To whom should Jesus’ followers show mercy? If we follow Jesus’ example, we should provide it to people we do not expect.
Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking about the seventh chapter of Mark’s Gospel (Mark 7:24-37), the section we might describe as “two stories in which Jesus healed people” – because that is precisely what he did.
The second is fairly straightforward. Some friends brought a man to see Jesus and asked him to heal the man’s deafness. Jesus did a few actions, said “Ephphatha,” which means, “Be opened,” and sure enough the man could hear.
The first one has a couple of unusual features, however. The first is that it was a long-distance healing. A mother came to Jesus and asked him to cast a demon out of her daughter, but the daughter was still at home. When Jesus consented, the mother returned home to find that her daughter was well.
Now that, in and of itself, does not make the story unique in the gospels. What does make it unique is that the woman was specifically identified as a foreigner, a Syrophoenician, and when she asked for Jesus’ help, initially he refused. He said, “It is not right to take the children’s food and give it to the dogs.”
She replied, “Even the dogs are entitled to what falls from the children’s table. Then Jesus consented to heal the girl.
One of the great theological conundrums of this text is, did Jesus learn something in this moment? It’s probably unanswerable. If your theological perspective is that Jesus’ godhood, his divinity, was the greater part of him, than you’d have to read this is saying that no, Jesus was in some way testing the woman, testing his disciples, to see if they would recognize that grace can be given to anyone. But if you believe that Jesus’ humanity was the more important factor at play, than yes, Jesus learned something here.
In either case, Jesus presumably – because he repeated the story – and Jesus’ disciples – because they clearly repeated the story – and Mark – because he heard the story and set it down for us to read and repeat over the centuries, even the millennia – they wanted us to learn something.
We find it all too easy to set people apart for one reason or another: religion, nationality, skin tone, gender, the people to whom they’re attracted, all sorts of things. We set them aside and somehow they are no longer recipients of mercy. At least, not our mercy.
Did Jesus learn otherwise that day? I don’t know. But the woman asked for that mercy and she received it for her daughter, and Jesus’ followers since that time have known, even if we haven’t always done it, we have known that mercy is due to all people, not just the ones who are closest to us, not just the ones who are like us.
Mercy is due to all God’s children: the entire population of the world.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
