Humble or spunky?

Continuing the Spiritual Journey

By: E. Jane Rutter

Was the Syrophoenician woman humble or spunky telling Jesus that even the dogs get scraps from the table? My first reaction is that she is spunky.

Firstly, we need to know that she is a Gentile or non-Jew whom Jews in Jesus’ time considered unclean and lowly, like dogs.
Her daughter possessed by a demon, she approaches Jesus and asks him to heal her. Jesus, as we know from scripture, compares her to dogs, saying “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the food of the children, and throw it to the dogs” (Mark 7: 27). In other words, to take from the mouth of a Jew and give to a Gentile. She counters, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps” (Mark 7:28).

A mother, my first instinct is to protect and stand up for my children. I can readily take Jesus’ statement as a denunciation and dismissal of my child and reply out of anger or defensiveness.

Yet, as there most often is, there’s a better way to let the story unfold. The woman approaches Jesus precisely because she is confident that he is the One who can heal her daughter. She believes in his power, addressing Jesus as “lord.”

Though not a Jew, she has sought out Jesus. Therein lies her humility. Her request is not made from arrogance or pride. She knows she is approaching the Lord though not “one of his own.” She is spunky and humble in doing so.

For underlying spunky is having the courage to present herself where she was not welcome.

For underlying humble is admitting she was powerless to heal her daughter, to save her from the evil that had overtaken her. She was past the point of desperation where many of us must get before we call on God for help and salvation. Her action was made solely out of love for her daughter.

What she couldn’t have known is that Jesus came to abolish the Mosaic law defining what /who was clean or unclean and so bring Gentiles into the fullness of his love and care. He opened up his ministry of healing to the Gentiles. As St. Mark instructs us this First Sunday of Lent,

“For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, the same Lord is Lord of All, enriching all who call upon him. For ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (Rom 10:12-13).’”

And Jesus did not disappoint. Arriving home after his assurance that her daughter was healed, she found the demon gone and her child at rest. Through his action, Jesus claimed them as his beloved. From the leper to the lame, the blind to the deaf, the paralytic to the mute, Jesus heals and claims each one of us as his sons and daughters.

I am moved by St. Faustina’s prayer for priests in which she identifies Lord and Savior as “Oh my Jesus.” Would that we embraced Jesus as mine: my son, my brother, my lord, my friend, my family, my savior. Would that we embedded Jesus in our hearts so deeply!

And so I pray: Dear Lord, let me think of you as my dear one, humbled by your power and sure of your love. Let me consider you as did St. Patrick, my armor in the battle of life. Give me the spunk to make this Lenten Season fruitful.