that the prophet Isaiah tells us was part of the nations who conspired against Israel (Is. 23). It is situated about fifty miles south of today’s Beirut in the country of Lebanon, bordering Israel. The designations of the woman as ‘Syro-Phoenician’ in Mark and ‘Canaanite’ in Matthew indicate that this non-Jew was a neighbour who occupies a liminal space between the belonging community on the inside and the detached peoples on the outside looking in. The dialogue itself provides us with a wonderful insight into the mind of Jesus as he works out who his mission is for. The heart of the dialogue happens in verses 26-29. It is worth quoting them in full to remind ourselves how it unfolds:
“Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syro-Phoenician 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’.”
What is Mark doing in this dialogue? What is his message to us? I would suggest that it is two-fold. The first lesson is about Jesus himself. All the healings and exorcisms of Jesus are Mark’s way of revealing the identity of Jesus to us through his actions. His actions show us who Jesus is just as much as the words of the gospel tell us who he is. And this particular action of exorcism of the woman’s daughter reveals something especially interesting about Jesus. It shows us something about the humanity of Jesus. This encounter with the Syro-Phoenician woman expands Jesus’s own self-understanding. Jesus is fully human and fully divine. Here we see the limitations which come from being fully human in terms of the limits of his understanding. The expansion of Jesus’s mind is accompanied by the expansion of the meaning of the community for whom his gospel message is intended. As Jesus is challenged by the woman, he comes to realize that the message of the kingdom of God is not only for his own people, the Jews. It is a message also for the gentiles. Those outside of the community of Israel.
This first lesson also reveals a second lesson that we learn from this dialogue. Jesus learns from this encounter that his message is for more than the people of Israel. It is also for the gentiles. The passage indicates this by the action of Jesus to liberate the woman’s daughter of the demon. Again, Mark uses the actions of Jesus to reveal both who Jesus is, what his message is about, and for whom it is intended. His message is of God’s liberation and healing, of salvation, for all the nations. This Syro-Phoenician woman helps Jesus to see the extent of his mission, as the Son of God, in a way which he had not previously envisaged.
This is good news for us as well, of course. As members of the church we are, like that Syro-Phoenician woman, outsiders who have been brought into the community of Israel. We too are addressed by Jesus, the Jewish messiah, with the message of universal salvation. A message brought first to the Jews, and through the intercession of this Syro-Phoenician woman, also now shared with us the gentiles. Understood in this way, Jesus should never be seen as simply a possession of the Christians. When we do that, we fail to appreciate the new insight that this woman brings to our understanding of the gospels. All those who realize who Jesus is, the Holy One of God, are redeemed through his Word.
Understanding this passage as the breaking of the barriers to the message of salvation allows us to think of the many different Syro-Phoenician women whom we come across in our own situations as those who are outside of our own Christian community, but who still recognize in Jesus the Holy One of God.
This woman helps us always to realize that the message of the gospel is unbounded. It reaches beyond all our horizons of inclusion and breaks them open to an ever greater space of inclusion. For the realization of this insight, we should always give thanks for the courage and tenacity of this extraordinary Syro-Phoenician woman.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.