Reflection
In today’s gospel reading Jesus arrives in the district of Tyre on the East Coast of the Mediterranean Sea. He and his disciples had just journeyed about a day from Gennesaret, on the Northwest coast of the Sea of Galilee. He seems exhausted, and rightfully so. In the previous few verses of Mark’s gospel he had fed the 5,000 with loaves and fishes, calmed the turbulent Mediterranean sea while the disciples were crossing in the middle of the night, and healed multitudes in Gennesaret where people immediately recognized him and scurried about the surrounding country to bring in the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. As we read in yesterday’s gospel passage, he had also chastised the Pharisees after they had faulted some of his disciples for eating with unwashed hands insisting that “Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but things that come out from within are what defile.”
Now it is time for a bit of R&R with his friends in the lovely seaside resort of Tyre. “He entered a house and wanted no one to know about it, but he could not escape notice. Soon a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him. She came and fell at his feet.
She was a Gentile, a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth. Did he send her away, even as he was longing for rest? Of course not. But he does test her faith. Once he understands the reason for her visit he admonishes her “Let the children be fed first.” (Referring to the chosen people). For it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs” (referring to the non-believers). However, in a determined act of faith, she reminds him: “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps”. Of course Jesus responds to her faith in his loving way: “For saying this, you may go. The demon has gone out of your daughter”.
Do we realize like that desperate mother, Jesus will never turn us away, if our faith is as strong as hers or the woman who had been hemorrhaging and reached out to touch his cloak. Because of our human weaknesses and the challenging distractions and temptations that we frequently succumb to, we are understandingly an unworthy people, like the dogs Jesus refers to in his reproach to the woman. We are not deserving of what God has blessed us with. But the Syrophoenician woman, a complete stranger, reminds us that no matter our state in life, God will not turn away from us. We simply need to have the faith of those who have gone before us to be healed and saved.
Perhaps during the upcoming Lenten season, we can take some time to reflect on the faith of the mother with the possessed daughter, as well as the many others of faith that Jesus encounters in his ministry and heals of their brokenness and infirmities. Jesus will always be there for us if we are faithful and trust in his infinite love and mercy. His passion and death is proof enough that he will respond out of love to all of our needs, even if we do interrupt his much-needed R&R with his disciples in Tyre.
