Jesus finally manages to do what he’s been trying to do for some time in the story — pull away and get some alone time for a little rest and solitude. In order to find it, he has to travel to the far north, into the land of Syrophonecia. This is the land of the Gentiles and no longer the land of his Jewish brethren. But at least it provides a chance to catch some space to breathe.
But his breather doesn’t last long.
It takes merely two verses to explain that Jesus encounters a Gentile woman. (Matthew goes to the trouble of using the terms of biblical history, calling her a Canaanite and referring to the region as “Tyre and Sidon”; Mark does not do this, using instead the more modern, Roman terms in calling her a Syrophonecian.) She begins begging Jesus to heal her daughter.
Jesus ignores her.
She keeps begging. The disciples ask him to do something about the situation.
Jesus tells her that it’s not his job to help Gentiles.
Ouch.
She continues to beg him.
He reiterates his response, this time in slightly stronger language: “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
Wait, did Jesus just call her a dog?
It would be good to point out something we mentioned in a previous post: It was cultural slang in the first-century Jewish world to refer to the Gentiles as dogs or pigs. Seen in this light, the reader can understand that Jesus is simply reiterating his previous point: I am here to work with the Jewish people; I’m trying to catch a breather here.
But this explanation still doesn’t satisfy for the rest of this passage. The woman responds with the following words:
“Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
At this, Jesus is astounded. “Woman, you have great faith!” And he grants her request.
What just took place there? What turned Jesus’s opinion on its head in a single sentence?
Before I answer that, I would like you to entertain a possibility in your head. I’d like you to consider the idea that Jesus LEARNS things, that he can be unaware of a certain truth. I would never take away from Jesus’s divinity or divine nature for one moment; I believe Jesus is 100% divine and affirm historic Christian orthodoxy. But, I also believe that while he is God, Philippians 2 teaches us that he set the God-nature aside and came to function as a man.
Hebrews tells us that Jesus learned obedience. In the gospel of John, Jesus says, “Everything I have learned from my father, I have made known to you.”
I would like to suggest that Jesus learned things in his human nature.
I believe this is important here, because one day I was studying this passage over in Israel with Ray Vander Laan and he suggested it is in this story that Jesus realizes he is here for the Gentiles, too. And I think Ray nails it.
So, back to my question: What just turned Jesus’s opinion on its head in a single sentence?
Well, as we’ve seen before, I believe the answer is in the Text. One of the things we never notice as western readers is geography. Even after I pointed out where this story took place, I’m certain that very, very few of you realized another story took place in this exact same location. It was the story of Elijah staying with the widow at Zarephath (1 Kings 17:7–24).
Now, if we recall the story, we will notice this is the story of Elijah and a Phonecian woman who will end up having a son who needs healing. The entire time Elijah stays with the woman, God miraculously continues to provide biscuits for the household. The biscuits He provides are simply a starvation ration of biscuits. Not only this, but there are two biblical characters who will dominate the conversation around the Hebrew word for “master” (which shares a root with the term used later for “rabbi”).
So the widow in Elijah’s story literally ends up eating crumbs from the master’s table.
The woman in the story of Jesus knows her Text. And it blows him away.
You may find this to be a hard sell, but give me a little time to show you what comes next in the story.
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