Talking Back to Jesus

Mark 7:24-30, CEB - Jesus left that place and went into the region of Tyre. He didn’t want anyone to know that he had entered a house, but he couldn’t hide. In fact, a woman whose young daughter was possessed by an unclean spirit heard about him right away. She came and fell at his feet. The woman was Greek, Syrophoenician by birth. She begged Jesus to throw the demon out of her daughter. He responded, “The children have to be fed first. It isn’t right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

But she answered, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

“Good answer!” he said. “Go on home. The demon has already left your daughter.”  When she returned to her house, she found the child lying on the bed and the demon gone.

 

This passage is uncomfortable to read for me.  Only Matthew and Mark tell this story and I can certainly understand why a gospel writer might leave this story out.  Jesus seems a bit snippy, if not even a bit cruel.  Because of this, many commentators go through great mental gymnastics to try and show that Jesus is not really being unkind.  I’ll just come out and say it.  Jesus was mean to this desperate woman.  He all but admits it.  And that is precisely why I’m glad Mark (and Matthew) leave this story in their accounts.

The commentators I mentioned above do make some valid points worth mentioning.  First, in Mark’s account.  Jesus is tired and was trying to hide from the crowds that constantly plagued Him.  He needed a break, but He doesn’t get one because this woman barges in and makes her plea for help.  I am generally a person who takes interruptions well, but I totally get Jesus wanting to “just chill” for a while before re-engaging in His appointed mission. 

Second, Jesus makes a statement that compares this woman to a dog.  There is no getting around that.  He did it and it was an unkind thing to do.  However, Jesus does intentionally soften the comment in a way that is lost in the English translation.  Jews regularly referred to Gentiles as dogs in a derogatory way, but the word most often used was a word that specifically referred to wild dogs who were often dirty and a nuisance.  The word that Jesus uses is the word for a dog that is a loved family pet.  It wasn’t the racist slur that the other word would have connoted.  Still, no one wants to be called a dog, even a lovable family pet dog. 

Though Jesus was unkind to the woman, the woman persists.  Her driving persistence recalls that of the woman with the flow of blood.  Then, even when tired Jesus tries to put her off with an unkind comparison, she remains undeterred. She doesn’t care if Jesus has equated her with a dog if she can get His help for her daughter.  It is at this moment that her faith in Jesus breaks through his exhaustion and crankiness.  Jesus realizes that he has forgotten Himself for a moment.  He has been unkind and yet, this woman’s love for her daughter and her faith in Him persists. 

                It’s important to note that Jesus could have made a different choice at this moment.  He has just been challenged and so it would be understandable if He had acted defensively, maybe even doubling down on the unkindness.  He could have simply dismissed her and had her removed from the house.  My guess is that, had Jesus done that, we would have never known this story.  But Mark and Matthew find it important to tell this story because Jesus made a different and surprising choice.  Instead of being defensive, Jesus chose to publicly lose face and applaud the woman’s persistence and faith.  Jesus changed His mind and granted this nameless woman’s request.  Her daughter was delivered from demonic oppression.

                I understand the felt need for Jesus to act perfectly in every situation, because I feel that too.  I don’t want to admit that God-in-human-flesh could falter even for a moment.  At the same time, I am also comforted by Jesus’s moment of unkindness in the same way I am comforted by the times he shed tears of sadness and cried out that God had forsaken Him.  I am sometimes unkind.  I have so many moments of desperate sadness.  I have times when I feel like God is no where to be found.  Because of that, I am drawn to Jesus who experienced all those things AND shows me how to move through them to a better place.

                In this case, it involved the humility that He was not kind to the woman and a willingness to be corrected and change course.  I see in Jesus that I don’t have to be driven by defensiveness and a need to always be right.  He even lifts her up as a shining example of faith at His own expense.  Because I see that in Jesus, it gives me hope that I can act similarly.  I hope you can see that too.

 

Question:  How do you normally react when being called out for a less-than-ideal choice? 

 

Prayer:  Jesus, thank you for your humility.  Help me to honor you by willing to be corrected when necessary.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for all our newly elected and/or re-elected leaders as they prepare to begin their term of public service.

 

Song:  Make It Right – Maverick City Music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edaA71kMKgg

Some of the Hardest Work We Do is This

Mark 4:24- 25, NLT - Then he added, “Pay close attention to what you hear. The closer you listen, the more understanding you will be given—and you will receive even more.  To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given. But for those who are not listening, even what little understanding they have will be taken away from them.”

 

What have you done lately?  Our culture asks us this question in hundreds of different ways each day.  We have been conditioned to value activity. . . production. . .getting work done.  Some have referred to this as the “protestant work ethic,” suggesting that this penchant for continuously being productive has roots in our faith.  Certainly, even Jesus, in a parable that sounds very similar to the above teaching, extols the virtue of taking what we have been given and multiplying it (Matthew 25:14-30).  Many bible texts, to be sure, support the value of working hard. 

Then we have today’s passage which talks about the value listening hard - not casually, but intently for understanding.  Unlike the protestant work ethic, this ethic of listening well is not built into the fabric of our culture.  Our culture is one of 30-second soundbites, 10-minute book summaries, and well . . . this is a bit awkward for me to say. . . 5-minute daily devotionals. In most conversations that we participate in, we often listen not for understanding, but in order to form an appropriate response.  Deep listening. . . the kind Jesus is talking about here is rare. 

Jesus is warning us that we are missing out by tuning out too soon.  The more we deeply listen, the more we will deeply understand. Furthermore, to the extent that we don’t invest ourselves in intentional listening, we risk losing what understanding we already have.  I have observed this loss in myself times.  I have, on occasion, gotten to a particular point of understanding an issue that I begin to believe that I understand it fully.  At this point, I really stop listening because after all, I already have enough understanding.  Though I usually don’t realize it, I have closed my mind to further understanding because I have begun to believe that no further understanding is possible.  I suppose I have to admit that I currently have “blind spots” in my understanding right now. 

Fortunately, I’ve lived long enough and had just enough humility to see some of my previous blind spots exposed.  A conviction I held is shattered by an experience that caused me to question what I thought I already knew.  An experience of personal pain comes because I was ignoring the deeper wisdom that I didn’t even acknowledge existed.  A person who I was in relationship with broke through my ignorance by acting in a way that defied my closed understanding of them. What little understanding I thought I had was lost.  To break it down to the most simple level, I was not really listening to what Life was trying to show me – the spiritual version of Attention Deficit Disorder. 

Jesus is alerting us to the truth that there is always more to understand.  There are always deeper levels to explore.  But this is only true to the extent that we are relentless listeners that are open to that deeper adventure. 

 

Question: 

 

Prayer:  Lord. Show us our blind spots, the places in our understanding where we could go deeper if we could admit that we need to. Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for someone you haven’t listened to in a while.

 

Song:  I’m Listening – Chris McClarney (ft Hollyn)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT8iKdwbKdU