Pious readers encountering this question may be shocked or offended. (Perhaps the impious as well!) And to tell you the truth, I had a hard time framing it this way myself, as it seems to border on being disrespectful, even unseemly. Yet that's the question that kept coming to mind as I read the passage many preachers will be dealing with this coming Sunday. It comes from the seventh chapter of Mark's Gospel and also borders on disrespectful, even unseemly.
Let me set the scene. Jesus, as Mark records, wants to get away, and so he goes to visit a house in Tyre, a seaside community quite a hike from his usual haunts in Galilee. Mark tells us that he doesn't want anyone to know he's there, but a woman finds him anyway, bows down at his feet, and begs him to heal her demon-possessed daughter. And this is the exchange that follows:
He said 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." But she answered him, "Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." Then he said to her, "For saying that, you may go -- the demon has left your daughter" (Mark 7:27-29).
On the one hand, maybe Jesus has just had a really bad day. After all, it seems like no matter how far he goes, he can't get a break. I get that. Scarlett Johannson can't go shopping for veggies in Paris without the paparazzi following her and Jesus can't avoid nagging supplicants even in Tyre. That's the price of stardom. But it neither explains or excuses Jesus' response. This is Jesus we're talking about after all, not Alec Baldwin.
The second possibility represents the more "traditional" way of explaining this otherwise embarrassing passage and requires two interpretive moves. First, Jesus doesn't call her a dog, but rather a puppy. He's being affectionate, not insolent. You know, like "sorry little puppy, but it's just not your time yet." Second, Jesus isn't insulting her, he's testing her, resisting her request in order to stretch her faith.
Taken together, this interpretive move -- similar to some of the gymnastic performances we recently saw at the London Olympics -- doesn't persuade me. After all, not only is translating the word "puppy" a tad dubious -- it is as likely to refer to a small house dog as it is to denote affection -- I still don't see how it solves the problem. I mean, whether "puppy" or "dog," it's still a pretty obnoxious thing to call a desperate mom who's come seeking your help. (And let's be frank, you don't think often hear a man call a woman "a female dog" in a kind way.) As for the possibility that this nasty exchange is really a test, if it is it would be the singular example of this kind of faith-quiz in Mark. And besides, why should this desperate woman, who's already demonstrated her great faith by coming to Jesus alone, bowing at his feat and beseeching him for healing (demonstrating her belief that Jesus can, in fact, heal her daughter), be tested at all, let alone in such a demeaning way?
As much as I don't buy the traditional interpretation, however, I do understand why it's appealing: it preserves the picture of Jesus many believers hold in their hearts -- perfect in compassion, foreknowledge, courage and love. And if this were John's Gospel, where Jesus comes off something like the newest member of the Avengers, I'd be inclined to buy it. But this is Mark, the one who shows us Jesus so vulnerable in Gethsemane and so desperate on the cross.
So maybe, just maybe, Jesus responds as he does not because he's tired, or conducting an exercise in growing your faith, or because he had a really bad day. Maybe he just hasn't realized yet how expansive is God's kingdom and how all-inclusive is God's grace. Maybe it's only now -- confronted by the boldness of this foreign woman -- that it's dawning on Jesus that there is no wrong time to ask God's help and no group of persons excluded from beseeching God's mercy.
If so, then I think we should give thanks for this desperate mother and her fierce parental love, as she simultaneously stretches Jesus' conception of what his mission is about as well as offers us a dramatic picture of God's tenacious commitment to love all of God's children, no matter how unseemly such love may seem.
So is Jesus being a jerk here? I don't think so. Rather, I think that he's being human, like us, and in and through his encounter with this woman he grows into a deeper, richer vision of the measure of God's kingdom and love, a vision he is ultimately willing to die for. If so, then perhaps we -- the pious, impious and indifferent alike -- can learn from Jesus both to be prepared to be surprised by God's unrelenting grace and to learn from those who at first glance seem so different yet have the capacity to introduce us to a larger vision of both heaven and earth.
Charles J. Reid, Jr.: God Is Missing From the Republican Platform
Rev. Margaret Aymer, Ph. D.: Poverty, Wealth and Equality? A Scriptural Study
Rabbi Amy Eilberg: Deuteronomy 26:1-29:8: Our Precarious Lives
Dirk G. Lange: Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23: Lip Service, But Where Is the Heart?
For example, Jesus' awareness and insight into our hearts and minds was (and is) unquestionably greater than any normal human can understand. Perhaps He merely saw into her heart something that isn't recorded? Maybe it was meant not as a test for her, but for those who later would read the account?
It's reminiscent of John's Gospel when Jesus tells his disciples that they need to eat his flesh and drink his blood...the proof text for nearly every Catholic on the planet trying to defend 'the Mass' (which is an abomination). He said it the way He did knowing it would turn people away and that they wouldn't get it...Jesus wanted to get rid of the folks who didn't mean business.
So, there is more to the text than meets the eye...as always!
If you do, you will come away thinking Christians are strangers to logic.
Looking at the woman's response, she doesn't deny that she's 'outside.' I imagine an unspoken question asked of her: "do you think you deserve this cause you're so religiously meritorious? You're not, in fact you're considered a dog by the very people through whom God has chosen to work." She doesn't claim some bland universalist line like "my faith background is just as good, so I deserve it" but acknowledges her position of utter weakness and dependence on the mercy of the King. I imagine that's what he was trying to elicit.
He may have been frustrated and tired as well. There's nothing unbelievable about that. But there's still room to assume that his frustration was channeled into intention. I really don't think he had no idea that God was coming for Gentiles as well as Jews though. This creates cognitive dissonance with a lot of other passages.
Too bad you didn't read verse 30. You would have discovered girl had recovered. Jesus was right. The Greek mother had daughter who had begun to menstruate -- hormones (demons), but no blood. Jesus checked her appetite -- unfinished food goes to dogs (as it does today), scraps under table proclaimed girl was eating and dogs didn't sense an abnormality. Hence demon ('first' period) had passed.
Jesus was a Doctor -- a healer and diagnostician who knew Jewish laws concerning menstruation.
And I have four grown daughter LOL
It's too bad the author focused on verse 27-29, verse 30 tells the reader that: "She went home and found her child lying on the bed, and the demon gone."
That is, Jesus had been correct in his assessment. In secular terms, rather than mystical, his statement implied that the child was not getting enough to eat, and so was acting out -- that the food was being given to the dogs is still done today. The children don't eat, or "clean their plates" (eat everything put before them) and the rest is given to the dog.
The story indicates that Jesus understood something that the mother didn't, A child not eating has a "demon" indicates that she has an illness (natural physical type) which the household pet can detect, but which doesn't manifest itself in a way the mother can identify. An unknown cause is a demon in biblical terms. Jesus was a healer -- a skilled doctor.
When mom responds the dogs are eating scraps under the table, she told him that illness was transient and passing. The girl had a healthy appetite; 'demon' problem was effectively gone.
The girl was Greek-- Jews focus on menstruation. mom missed the early signs, and related hormonal imbalance. Information (symptoms 'type of demon') Jesus had, we
By way of linking to your good ideas: I wrote about this same passage a while back (http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/deeper-walk/blog/26248-coming-to-grips-with-cranky-jesus). I find it fascinating how the story of the Syrophoenician woman confronts me unnervingly with my own humanity.
....so "clean" under the law. Gentiles, who were uncircumcised were "unclean" under the Mosaic law. Dogs (as well as many other animals such as rabbits, cats, pigs, bears, lions and tigers etc) were deemed unclean animals to the Israelites (not to be eaten or used in sacred service). He actually did not call the woman a dog, but spoke illustratively, saying "It is not right to take the food away from the little children and to give it to the "little" dogs." That was a test of her humility and sincerity. Jesus was sent to gather the lost sheep of Israel, not to the nations yet. That would come later after the Jews and the Samaritans were offered it first. The nations were included after the Jews, as a nation, rejected Jesus as the rightful Messiah, sent by the Father.
Jesus was not an imperfect person, he was the only one who never sinned, so retained his perfection. His death was not the result of sin, as the rest of mankind, but of the divine will.
Now folsk want to make a frederal case becuse he called a Cannanite woman a dog. He's right> He now doubt feels the same way about those who regard Him as "just a man", a "myth", or a good Jewish rabbi that got himself killed for pissing off the Romans. Some call Him a "radical"-anything to bring Jessu don to their own perverted level. Well if you're not for Him but agaisnt HIm, he's consistent; you're either a dog or a pig dependng upon your level of deviant behavior (Matthew 7:6). Jesus is not jerk- just warning pigs and dogs that he hasn't changed His mind about Hell.
Right on, Jesus!
Your "Truth of the matter is that a Bible study would have revealed..." statement really means that if if group of believers comes up with a bunch of rationalizations and unsupported assumptions and outright fabrications about this woman, completely unsupported by objective scholarship, they can than construct an acceptable explaination for this Jesus story.
You know, if a person has things about him that others consider low, (i.e. criminal record, of a denigrated race, behaves in a manner that others disapprove of, etc.) you are still a jerk if you refer to that person using a derogatory term (i.e. "dog").
If you think Jesus was a jerk with that comment, why not read Mathew 7:6 where he really tells you how He feels about those who oppose His righteousness...especially those afflicted with the spirit of the Jebusites.
Jesus did not think of the woman as a dog and you know it, so get over yourself. He was referring to the Jewish prejudice of the time of calling gentiles dogs. He did not even call her a "dog," he didn't call her anything. He was spoke to her in an illustrative way and he softened the adjective by saying "little dog".
The words were: "It is not right to take the bread of the children and throw it to the little dogs (puppies). She said: "Yes, Lord, but really the little dogs eat the crumbs falling from the tables of their masters."
It was a lesson in humility and it would serve you well to learn it. Jesus was sent to the lost sheep of Israel, as verse 24 said, and the Phoenician woman was not a Jew. Yet the God of Israel has compassion and healed the gentile woman, rewarding her humility and faith.
Uh, the Bible was written by men. As all Christians acknowledge.
Unless you believe in dictation, a la Muhammed and the Q'uran?
There is no "born-againism" in this passage. Personal salvation isn't there. Deliverance from demons is there, and some type of faith in Jesus is evident, but we have no idea what that faith looked like other than that she came to him, believing he could heal her daughter.
If you read personal "soul-salvation" into every passage, you are projecting late modern escapism onto the text, and dressing up as conservative theology. Salvation, for Jesus, meant the reign of God on earth as in heaven, right then and there.