A Syrophoenician woman will interrupt Jesus this morning. She’s an outsider on two counts: a non-Jew and a woman now alone with a man.* And she knows that she of all people has no right to make demands on Jesus, so she does what she has to do- she falls at his feet, and she begs. She’s got nothing to lose; she’s lost it all already, she’s desperate, and her life is in shambles. Her daughter’s very sick, in fact, she has been that way for a very long time- with an “unclean spirit.” God only knows what that means. Is it seizures, is there shrieking, thrashing? We can only imagine what this woman goes through, and what havoc it has wrought on her family. She is consumed with concern for her daughter’s welfare. She’s trapped, but she knows Jesus can help her, so she begs.
But Jesus seems disinterested and insists that he is supposed to feed only the children of Israel, not dogs. She is undaunted by his very blunt metaphor. “Fine then,” she says. “Call me a dog if you like. But even dogs get the scraps. I'll take a scrap. Please, just give me a scrap of your mercy.”
As the “ultimate outsider,” this woman reminds Jesus and us that there are no limits to whom God calls his very own children. Jesus is magnetized by her anguish, its impact on his heart, outdone by her forthrightness. His heart stirred and somehow transformed in the encounter. And he changes his mind acceding to her desperation and so reveals himself as exquisitely human and relational. At once, truly human, truly divine
What do you want? Perhaps the message this morning is to take this woman’s lead and be insistent, even desperate. Jesus is never ever unaffected or unresponsive.
* See Donahue & Harrington, Sacra Pagina: Mark, p. 237.
