the lesson of the syrophoenician woman

This, I think, is the great lesson of the Syrophoenician woman. It teaches us the dynamics of racism, of how even the best of humanity — the Incarnation himself — can get caught up in systems of oppression, in a culture of supremacy. As a good Jew, Jesus would have been reared to give thanks daily that he was born a Jew, not a Gentile, a man and not a woman. Jesus could not help but become entangled by such a sexist and racist snare.
Jesus, given his embedded culture, could not be colorblind. And neither can we.

But being caught in such evil, however, does not make one an overt racist. It is what happens in the moments afterwards that makes that determination. How we respond, when confronted with the narratives of the oppressed, reveal who we truly are. Do we continue to ignore or deny these realities of oppression? Mock them? Continue to brush them aside as dogs?

Or do we, like Jesus, do the miraculous and listen to them, be changed by the power of the truth of they are speaking?

When this woman, in boldness, confronts Jesus and his racist, sexist slur, Jesus listens, and hears. It is the only time recorded in the gospels in which Jesus changes his mind.

“But even the dogs get table scraps,” she replies, a complex response often required of the member of the “lesser race” who stands up to dismissive racism even while accepting its instituted, ugly, dehumanizing order.

Jesus is astounded, the holy wind knocked out of him. A moment before, she was but a dog to him. In the next, the scales fall from his eyes as he listens to her and sees her for what she truly is, a woman of great faith, a moral exemplar, his teacher.

Jesus does the most difficult thing for those of us born into the unfortunate privilege of dominance or prejudice.

He listens. And allows himself to be fundamentally changed.


Read more at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/davidhenson/2012/09/jesus-was-not-colorblind-racial-slurs-and-the-syrophoenician-woman-lectionary/#mUebgzFlobv8Hzgx.99

Prejudice

The Bible,

that most ancient collection of writings,

esteemed by some and held sacred by others,

includes traces of racism and religious prejudice.

More than a few fragments,

if we’re able to admit it.

Its stories include a powerful foundational myth

asserting a nation’s superiority

as God’s chosen people;

making the avoidance of such prejudiced conclusions

somewhat problematic.

Occasionally a reckless prophet- type person

came along to question that myth;

they were generally pointed

in the direction of the door.

It is still so.

Even Jesus, the travelling teacher from the north,

seems to have been comfortable enough

with established opinion on this matter.

It took some time,

together with the insistent and intrusive pleadings

of a desperate foreign woman;

but at last, we are pleased to say,

his metaphorical copper coin loosened,

and finally dropped.

© Ken Rookes 2014