Scripture Readings, February 13, 2025

Genesis 2:18-25, Psalm 128:1-5, Mark 7:24-30

            Today’s Gospel has a wonderfully earthy, even gritty, character that appeals to me.

            Mark tells us about a Gentile woman turning the tables on Jesus. When Mark writes this he is letting the Gentiles know that God’s blessings are meant for them too. God is not just a Jewish god but everybody’s God. For us, I think it helps to see that Jesus was a person of his time. Son of God, yes, but fully human, a Jew of the first century with all the attitudes that come with that.  Therefore, it can be a message about how God acts in our time.

For Jesus, this woman is an outsider, a non-Jew. Jesus therefore, labels her as a Gentile dog. The derogatory way Jews often referred to Gentiles. Jesus is here for the salvation of the Jews and she doesn’t qualify. But this woman, who has come begging for help for her daughter, is willing to accept the status she has been assigned and fit her request into that narrative. She isn’t going to give up because this man tells her something she already knows. She may be a Gentile dog but she’ll take any scraps the chosen children of Israel drop from the table. She is asking simply as a person in need. She is not claiming any basis for her request except the need to save her daughter. She’s here on her own, no husband to speak for her. The request is not even for a son who might one day be her protector but a daughter. This woman has no status, her only chance is if this man shows her mercy. The mercy of this man who apparently can heal people. Jesus recognizes the honest need of a person who has no claim on him whatsoever. He is willing to give what is completely unearned, even undeserved by the norms of the time. Jesus heals the daughter as an act of pure mercy to this woman. Mark is telling us that’s how God acts. That’s what the presence of God looks like, mercy, pure generous mercy to those who ask.