daily java

Daily Java:

Then Jesus left Galilee and went north to the region of Tyre. He didn’t want anyone to know which house he was staying in, but he couldn’t keep it a secret. Right away a woman who had heard about him came and fell at his feet. Her little girl was possessed by an evil spirit, and she begged him to cast out the demon from her daughter. Since she was a Gentile, born in Syrian Phoenicia, Jesus told her, “First I should feed the children—my own family, the Jews. It isn’t right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs.” She replied, “That’s true, Lord, but even the dogs under the table are allowed to eat the scraps from the children’s plates.” “Good answer!” he said. “Now go home, for the demon has left your daughter.” And when she arrived home, she found her little girl lying quietly in bed, and the demon was gone.  (Mark 7:24-30)

This is one of the strangest stories in the New Testament. And it presents a picture of Jesus that is at odds with all of the other pictures given of Jesus.

Jesus is shown in many ways in the New Testament. And all of those ways are ways normal people feel. He was hungry, he was thirsty, he was angry, he cried, he laughed, he got visibly annoyed, he even got violent.

But this is the only time he seemed unfeeling and uncaring.

A Gentile woman asked him for a healing. He said no. She was not his kind and didn’t deserve the miracle. He was going to feed his own family, or the Jews.

Her response was equally surprising: even the dogs get a little to eat from the scraps under the table left by the children. And she was willing to eat scraps if by doing so it would heal her child.

Jesus’ response: that was a good answer. Okay, she is healed.

Why would the representative of a God of love say something like that to a desperate woman, a woman desperate enough to humiliate herself to have her child healed. This was something he gave away freely to all of the Jews who came. But not to her. From her he demanded humiliation. Why?

I do not know. It is out of character for Jesus. Someone may say that he was showing everyone her faith. But it is never shown anywhere else that Jesus would humiliate someone to show that they “had faith.”

Jesus had a mission to the Jews first, yes, and he pursued that mission strongly. But there were others that were not Jewish that were granted healing. And there were a lot of Jews who weren’t.

But this woman had to be humiliated. Deuteronomy 29:29 says:

The Lord our God has secrets known to no one. We are not accountable for them, but we and our children are accountable forever for all that he has revealed to us, so that we may obey all the terms of these instructions.

I guess you could put this into that category. But even so, it makes for an odd narrative. It also tells you that Jesus was unpredictable and was not to be put in a box. Maybe her attitude was bad and she realized it. Maybe she was demanding and realized her error. Maybe Jesus was tired (he was human, after all) and misspoke. Maybe a lot of stuff.

But the thing is, Jesus did something here that was so out of character that if someone found out tomorrow that it was not in the ancient manuscripts and had been added by an annoyed, racist monk later, it would not be surprising.

Always something new in the written word.