Mark 7:24-37 is a text to avoid if you’re not ready to confront and examine your own hypocrisy. As a pastor who preaches God’s inclusive love, Jesus’ rejection of the Syrophoenician woman led me to recognize how quick I am to say “no” to people who don’t fit my criteria of those who deserve my help. A couple of years ago, a young alum of the college I served as a chaplain reached out to me. She needed a recommendation from a pastor to get a job teaching at a Catholic school. I happily write recommendation letters for former students. But this request gave me pause. I knew of this young woman but didn’t know her well. She’d never showed up for worship, never attended any religious life programs, never participated in any service projects. So I quickly added her to that vast category of young adults uninterested in religion until they find themselves needing a pastoral recommendation or a cute church to serve as the backdrop for their wedding or a baptism for a child they have no intention of raising in the church but need the ritual to appease the grandparents. Yeah, no. I wasn’t going to write this letter. The placement of the two healing stories in Mark 7:24-37 is interesting. They follow Jesus rebuking the Pharisees for their hypocrisy, for the way they judge people according to tradition and doctrine instead of God’s commandments. They honor God with their lips, Jesus says quoting Isaiah 29:13, but not their hearts. Yet immediately following this rebuke, Jesus himself appears to make a snap judgment. A desperate Gentile woman, of Syrophoenician origin, seeks him out, bows at his feet and begs him to cast a demon out of her daughter. To this desperate, begging woman whose child he can certainly heal, Jesus responds; “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” This story is shocking for a variety of reasons. Here, Jesus is uncharacteristically rude. He refers to the woman as a kynarion in Greek, translated here as “dog,” but known widely throughout the ancient Middle East as an ethnic slur used by Jews against non-Jews. And, Jesus had already healed a Gentile in Mark 5 (the Gerasene Demoniac), so why is he so put out by this poor woman’s request? This is a tough text to handle. Christians are often tempted to soften it, make excuses for Jesus, and avoid the difficult questions this text raises. How could Jesus be so quick to judge? Why would he withhold healing from a woman in need? Why would the Son of God stoop to the use of a terrible slur? ...
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