A sermon preached at Putnam Presbyterian Church on September 8, 2024

Sermon text: Mark 7:24–30

Of all the stories of Jesus told to us by the Gospel writers, this one is—hands-down—the least flattering. In the first part of the Gospel of Mark, Jesus is wandering around, teaching and performing miracles, but largely staying out of the spotlight, for he has decided that the time has not yet come to reveal himself in full to the world. In that spirit, he sneaks into a house in the region of Tyre, presumably with a sympathetic follower, perhaps to catch a meal and some rest. But his reputation precedes him, and soon a woman intrudes and sits at his feet. This woman is a Gentile, which in biblical parlance means that she is not Jewish. And in case we didn’t catch that important detail, the storyteller emphasizes that she is Syrophoenician. She is not Jewish, but she comes to this Jewish healer with a dire need. Her daughter is ill. In that ancient worldview, the girl is considered to have a demon, and she needs help. So her mother falls at the feet of Jesus and begs him to come and lay hands on her daughter.

Jesus’ response is abrupt, and, to readers of this story ever since, very puzzling. He says 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.” Translation: I am here for the people of Israel, not for Gentiles. But not only does he refuse to help her because she is not Jewish, the way he puts it peddles in insults. Dogs he calls her kind. The Messiah of God refers to Gentiles as animals.

Now never mind that this is one more place where the Bible disparages things I deeply care for. Dogs, goats, and left-handed people are frequently symbols of rejects in the Bible, and as a left-handed lover of dogs and goats, I am mildly offended every time I read one of these passages. But that’s not the main point. The main point is that Jesus uses the epithet seemingly to insult the woman and all people like her. What are we to make of that?

Biblical scholars have asked that question for centuries. Some of them assume that Jesus was just playing a role in what he saw as a teaching moment. He didn’t really mean the insult; he was just setting up the woman in hopes that she would make the response she did. Perhaps. Other scholars admit that this is an unflattering picture of Jesus, but maybe it just reinforces his true humanity. Jesus the Savior, Christian doctrine tells us, was effective because he was fully God and fully human—anytime we recite the ancient Nicene Creed in church we profess that truth. And maybe this story is just a sign that Jesus was fully human. Human enough to have a particular identity and community. Human enough to sometimes navigate differences with others roughly. Human enough to stumble in conversation. Human enough to resent the predicament his people were in: oppressed and outnumbered in a fully Gentile world.

Whether we think Jesus is being rude on purpose to make a point or we think he is reflecting his humanness as a first-century Jew, we can agree that his response to the woman is coarse and catches us by surprise. But her response is the center of this story.

He claims he is there for the children of Israel, not to help some Gentile dog. But with great wit and courage, she responds: “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” And Jesus is so impressed with her retort that he sends her on her way with the assurance that he has healed her daughter already.

What is at stake in the exchange between Jesus and the woman is the relationship between God’s love of a particular people—Israel—and God’s love for all human beings. Of course, when the Bible talks about the people of Israel, it doesn’t have in mind the modern State of Israel. The Bible is referring to the Jewish people, and the special relationship the Jewish people have with God is a prominent theme in the Old Testament and the New. The Old Testament is basically the story of God’s covenant with the people of Israel, and all the twists and turns, betrayals and reconciling moments that relationship endured. And in the New Testament, Israel is still regarded as the people of God. The Gospels go to great pains to show how Jesus is a fulfillment of that special relationship. The Apostle Paul in the Book of Romans emphasizes to his readers that the church is not a replacement for Israel; Jews still occupy a special place in the heart of God.

Then as now, this reminder that God loves the Jewish people was an important message to recite, given how often the circumstances Jews found themselves in may tempt them to think they are all alone. Faced with the constant threat of annihilation—in ancient times, in Jesus’ time, in medieval Europe, in Nazi Germany, in the 21st century—the reassurance that God is caring for God’s special people is an important source of hope to hold onto.

In his response, Jesus channels that hope. Jesus’ response to the woman suggests that his priority is the Jewish people, but the woman suggests that all people should expect to be blessed by the love God brings into the world. The point that the woman is making is also part of Israel’s story. The Old Testament prophets, while assuring Israel that God was with them, would sometimes also promise that the whole world would one day be blessed by God’s special covenant with Israel. And the Gospels of the New Testament pick up that theme, too, that Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promise to Israel, but part of that promise is that Israel will be a particular focal point of God’s love for the world, the center of a love that will radiate out to bless all people.

The woman in this scenario is suggesting that these two ideas can exist beside one another. God can have a special relationship with Israel, but Gentiles (i.e., non-Jews) can also expect to be blessed by this Jewish Messiah. In her response to Jesus, she does not push back on his assumption that his priority is Israel. She does not argue with him on that point, but instead she testifies to the hope that even the people he has characterized as “dogs” will benefit by extension from God’s love of God’s people. Jesus is so happy with her response that he rewards her faith.

Israel will be a particular focal point of God’s love for the world, the center of a love that will radiate out to bless all people

In this story about Jews and Gentiles in the ancient world, I think there is a lesson for 21st-century Christians, too. We Christians also like to think that the church has a special relationship with God. We are the Body of Christ; we are the community of people who trust in the Savior whom God sent. We are God’s people. And yet we also claim that God so loved the world that he sent his Son. We talk about Christ as the light of the world, not just the talisman of a particular group of people. And sometimes when we share Communion, we pray that “as this bread is Christ’s body for us, send us out to be the body of Christ in the world.”

Like the Syrophoenician woman, we can testify to both truths. God has particular concern for particular communities, but God also cares for all people, and sometimes those particular relationships can be the vehicle for God’s salvation to the world. As Christians, we can say both of those things at the same time.

But sometimes we don’t. For centuries, Christians have been tempted to say that their relationship with God is a replacement for God’s care for the Jewish people, that God rejected Israel and took up a covenant with the church instead. That sentiment still gets traction in some pockets of Christianity today, and of course it fuels all kinds of antisemitism.

More often, you will hear Christian preachers—especially those with access to TV cameras—preach that God loves the church but rejects the sinful world, and that the responsibility of Christians is to love God and reject the world around us. But as popular as that “us vs. them” mindset is among some Christians today, it is not the attitude that Jesus ultimately endorses in this story. Instead, Jesus affirms the woman who trusts that God’s love for God’s special people is a sign that God loves all God’s people, and that she can therefore rely on that love to see her through her dark moment. That’s the message Jesus affirms. That’s the Gospel that Jesus embodied. For God so loved all the world, that he sent his Son….

What does this mean for us? It means that to be faithful, when we gather in church as the particular people of God, we should always be hoping that our particular relationship with God will flower into blessing for all people, within or beyond the church. When we gather here as the particular people of God, we should open ourselves to the ways God might use us to spread the love we experience here well beyond this faith community. It means that we should have a special place in our hearts for the other communities that also claim a particular relationship with the God of Abraham—Jews and Muslims, living out their understanding of faithfulness, just as we are trying to do through our allegiance to Christ. And we should not be surprised at all to find people of faithfulness outside even these communities, Syrophoenician women who do not claim Jewish or Muslim or Christian identity, and yet reflect the crumbs of divine grace in the good lives they live.

Christians do not need to be shy about claiming to be God’s people. Jews do not need to shrink from their ancient and enduring title as the people of God. But we do well to remember that the ancient faith of the Jewish prophets and the gospel of Jesus Christ both encourage us to see ourselves as people of God with a mission: to assure the world that the Reign of God is for all people. The endgame of the religions of Abraham is that all the world may one day know themselves to be the beloved people of God. Amen.

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Artwork: Christ and the Woman of Canaan, Pieter Lastman, 1617