When The Odds Are Against You

Genesis 2:18-25
Mark 7:24-30

A PAGAN WOMAN IN DESPERATE NEED OF HELP

In today’s gospel, Jesus is seeking to withdraw from public attention, needing some time for recuperation, but (as characteristic of his portayal in Mark’s gospel) he is unable to keep his presence secret. A woman approaches him to ask for deliverance for her daughter and (Mark having emphasised her pagan gentile credentials), Jesus appears to mesmerize her with a racial slur by calling her a ‘dog’. Yet her desperate and stubborn belief persists, and her clever response to Jesus’ ‘puzzling’ persuades him to act, so her daughter is delivered and healed.

THE WOMAN WHO ARGUED WITH JESUS…

This story calls us to confront what it means to be raised within a certain cultural background. Being human means being embedded in a culture. It means inheriting traditions and language and biases—biases that can be wrongheaded and hurtful and alienating. Biases like the exclusion of Gentiles from the community of faith and the circle of those deserving compassion, sentiments and benefits that could only be enjoyed by certain race or color, the mentality of thinking we are a better race and other infidels when we only have one human race. You see, Jesus doesn’t cling to his prejudice. He listens…Jesus listens. The demon must have stubborn grip over her daughter.

FAITH COMES WITH ASSURANCE

And Jesus told her, For saying this go home happy and her daughter received healing. This is the reason why Christ came into this world to show us the way to happiness, and the way to happiness is the way God willed it right from creation, we were made in God’s image and likeness. By His death, We are all humans and the more we begin to break the barriers that divide our world, the more we become peaceful, loving, and happy. For Christ is our peace. For us, this woman anticipates Paul who says in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female.  She has no puffed up notion of herself to protect.  No way in which she feels qualified to be Jesus’ equal. She is free to embrace Jesus without being in rivalry with him for she knows he is her Lord.

CHRIST REPLACES UNREST WITH PEACE

When this woman came and fell at his feet it was not a manipulation.  It was worship.  When she claimed her place he replied, “Go on home in peave’
Scripture says, Jesus himself is our peace, who made both pagans and Jews into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing walls. Ephesians 2:14. Jesus went to the cross and God raised him from the dead to caste it out.  I’m grateful for it means that I too can dare receive the bread of heaven.
When faced with an enormous obstacle, it’s easy to fall into the error of believing that the obstacle may be bigger than God. Yet we know that’s not true in our hearts; however, our actions of unbelief and doubt reveal otherwise. We must stand firm in the faith that God is who He says He is—the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. Nothing is too difficult for our God to help us overcome.

Fr. Joseph Osho