Up to this point in the Gospel of Mark, the ministry of Jesus has included preaching the coming kingdom of God, teaching, a few miracles, and healing. Here in these first half dozen or so chapters, Mark records the parable of the sower and the parable of the mustard seed. The reader comes upon Jesus healing a leper. Jesus giving life to the daughter of Jairus. Jesus restoring health to the man with a withered hand and exorcizing the one called the Gerasene demoniac. Jesus healing the paralytic who had been lowered through the ceiling by some friends. And of course, Jesus teaching the twelve. Here in the early part of Mark’s gospel, he sends them out two by two. He teaches about fasting, the sabbath, eating clean or unclean food, a lamp under a bushel, and the death of John the Baptist. In just these handful of chapters, Jesus calms the storm, walks on water, and feeds the 5,000. And right at the conclusion of chapter six, Mark tells us that wherever Jesus went people recognized him. From the whole region they would bring the sick to him on mats. Wherever he went, villages, cities, or farms, they would bring people to the marketplace to be healed. They begged Jesus that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak. As Mark sums it up at 6:56, “All who touched it were healed.”

So when the Syrophoenician woman approaches Jesus in the house in Tyre, when she begs him on behalf of her daughter, it is not without precedent. Jesus enters the house and doesn’t want anyone to know he’s there. It could be that it was time for some home schooling for the apostles. Some private time for teaching. Jesus and the twelve. Could be, but the gospel doesn’t tell us why Jesus needed a break from people, why he wanted to be left alone. If he needed time to pray he would have most certainly gone to a mountain or a garden. This is the bible afterall. The Lord doesn’t want to be around anyone for a while. I think that means he was tired. He needed rest. “He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there.” Which is to say, he was human. Fully human. Before you even get to the predicament of whether or not Jesus changed his mind here in this conversation with the Gentile woman who was on a mission, or whether he lost an argument with someone politely described as persistent, before you get to that intense exchange that even overshadows the miraculous off-site healing of the daughter now resting comfortably in her bed, you ought to ponder how Jesus goes into that house to get away from it all. All the healing. All the teaching. All the ministry. All the people. Fully human, Jesus was.

Yet, he could not escape notice. The woman whose little daughter is so sick, she pretty much embodies the biblical definition of “the other.” The other race. The other religion. The other gender. The other side. The stranger. The foreigner. In terms of religion and politics and power and the “in crowd”, she’s the nobody. As soon as she hears about the healing Rabbi and where he is, she comes inside the house, bows down at his feet and she begs for her daughter to be healed. Jesus said, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

Excuse me? Could you repeat that, Jesus? “It’s not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” Ouch. Snap. Snark. I think he just called her a dog. “But sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” There must have been an awkward silence. The text gives no stage direction here, but there must have been a pause that may as well have lasted a lifetime. Awkward silence. And then a nod, or maybe a look from Jesus before he spoke, some expression of mercy there on his face. “For saying that, you may go– the demon has left your daughter.” So the woman that the overly religious folk would love to hate, she leaves one home and goes to another. And there in her house she finds her little girl curled up on the bed, peaceful and full of life.

The little girl is healed and the demon is gone, as the bible describes it. The demon is already gone and Mark’s Gospel presses on as some of us turn to each other and say, “did he just call her a dog?” Jesus on children’s food, table crumbs, and dogs. The explanation here focuses on people of Israel and the promises of God. The children of God and the covenant. The Jews as the first and intended audience when it came to the teaching and preaching and healing of Jesus. That Gospel food. The dogs, therefore, are the people beyond the Jewish community. The Gentiles. The Syrophoenician woman. Those beyond the covenant of God. Those outside that unique history shared between God and God’s people. “Let these children be fed first.”

Explanations don’t always make things feel any better. Some explanations don’t always make that connection between mind and heart. (He called her a dog!) Sometimes it’s better to encounter a biblical text rather than explain it away. To be drawn in rather than to keep it at a safe interpretive distance, “hermeneutically sealed” by the church’s tradition. To encounter it with your whole self. Heart. Mind. Soul. And when it comes to this biblical account as told my Mark, when it comes to your encounter here this morning, it seems to me that you just can’t miss her.

“But sir, even the gods under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” “Even those outside the covenant are yearning to bow at your feet. Even those beyond the covenant community can be nourished by what drops from the table. The crumbs are enough for us dogs. The leftovers of your grace ought to be spread like a feast. The slightest bit of your mercy can fill heart after heart after heart. I don’t ask for all the food. The crumbs of your teaching, your preaching, your healing are enough to sustain the rest of the world as well. This gospel of yours knows no boundaries. This new covenant reaches to the farthest corners of the world. Others can worry about right religion, or the proper family tree, or essentials in form and doctrine, or what makes for good practice, or cutting edge worship style, or how to translate the gospel in this post-modern world, but as for me, as for this dog, thank you very much, as for me and my daughter, all I want, all we need is a crumb.”

Of course there was awkward silence. In the world we live in, where religious hatred only gets worse and we kid ourselves into thinking that gender stereotypes are any better, and we assume that anyone asking for help must be lazy, in the world we live in, she would be called much worse than a dog.

Jesus. The Syrophoenician woman. And table crumbs. I think he just called her a dog. His humanity tends to much more disturbing than his divinity, doesn’t it? When you encounter a text, instead of just explain it, maybe the disturbing part just doesn’t go away. I’ve grown weary with the abundance of those who think they have this Jesus in the palm of their hand. The arrogance expressed by those who have Jesus so fully understood, so explained completely away, so all the food, all the gospel food, stays right up there on their table.

I can’t speak for you, but as for me, some days, I’d just settle for a crumb. If only I could find myself in the crowd around Jesus, in that crowd that gathers at his feet. I’m going to look around for her, for that persistent mother, for the woman who dared ask for just a taste. I’m going to look for her and listen again for her take on the boundless gospel of Jesus. I’m going to head for the table and wait for that awkward silence.

And then, yearn to be filled once again by the mercy and the grace of the Savior of the world.

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