Mark 7:24-30 (NIV): Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it; yet he could not keep his presence secret. In fact, as soon as she heard about him, a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an evil spirit came and fell at his feet. The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.
“First let the children eat all they want,” he told her, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.”
“Yes, Lord,” she replied, “but even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
Then he told her, “For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter.”
She went home and found her child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
Many people are troubled by this episode in Jesus’ ministry – by His seeming callousness toward this needy woman, and by the slap at her inferred by His use of the term “dog.” But, as always, the larger picture must always be kept at the forefront.
Jesus had gone up to the area of Tyre and Sidon in Phoenicia to have some down-time, to get some space between Himself and the controversies and confrontations that now were a regular occurrence in His ministry in Israel. He should have been able to quietly enter town and just lie low for a few days in this foreign city where He wasn’t very well known, but the word got out.
It was a normal occurrence for people to come to Jesus seeking a miracle for themselves or for someone they loved. But those that came were normally Jewish people – people who knew the Scriptures, who had been prepared for the coming of the Messiah, and who would listen to and understand His teachings. But the woman coming to Him now was none of those things. She wasn’t even a “God-fearer,” a gentile who worshiped the true God. She was just a gentile woman who wanted a miracle from this man who had a reputation as a wonder-worker.
Jesus was reluctant to do this miracle, not because his heart was hard (it never was, toward anybody), but because of the likely results: a miracle given and received without a heart being brought closer to the kingdom of God, the word spreading, and Him then being swamped by dozens or even hundreds of gentiles who didn’t want God, but only wanted a miracle.
Jesus’ point in His first statement was that He had been sent to those who had been prepared for the gospel – the Jewish people. (Even the Samaritans had been prepared to some extent for the coming of the Messiah by the Jewish Scriptures that they possessed and studied. Cf. John 4:25-26) The time for the gentiles to receive the gospel would come (Acts 1:8), but it was not yet – all of the Jewish people had not yet been told. Since there was a limited time, and many Jewish people to be reached, Jesus couldn’t waste time performing miracles for those who would not be able to appreciate their deeper meaning and believe in Him.
Jesus’ use of the term “dogs” signified that this woman, and most of the people in Tyre and Sidon, were currently outside of God’s kingdom until the time when the gospel would be purposefully extended to them. But it also gave the woman an opportunity to use the same figure of speech herself; to reframe it to her advantage. Rather than accepting the term to show herself as a wild dog, outside of the kingdom, she changed the picture to one of herself as a pet dog, lying under the table, and willingly receiving even the crumbs that fell from those to whom the bread of the gospel rightfully belonged at the time.
This answer showed Jesus the state of the woman’s heart. It was one that was open to receiving Jesus, not just as a miracle worker, but as he truly was: the Deliverer who had come from the true God. So Jesus pronounced her daughter delivered, and from that moment, she was.
Father, things are not always as they seem on the surface, and I have found that we can discover hearts that You have been preparing for Your good news in unexpected places. Help us, like Jesus, to stay true to Your calling, but at the same time, to be open to any of these wonderful surprises that You place along our way. Amen.
— In His Love Pastor Will