This week’s focal text stirs a number of questions: Why did Jesus go so far from His usual region? (v. 24)...Why did Jesus not want anyone to know where He was? (v. 24)...Why did the Gentile woman seek out the Jewish rabbi? (vv. 25-26)...Why did Jesus hesitate to offer healing? (v. 27)...Why did the woman talk back to Jesus? (v. 28)...Why did Jesus heal the woman’s daughter? (v. 29-30)
One conclusion I draw from all this: Just when we think we have Jesus all figured out, He strikes out in a new direction! He brings alive the words of Isaiah 43:19: “Behold, I am about to do a new thing.” When we follow our Lord, it is never “business as usual.”
At the heart of this situation is the dialogue between Jesus and the mother of the sick child. It would surely help to know Jesus’ tone of voice and facial expression when he suggested that His mission was first to the Jewish community, not to the “dogs.” (v. 27). Was He teasing? Was He testing the woman’s faith? Was He introducing a conversation starter?
The Syrophoenician woman was equal to the occasion (v. 28). If Jesus was teasing, she picked up on the joke. If He was starting a conversation, she took the next step. If He was testing her faith, she came up with an expression of belief. Bottom line: the daughter was healed.
No matter how we interpret this text, one thing is clear: Jesus has opened doors that others might close. I am left to wonder which doors do I keep closed? Who are the people that I think must be off-limits for God’s love? Indeed, who are the people that I choose not to love?
This is, of course, a story of healing, but it may well be that the deeper message is the universality of God’s love. Jew. Gentile. Agnostic. Atheist. Call the roll and there is no one left out. God loves even those with whom God disagrees! John 1:16 has captured the breadth of such a claim: “From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” There is joy when the response to that grace is “Yes.”
What Someone Else Has Said: In S T Kimbrough, Jr.’s book of poetry (The Struggle to Believe, Resource Publications), the poet has written: “The love we find is to be shared,/...and nothing is with it compared./...It’s for the humble, rich, the poor/...and all may of this love be sure.”
Prayer: As you prepare this lesson, let your prayer begin: “God, Your love reaches into places and people beyond my understanding. Fill me now with a healing presence that I might learn to love others, even the others who are ‘other’...”
