When Jesus’ Healing Ministry Transgressed Boundaries—Lectionary Reflection for Pentecost 16B (Mark 7:24-37)

Mark 7:24-37 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

²⁴ From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, ²⁵ but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. ²⁶ Now the woman was a gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. ²⁷ 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.” ²⁸ But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” ²⁹ Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” ³⁰ And when she went home, she found the child lying on the bed and the demon gone.

³¹ Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went by way of Sidon toward the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. ³² They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech, and they begged him to lay his hand on him. ³³ He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. ³⁴ Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” ³⁵ And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. ³⁶ Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one, but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. ³⁷ They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”

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                According to the Gospels, Jesus focused his attention on reaching out to fellow Jews living in Galilee. The question that has always confounded scholars and preachers is how often Jesus engaged with people outside his own people. We see glimpses, and yet Peter seemed pretty surprised by the vision that led him to Cornelius' house (Acts 10). In the reading from Mark 7, Jesus heals two people that take place in predominantly Gentile areas, and one person involved is clearly a Gentile. The other is not as clear. So is this a one-off situation that doesn’t define Jesus’ ministry or does it open up new avenues for understanding Jesus’ larger vision for the ministry of the community he was forming? 

                I invite you to keep those questions in mind as we explore these stories that speak of Jesus’ healing ministry. As we ponder Jesus’ ministry, it is clear that he was not only a preacher and teacher, but he was also a healer. While many progressives highlight Jesus’ preaching and teaching, there can be a degree of discomfort with the healing part of the ministry. There is, at least for some, an affinity for a demythologized Jesus that fits with Thomas Jefferson’s vision, which led him to create a New Testament with all of Jesus’ miracles removed.  Yet, healing forms a central piece of Jesus’ ministry.  If Jesus engaged in healing ministry does that mean God intervenes in the natural world?

When we engage with Gospel stories like the ones we encounter here that speak of Jesus’ healing activities, which seem miraculous, we are confronted with the question of whether God actively intervenes in our world. As we ponder that question, we are forced to address other questions that can be uncomfortable. For one thing, if Jesus could heal people and even raise them from the dead, why don’t we see this happening today? It’s a question David Hume posed and it is difficult to answer. We can search for natural explanations, but if we do so, do we miss the point of the story? One of the reasons we are attracted to stories like this is that they are suggestive that God might be present and active in our lives. It gives us hope that God might answer our prayers, especially our prayers for healing. Of course, that opens up a lot of other questions as to why some people seem to be healed and others do not. While these stories raise many questions, would we not lose something important if we take the healing portions out of the Gospels? After all, Jesus’ actions often provide the foundation for his teachings. Without them do not Jesus’ teaching moments become disembodied? Nevertheless, we must still wrestle with whether descriptions of the miraculous suggest that God is tampering with the laws of nature. While these questions remain with us, for now, I’ll leave that conversation to another day.

Whatever our starting point, here in Mark 7 Jesus engages in two healing events. In these two events, we learn something about Jesus’ identity. What is intriguing about these two events is that they take place in predominantly Gentile contexts. In the passage that precedes these two healing stories, Jesus engages in a conversation with Jewish leaders about religious traditions, a conversation that leads Jesus to redefine the categories of clean and unclean. He tells the leaders that when it comes to being faithful to the ways of God what matters is the heart, not external observances. Having done this Jesus heads to the coastal city of Tyre, a city traditionally linked with the Phoenicians. From there he traveled to the Decapolis, another predominantly Gentile region that lay east of the Sea of Galilee. In traveling to these areas, Jesus, being Jewish, was transgressing boundaries that separated people from one another.

                The first encounter takes place in the region of Tyre and features a Syrophoenician woman. But before we get to that part of the story, we need to ask ourselves why Jesus would travel to this region. Mark tells us that when he arrived at the appointed house, he entered he made it clear he didn’t want anyone to know he was there. In other words, he wasn’t planning on engaging in any mission work in Tyre. Perhaps he traveled there to get away from his religious opponents. One would assume, however, that this home belonged to a Jew living in the diaspora. After all, most major metropolitan cities had a Jewish community of some sort. However, Mark doesn’t identify the host. What happens next can be rather shocking to the modern reader and perhaps the ancient reader. For those of us who envision Jesus being a very open and welcoming person, this story can shake us to our core. That’s because we witness what appears a clear case of ethnocentrism and religious bigotry on the part of Jesus.  

                After Jesus entered this house in Tyre, hoping that no one would know that he was there. But, as was so often true, Jesus couldn’t hide from the public. So, a Syrophoenician woman entered the house and approached Jesus. She had a young daughter who was afflicted by an unclean spirit (demon?), so when she heard Jesus was there in Ture she bowed at his feet and begged him to free her daughter from this spirit. Mark doesn’t tell us anything about this spirit, only that it had afflicted the little girl. It’s worth noting that this woman took the same position as Jairus did when he sought Jesus’ assistance with his daughter (Mk. 5:22). However, he was Jewish and male, and she was a woman and Gentile. Jesus’ response to her is very different from his response to her. 

                To our surprise, Jesus rejects her plea for help in a way that seems unlike him. He tells her that the children (Jews) should be fed first because it would be unfair to give the children’s food to dogs (Gentiles). As Bernard Brandon Scott points out when Jesus refers to Gentiles as dogs, this is an insult. “These are not pets but scavengers or mongrels.” He also points out that “Gentiles are often called dogs, as the well-known quote from Rabbi Eliezer indicates: ‘He who eats with an idolater is like unto one who eats with a dog.’ The aphorism is dismissive. The woman’s quest is denied, creating an obstacle” [Feasting on the Gospels: Mark, p. 209]. Jesus might not want to have anything to do with this unnamed woman, but she isn’t finished with Jesus.

                After Jesus rejects her request with an insult, she pushes back. She gives as good as she gets, telling Jesus, but “even dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” He may choose to insult her and reject her, but she’s going to give up. She is willing to receive the insult if she can get Jesus to change his heart and mind and heal her daughter. You might say: “Nevertheless, she persisted.” In pushing back against Jesus’ ethnocentric response, she reminded him, I would think, of his own teaching on what is clean and unclean. He might, at first sight, see her as being unclean, but her heart suggested something else. The woman caught Jesus’ attention. He told her she could return home because the unclean spirit or demon had left her daughter. She did as Jesus suggested, and what she found there must have brought her joy because the demon was gone.     

                Jesus’ initial response to the woman has caused interpreters great angst. We want to excuse Jesus, suggesting perhaps that he was simply testing her, hoping to get this response. If so, that doesn’t help. It might be worse because it seems rather cruel to test her in this way. Besides, at least in Mark, Jesus doesn’t commend her for faith. He just tells her to go home and receive her daughter back. So, we have to come back to Jesus’ insulting response. At a time when our culture is rife with insulting behavior, Jesus’ behavior here is truly problematic. While imitating Jesus is generally a good thing, in this case, we shouldn’t emulate him. But the fact that he does heal her daughter suggests that perhaps she opened his eyes to a wider sense of God’s mercy. We might shudder at thinking Jesus could experience conversion, but perhaps he also needed to experience a change of mind and heart. It’s not as if God never changed God’s mind!  So, if she hadn’t responded as she did, would Jesus have come to a new understanding of God’s mercy and love for all humanity?  Therefore, could she have reversed roles, so that she became the teacher, and he became the student? As we ponder her response, which leads to a change of heart on Jesus’ part, how might that speak to other areas of life? Who else have we deemed unclean, but whom God declares clean?

                After this revelatory event in the region of Tyre, Jesus heads toward home by way of Sidon, another coastal city that was known to be of Phoenician origin and thus Gentile. He ended up in the Decapolis, so-called because the region hosted ten city-states.  According to the Roman scholar Pliny the Elder (ca. 77 CE), the ten Hellenistic (Greek) cities included Damascus, Philadelphia, Raphana, Scythopolis, Gadara, Hippos, Dion, Pella, Gerasa, and Canatha. Thus, he moved from one Gentile region to another, though this one was closer to home and a place that we see him visiting on occasion. He had already had an encounter with a man possessed with demons at Gerasa (Mk 5:1-20). When he arrives in the Decapolis a group of people, who are not identified, bring a man who is deaf and has a speech impediment to him. They begged him to heal the man. Jesus responded to this request by taking the group, including the man who sought to experience healing, to a private place. Jesus put his fingers in the man’s ears and touched his tongue. He looked up to heaven, sighed, and then said to the man “Ephphatha,” which translated from Aramaic means “be opened.” Immediately, he was healed. Once again, he could hear, and he could talk. But Jesus, who had taken the man off to a private place, told the group they were not to tell anyone what had happened to the man, as if they could keep that quiet.

Mark, of course, is known for his “Messianic Secret.” He keeps telling people to keep his healing events secret. But each time, the people can’t help it. They have to share the good news. As Mark records, “the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.” Why did they do this? According to Mark: “They were astounded beyond measure, saying, ‘He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak’” (Mk 7:37).

What these two stories do is reveal more about Jesus’ identity. He’s a healer and a teacher, though he still is discerning the nature of his ministry. That is, he is still learning how broad his ministry will be. According to the larger New Testament story, it won’t be until Peter has his vision and Paul has his calling that Jesus’ earliest followers begin to realize how broad God’s vision really is. Bernard Brandon Scott speaks to the growing recognition of the inclusive nature of God’s realm:

The unit 7:1-37 radically expands the inclusiveness of the kingdom of God. It includes a redefinition of cleanliness, a major value in the Jewish and Greco-Roman worlds, breaks out of the boundary of Galilee into Gentile lands, and crosses boundaries between male and female, even showing Jesus’ honor being challenged by a witty Syrophoenician woman. If we miss all this boundary-breaking and the inclusiveness of the kingdom, we miss the gospel’s essence. [Feasting on theGospels: Mark, p. 217].

That is the key, the revelation not only of Jesus’ identity but God’s inclusive realm.

Image attribution: Bazzi Rahib, Ilyas Basim Khuri. The Canaanite Woman Asks for Healing for Her Daughter, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57555 [retrieved August 30, 2024]. Original source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ilyas_Basim_Khuri_Bazzi_Rahib_-_Jesus_and_the_Canaanite_Woman_-_Walters_W59243A_-_Full_Page.jpg.