Patrick Comerford
We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar. This week began with the Fourth Sunday before Lent (9 February 2025), and Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent are less than three weeks away (5 March 2025).
Before today begins, however, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Mark 7: 24-30 (NRSVA):
24 From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, 25 but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. 26 Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27 He said to her, ‘Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ 28 But she answered him, ‘Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.’ 29 Then he said to her, ‘For saying that, you may go – the demon has left your daughter.’ 30 So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
In the small miniature below Jean Colombe’s painting of the story of the Syro-Phoenician woman, the Disciples, gathered like a Greek chorus, can see her but cannot see the body language and facial reaction of ChristToday’s Reflection:
The story of the Syrophoenician woman in Tyre and her daughter is one of my favourite stories in the Gospels, alongside those of the Wedding at Cana (John 2: 1-11), the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4: 5-42) and the Resurrection appearance to Mary Magdalene (Mark 16: 9; John 20).
I have reflected often on the Syrophoenician woman and her daughter (Matthew 15: 21-28; Mark 7: 24-37), and I have compared their story with the women in one of the great Greek tragedies, The Phoenician Women by Euripides.
I am an avid fan of soap operas like EastEnders. All human life is there.
When my sons were younger, EastEnders gave opportunities to talk with them about major life issues without having to point fingers at anyone they or I knew.
We could talk about drugs, gambling, business ethics, sexuality, relationships, domestic violence, poverty, racism, justice and injustice … all within context, but without naming or shaming anyone we know.
But context is everything. If you watch it regularly, then the profile of each character is built up night-by-night, week-by-week.
However, if you miss an episode, or miss a week, then you cannot come to a full and fair judgment or evaluation of someone’s actions and their intentions, or come to any conclusion about causes and consequences.
Sometimes, it can be a bit like that too when it comes to reading one episode on its own from the Gospel story. Context involves what happened before and what happens after. And we might realise the same with our readings these weeks from Saint Mark’s Gospel, including this morning’s reading about the Syro-Phoenician woman.
Context is all important: why does Jesus seemingly refuse at first to offer hope and comfort to this woman and her daughter?
Why do the disciples encourage him to show no compassion?
Why does Jesus use such shocking, crude language when he speaks to this woman?
This story is set in the area around today’s northern Israel and south Lebanon. Even to this day, dogs are not seen as the sort of animals that should be in the same room as we eat.
Is Jesus telling this woman she is dirty in her domestic habits?
Earlier this week, in our Gospel readings, we read how the very same accusation was made against Jesus and his disciples – accused of not washing their hands before eating.
Is Jesus using language that is so direct and so shocking that it amounts to implying her daughter is a ‘little bitch’?
My friend and colleague Dr Clare Amos is a Biblical scholar who has worked in that area – in Jerusalem and Lebanon – for many years. She has been Director for Theological Studies at the Anglican Communion and Director of Lay Discipleship in the Diocese in Europe, and she prepares a weekly blog that is related to the weekly lectionary readings.
In a recent posting, she pointed out that this Gospel reading comes between two great stories in Saint Mark’s Gospel of feeding large crowds with bread: his account of the feeding of the 5,000 with bread (Mark 6: 30-44) and the feeding of the 4,000 with bread (Mark 8: 1-10).
In between these two very similar stories, we hear about the Syrophoenician woman and her encounter with Jesus. And bread, once again, is a prominent theme in their exchange that could be a script for an episode of EastEnders.
Jesus says to her, ‘Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’
But she answers him, ‘Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs’ (Mark 7: 27-28).
If Christ’s retort is meant to be witty, then the woman is also witty in her reply, appearing to ask whether her thinks her daughter is a ‘little bitch’: κυνάριον (kinárion) in verse 28 in our reading is translated as ‘dog’, but it is diminutive and could be more accurately rendered as ‘little dog’ … even, in the feminine, ‘little bitch’!
This exchange is both witty and compassionate. Like so many classical dramas, it is a mixture of comedy and tragedy, and it alludes to a well-known Greek play, the Phoenician Women (Φοίνισσαι, Phoinissai), a tragedy by Euripides.
In this reading, she is described as ‘a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin’ (verse 26). But the original Greek text describes her as ‘a Greek woman, a Syrophoenician by birth’ (ἦν Ἑλληνίς, Συροφοινίκισσα τῷ γένει). The Clementine Homilies name her as Justa and her daughter as Bernice. But, like so many women in the Gospels, they are unnamed.
At first, it appears, Jesus is not willing to heal this woman’s daughter.
Is this because he is afraid, once again, of being accused, along with his disciples, of being ritually unclean?
Or, as I have asked before in previous encounters with this woman in the Gospel readings, is his unwillingness, his reluctance, a dramatic pose that challenges the disciples to think again about the limits of their compassion?
Many years ago, when I bumped into the journalist, broadcaster and lay theologian the late Seán Mac Réamoinn in Saint Anne’s Church, Dublin, I asked him how he was.
He told me he felt like a filled-out census form.
I must have looked puzzled, so he explained: ‘I’m broken down by age, sex and religion.’
Have the disciples been caught out by the banter and exchanges between Jesus and this woman?
Have they been shown that they have a compassion that is severely limited by age, sex and religion, by language and ethnicity?
Is my compassion truly compassionate if it is limited by boundaries I construct like this – when I hedge it with my own prejudices and limitations?
After this witty exchange between the woman and Jesus, their puns and insider jokes about the ‘crumbs,’ Jesus is shown not to be hesitant at all. He tests this woman, and she meets the test, and – unlike the daughters of the Phoenician women in the play by Euripides – this woman’s daughter is healed and restored to a place in society that even the disciples are unwilling to extend to her.
As Clare Amos points out, the context of today’s Gospel story is found in the way it comes between Saint Mark’s two accounts of the feeding of multitudes: the feeding of the 5,000 and the feeding of the 4,000. She recalls a very ancient tradition that the people who are fed at the first miracle are Jewish, and the people fed at the second miracle are Gentiles.
In other words, between these two stories, Christ’s ministry moves from engaging with his fellow Jews, to reflecting God’s abundant provision for all people, Gentiles as well as Jews.
She suggests that in this encounter between Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman, a vital ‘boundary’ is crossed and broken, taking Christ out into the Gentile world.
The story of this mother and her daughter finds its context in – is sandwiched between – the two stories about feeding the crowds. All three stories involve feeding with bread. Christ’s invitation to the Eucharist needs to be opened out, from being a rite of the Church to being a banquet for the world.
Only when we break down our limitations or prejudices can Christ’s healing message be brought to a world that cries out for God’s healing, God’s mercy, God’s justice … that cries out to be called into God’s Kingdom.
Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry, Folio 164r – The Canaanite Woman (The Musée Condé, Chantilly)Today’s Prayers (Thursday 13 February 2025):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Founders’ Day.’ USPG and SPCK are celebrating ‘Founders’ Day’ in Saint James’s Church, Picadilly, next week (Monday 17 February 2025). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Reflection by Dr Jo Sadgrove, Research and Learning Advisor, USPG.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 13 February 2025) invites us to pray:
Lord, we pray for historians, archivists and researchers across the world who work to uncover truths buried by history. Teach us, like them, to honour good and condemn evil.
The Collect:
O God,
you know us to be set
in the midst of so many and great dangers,
that by reason of the frailty of our nature
we cannot always stand upright:
grant to us such strength and protection
as may support us in all dangers
and carry us through all temptations;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Go before us, Lord, in all we do
with your most gracious favour,
and guide us with your continual help,
that in all our works
begun, continued and ended in you,
we may glorify your holy name,
and finally by your mercy receive everlasting life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Lord of the hosts of heaven,
our salvation and our strength,
without you we are lost:
guard us from all that harms or hurts
and raise us when we fall;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
The Syro-Phoenician Woman … a modern icon by Brother Robert Lentz, OFMScripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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