Enlarge Rev. Kate Murphy, interim pastor at Hickory Grove Presbyterian Church.

Posted: March 8th, 2010 Greg Lacour

The Rev. Kate Murphy had a confession to make: There’s a section of Scripture, specifically Mark 7: 24-30, that’s bothered – even offended – her since her first year in Seminary.

It’s the story of a Gentile woman who approaches Jesus as he hides in a house. The woman’s daughter is possessed, and she begs Jesus to expel the demon. Jesus declines. It is not right, he tells her, to take the children’s bread and cast it before dogs.

She responds, Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.

Jesus tells her to go, that the demon has left her daughter. She goes home to find her daughter demon-free. So, Jesus performs an exorcism. But wait – what was that business about the dogs? Did we read that right? Jesus, confronted by a suffering mother, responds by calling her and her daughter … dogs? “If I could cut any piece out of the Bible …,” Murphy, the interim pastor at Hickory Grove Presbyterian Church, told the congregation at The Chapel of Christ the King on March 7. It was the latest in Crossroads Charlotte’s Xchange Sermons series.

“I hatethat story,” Murphy said. “I am the mother of two little daughters. This woman throws herself at Jesus’ feet … and Jesus says to her, ‘Go away, you dog, God’s salvation is not for people like you.’ I want my scissors. I don’t know what to do with this text.”

But the scripture contains a powerful lesson, albeit one that’s less than palatable for people accustomed to thinking of Christ as perfect rather than perfectly human.

Jesus, in Murphy’s view, does something even more remarkable than perform an exorcism. He admits he was wrong.

“There is something huge happening in this story,” she said. “It’s almost as if Jesus listens to this woman, realizes he’s wrong and changes his mind …

“Maybe the point of the story is for God to show us where in our thinking we’re wrong, where in our thinking we’re limited, and give us the strength and humility to change.”

The same story is in Matthew 15: 22-28, but with a little more context. The woman was Canaanite (Syro-Phoenician in Mark’s account); either way, a Gentile, unholy.

In Matthew, when she begs Jesus to expel the demon from her daughter, he at first refuses because, he says, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Private party; Jews only.

But in Matthew, when the woman says her bit about the crumbs, Jesus makes it plain that he’ll cast the demon out because of her faith – that it’s faith, rather than tribal allegiance, that unites the children of God and makes them worthy of salvation. Jesus, in rejecting his own prejudice and shortsightedness, shows us the way to jettison our own.

Pretty good lesson for an interfaith sermon. 

Tweet

Previous Page