Jesus came to redeem the inherent problem of human hearts

Good morning, happy Thursday, and many blessings.

Today’s Gospel (Mark 7:24-30) begins with the mysterious statement that Jesus went to the vicinity of Tyre and did not want anyone to know it. What was going on? Well, Jesus had been spending all of his time ministering in Jewish provinces, and that ministry was drawing overwhelming crowds, and he was exhausted. So Jesus left the Jewish provinces and went into a Gentile territory, Tyre, in order to get some rest.

But it doesn’t work. A woman hears of his arrival and makes her way boldly to Jesus. She knows that she has none of the religious, moral, and cultural credentials necessary to approach a Jewish rabbi—she is a Phoenician, a Gentile, a pagan, a woman, and her daughter has an unclean spirit. She knows that in every way, according to the standards of the day, she is unclean and therefore disqualified to approach any devout Jew, let alone a rabbi. But she doesn’t care. She enters the house without an invitation, falls down and begins begging Jesus to exorcise a demon from her daughter. The verb beg here is a present progressive—she keeps on begging. Nothing and no one can stop her. In Matthew’s Gospel chapter 15, the parallel account, the disciples urge Jesus to send her away. But she’s pleading with Jesus—she won’t take no for an answer.

In Jesus’ day the Jews often called the Gentiles dogs because they were “unclean.” Is what Jesus says to her just an insult, then? No, it’s a parable. The word parable means “metaphor” or “likeness,” and that’s what this is. One key to understanding it is the very unusual word Jesus uses for “dogs” here. He uses a diminutive form, a word that really means “puppies.” Remember, the woman is a mother. Jesus is saying to her, “You know how families eat: First the children eat at the table, and afterward their pets eat too. It is not right to violate that order. The puppies must not eat food from the table before the children do.” If we go to Matthew’s account of this incident, he gives us a slightly longer version of Jesus’s answer in which Jesus explains his meaning: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” Jesus concentrated his ministry on Israel, for all sorts of reasons. He was sent to show Israel that he was the fulfillment of all Scripture’s promises, the fulfillment of all the prophets, priests, and kings, the fulfillment of the temple.

The fact that Jesus reached out to this Gentile woman fundamentally shows that Jesus comes for the broken, the sick, the outsider, the sinner. Of course, all people–because of their inherent sin–are positionally alienated from God, and are therefore spiritually broken, sick, outside, and condemned. This is an important truth that can be gleaned from the story.

And if we put ourselves in the shoes of the Gentile woman, I think we will find another truth that is very practical to our own lives. Here’s what I mean: quite likely, it’s only until you realize that you have no leverage in your position before God that you will finally begin to hear and understand His voice and call on your life–just like the Gentile woman who had nothing to offer Jesus–to lean on His grace alone.

Therefore, this story is proof that Jesus’ mission was not about fixing the apparent problems of human culture so much as it was about redeeming the inherent problem of human hearts.

Blessings,

Fr. Luis+