Question: as one Leftist Christian to another, what do YOU do with today’s (9/9) Gospel reading from the lectionary, Mark’s account of the Syrophenician Woman and Jesus? How do you read it in light of Christ’s divinity – and therefore, perfection? What lessons do you think we(as both Christians and Leftists) should take from it?

kropotkhristian:

Oh, what a great question! For those of you that don’t know, this is one of the roughest parts of the Gospel. This is the story where a non-Jewish woman, “of Syro-Phonecian origin,” comes to Jesus and asks him to heal her daughter, and Jesus says “It is not right to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” And then the woman says “Yes, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table.” And then Jesus says either “Woman! Great is your faith! It will be done for you as you wish!” (Matthew) or, ‘For saying that, you may go – the demon has left your daughter” (Mark).

This is super controversial because Jesus is clearly being very rude with the “dogs” comment to this woman. He is essentially calling her a dog. He does, of course, heal her daughter, but only after she does what appears like groveling. What’s the deal here?

Well, some context here. Everything this woman does would have been considered extremely “unpure” in ancient Judea. She is a non-Jewish woman, with a demoniac daughter, approaching a Jewish man and speaking with him without a male companion. She also tugs on his robes, which would have made Jesus “ritually impure.” Jesus is also clearly in the place where he is because he wants to escape the crowds who are following him around. Both Matthew and Mark speak of his attempts to escape to somewhere he can be alone. So Jesus is likely already grumpy because this woman is interrupting his one moment of what he hopes is solitude.

In addition to all this, she is of “Syro-Phonecian” origin. This is the word used for basically Hellenic and Roman people who live in what were ancient Jewish lands. Ancient Judea is currently under severe Roman occupation. She is what we might call a colonizer.

Okay, so add all this up, and what Jesus says is still wrong, but understandable. He thinks he is doing one of his trademark flips on this woman. She is asking for his help? Well, why does her and her people treat the Jewish people like dogs? Why is she interrupting him and doing things that would make him impure according to his own culture? Jesus is calling HER the dog, instead, as he often does in situations like this. He flips the script.

But, he was totally wrong. The woman flips it right back at him, and Jesus realizes his mistake. He heals her daughter. And even more important, after this encounter, he ventures even further into Roman territory and heals many many more people just like her. He realizes his mistake and immediately corrects it to a breathtaking degree. In Mark, the story directly following this is a story about a deaf and dumb man being healed by Jesus. That man was also deeply in “Syro-Phonecian” territory, but this never comes up. Jesus tells the man to “be opened,” according to the story, and I think this part of the complete lesson. Jesus had to be opened as well.

So, according to Christology, how is this possible? Isn’t Jesus supposed to be perfect? Well, Jesus is supposed to be “without sin.” But does he commit a sin here? I don’t think so. He speaks out of ignorance not malice, and he completely changes everything about his understanding of the world as soon as he knows better. He was also fully human. Being human MUST mean that he made mistakes. He just never did anything drawn out of evil. He was never filled with malevolent intention. And I don’t think he was here, either.

The lessons I think you can learn here are 2-fold. One: Leftists shouldn’t treat ignorance as malice. Two: If you make a mistake, like Jesus does here, you should immediately correct it in the best way you can. Jesus doesn’t just heal the woman’s daughter. He also completely changes the way he treats every person like her.

If you make a mistake, in modern parlance, like misgendering someone or making a racist joke, you didn’t sin. You just made a mistake. Correct yourself, and commit yourself to being much better afterward. Just like Jesus does here.