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| The Syrophenecian Woman - Prophet to the Messiah |
Have you ever
just had it?
Here’s why I ask: I took a moment
to try to trace where Jesus has been up until now, and when I looked back, I
noticed a pattern. I noticed that almost every incident of healing, preaching,
teaching, every single place he goes, every little thing he does, begins with some
variation of:
the crowds pressed in on him,
there were so many people there he
had to teach from a boat to keep from getting crushed by the clamoring throng,
he went up a mountain to pray and
the crowds followed him,
he took a boat somewhere and the
crowds figured out where he was going and beat him there on foot,
his fame spread,
people came from far and wide,
there was no room to move in the
house so they cut open the roof to lower a guy down,
the entire city was gathered
outside his door,
“Jesus, how could you slip away
like this? Everyone is looking for you!”
so many were gathered there was no
longer room for them,
sick, pleading, hanging on his
every word and the hem of his robe,
and on and on and on.
When he sneaks off to pray he is
hunted down. When he tells people to keep their healing a secret they spread
the word so that Jesus can no longer go down the streets in town, and has to
stay in the country and have the people come to him.
The only place in the first six
chapters of Mark where it says Jesus is “alone,” adds “with those who traveled
with his disciples,” as though a modest group of 20-30 is as close it gets to solitude.
So this story begins with a tired and
cranky Jesus, who hasn’t been alone in many months,
it sounds like, probably not since returning from his stark 40 days of
excruciating aloneness in the wilderness right after his public debut.
Now Jesus is going on a get-away. And in my mind, I imagine Jesus is
SO looking forward to this. Climbing the stairs of the bus in the pre-light of early
dawn, bag in hand, sunglasses on and hat pulled low, incognito, he turns and waves to Peter, whose unflagging internal
clock of a fisherman designated him the chauffeur of the hour.
Then he takes an empty seat by the window and rides that
sucker right out of town, and doesn’t flinch for a second when it rolls over
the line that divides Jewish territory from Gentile. He sinks down in his seat and
sighs, maybe letting a smile flit across his lips. Just coming off of the
argument yesterday with the Pharisees about crossing boundaries, he trounces
across one himself for a much-needed breather.
Now, granted, he might not ever
really be alone, at least not much. But it must feel different, heading into
territory where no self-respecting follower of God would follow you- Jews are not treated well here, it’s no
secret, nor do they look on the
inhabitants of Tyre with anything that could be mistaken for respect or
affection. God only knows what people will think when they find out where he’s
gone.
Jesus’ secret vacation.
He’s going to camp out a few days
in a nice Gentile home, where those clamoring for him will not find him, and
those around him don’t much care what he’s got to offer, since whatever it is
is not for them anyway. So he’s off the hook, a little bit, for a few days.
He’s got no other agenda than to just relax. To get away. Not to have to be on or care or be aware of others
and their needs. for. a. few. days. Jesus is having a me party.
He entered a house and did not want anyone to know that
he was there. Mark says.
Finally.
Dropping his bag, his body
registers all the fatigue in his muscles and brain, all the tension in his back
and shoulders, and standing up tall he feels the knot in his stomach gradually
relax.
Finally, a little peace.
Not so fast, Jesus.
Because into this house of escape,
this place of peace, tracking him like a bloodhound and crashing he me-party, a
Syrophenician woman comes. Barging in the next afternoon, she looks at him with
that hang-dog look. She comes with her needs
front and center, and she sees him in this place he was hoping not to be seen.
And she asks, begs, Jesus. Please heal my daughter.
But cranky Jesus is done.
Did we mention that? And she must be noticing it, right? How can she not? She must be noticing and just blatantly ignoring all the
signs. He’s in sweat pants for crying
out loud, and he clearly hasn’t shaved. He shuffles to the door in slippers
with his second finger still jammed in the pages of the half-open novel that
had been resting on his chest while he dozed, and his hair is smushed down in
the back from the lazyboy by the window he’s just pried himself out of. He’s
not here to work, lady. And nobody
else is expecting him to, thank you very much. They’re putting toast and juice on
the kitchen table next to the paper and leaving for work, leaving him blissfully alone.
But here stands this woman. What is
she even doing here?
This is king of the Jews, remember? Messiah to a needy enough
people. This salvation clearly has
a recipient already, and their seemingly relentless hunger and bottomless need haven’t
given him a moment’s rest for weeks. It’s in his face 24-7; he’s got enough on his plate with the
children of God and their hungry, whining mouths to feed. So he tells her as much.
Get off my back, lady. Or rather, Dog. (Not pet, by the way, literally dog). “Let the children be fed first, ok? It’s not fair to take the children’s
food and give it to the dogs.” Subtext: There
is only so much of me to go around. Other Subtext: I got nothing for you.
Please go away.
But this remarkable Gentile woman,
this unyielding, tenacious mother, whose daughter has struggled and suffered in
her arms day in and day out, is not about to be put off so easily. She crossed the line by coming to him
at all; she’s not scared into retreating by an insult couched in a metaphor.
True,
very true. She answers, nodding. Good point, there, sir. But, surely, you
must admit, that even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the children’s
table, do they not? she asks,
fixing him with her steady gaze.
And she’s got him.
Because truth be
told, all he has left at the moment anyway is crumbs.
When this extraordinary woman
answers him back, this Gentile to a Jew, this woman to a man, this pleading needy
one to a famous, foreign teacher, invading his vacation and slapping him awake
with her brazen response, she ceases being a pest and suddenly becomes a
prophet.
In the stunned silence the words of
the prophet Isaiah hang in the air around Jesus and reflect back at him in her
eyes,
The Lord God says,
‘It is too light a thing that you
should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the
survivors of Israel;
I will give you as a light to the nations, that my
salvation may reach to the end of the earth.’ (Is. 49:6)
And without taking his eyes off her,
he slowly sets down the novel on the table and sees her. Really sees her.
Wow. he
says. For saying that, you may go. The
demon has left your daughter.
And she heads home and finds it to be absolutely
true.
And Jesus has learned a thing or two in the
process.
My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really
believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? James asks,
several decades later, when the church had begun to be the church with each
other in some form, and Christians are seeking to live out the truth they had
come to know in the life and death and resurrection of Christ.
And how beautiful it is, that this course
correction Jesus experiences in the presence of God in the presence of the
Syrophenecian woman happened as it did, for the church to look back and see. How striking the
words of James sound on this backdrop, that see favoritism and exclusion as anathema
to Jesus Christ, and contrary to the gospel. Because in our weakness and exhaustion, when we’re phoning
it in and not really seeing others at all, we behave the same way Jesus
did.
And even the courage of the Syrophenecian woman’s
reply doesn’t break out of the stereotypes and barriers they both simply
accepted as fact. As the way
things are. How life is. Never occurred to them to see it otherwise. Never occurred to them to act
otherwise.
And we pause on the face of God, incarnate and
human, with skin tone and native language and regional accent and ruling
economy and undisputed customs… God incarnate facing in his humanity all the
human unspoken messages he has absorbed growing up in a particular time and
place just like the rest of us, about who is good and who is bad, who is worthy
of respect and who is not, who is more important than whom in this stratified,
and divided world, where we fiercely guard what we have, and there is only so
much to go around.
And even from inside this warped worldview, where
these two stand on opposite sides of an impermeable barrier that everybody accepts and nobody questions, when she calls him on
his compassion, he sees her. And suddenly
none of the rest of it matters – what’s real
is their shared humanity and his distinct divinity, and the love and healing
and wholeness and abundance of the Kingdom of God, in stark clarity, and for
all. Even for the two of them standing right there.
A few days later, Jesus leaves and goes, “by way
of Sidon,”-which is in the exact opposite
direction- driving the "scenic route" through Gentile territory quite a ways before
finally turning back towards home. He takes in the sights and sounds with new
eyes and ears, stopping along the way and sampling the food and the music and
the flavor of the foreign city streets, stretching his legs in peace and
filling his lungs with air before he dives back into the sea of needy people
just over the border in Jewish territory.
And while he is there they bring him a deaf mute
man. But this Jesus is not the
same Jesus who left on this vacation. He belongs to all, and all belong to God. Without hesitating, he pulls the mute Gentile aside, and like his Father/Mother
God breathing life into the Adam, and
his Spirit hovering over the waters at creation or giving voice to our wordless
aching prayers, he sighs deeply.
Be opened, he says. Let there be life.
And
the man is healed. Which is to say, he can hear and speak again, but he can
also be a person with people, part of the us
that surround him instead of alone and cut off. No longer is he just his disease or
disability - which he never really was, but it wasn’t until Jesus acknowledged
that with his outlandishly intimate and fearless fingers in the ears and spitting and touching of the
tongue move that anyone else saw him any other way - he is now wholly restored
to his humanity, to community, to life.
And for that moment, in that place with those people, it is as it should
be. A foretaste of eternity.
Hey you guys? Please, don’t tell anyone, ok? – he asks them, weakly. And the more he said that, Mark tells us, the
more they spread the word. And the spreading sounds different here than back
home- no arguing about whether he’s from God or a dangerous blasphemer, wrestling
with Messiah expectations, or insisting this is that kid who grew up down the
street. Instead they give just a
refreshingly pagan assessment of the situation: This man does everything right. They say. He even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak! And there you have it.
Jesus waves his goodbye to the foreigners who are
also his own, and ambles back to the rented convertible. Tossing the bag of spiced
nuts someone had given him onto the passenger seat, he sets out for home.
A little wiser. A little more awake. A little more
connected to the needs of all humanity (his own included) and a little more
in-tune with the abundant life of God for the whole world. Rested, perhaps, and with a deeper
sense of just what this is all about.
What he himself is all about.
And the story of God continues.
