Thursday in the fifth Week of Ordinary Time, February 8, 2024

Mark 7, 24-30

Jesus went to the district of Tyre. He entered a house and wanted no one to know about it, but he could not escape notice. Soon a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him. She came and fell at his feet. The woman was a Greek, a Syro-phoenician by birth, and she begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first. For it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” She replied and said to him, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.” Then he said to her, “For saying this, you may go. The demon has gone out of your daughter.” When the woman went home, she found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.

A certain abruptness characterizes St. Mark’s writing style.  Let us consider the opening verse of today’s Gospel Reading: “Jesus went to the district of Tyre. He entered a house and wanted no one to know about it, but he could not escape notice.”  This comes directly after his report on the Lord’s teaching on the meaning of purity.  Mark does not give a proper conclusion to this report; he merely stops writing about it and moves on to his next topic.  And in doing so, Mark provides no reason why Jesus wanted to go on this rather unusual journey to the pagan city of Tyre (Matthew 15, 21 says that Jesus “withdrew” or “retired” there, hinting that he wanted to plan out his next campaign of preaching without disturbance).  It was certainly not to preach, for he “wanted no one to know about it”.  Besides being a Gentile town, Tyre was nothing like any other city the Lord had visited.  It was far larger than Jerusalem and, as a major port, it was wealthier and more cosmopolitan than the rather parochial Holy City.  It was a place where new ideas crossed paths with ancient ones.  It boasted a population featuring a real and large middle class, conscious of their proud history.  Jews lived there in small communities, but Jesus did not seem interested in them.  He would have stayed with a Jewish family while he was in the city, however.  Mark tells us that “he entered a house”, and a Jew was forbidden by the Law from entering a Gentile dwelling.  How did Jesus find this Jewish house where he could stay and intend not to be known by the neighbors?Perhaps one of the Apostles had a connection there.  Perhaps one of those who had come to him for healing in Capernaum lived there and the Lord went directly to his house and informed the owner that he would be staying at it.

The distance between Capernaum and Tyre, a port city on the Mediterranean Sea, is about thirty-five miles.  The road Jesus took would have winded between hills and mountains, extending it somewhat.  If he had walked straight there without stopping, the journey would have taken two or three days, but longer than that if we allow for rest, eating, and sleep.  Also, it is conceivable that the Lord passed through and preached in the towns of northern Galilee before entering Lebanon.

“He could not escape notice.”  If the Lord was indeed staying at the house of someone he had cured in Capernaum, he would have counseled him to say nothing to anyone.  But as we learn in the Gospels, many of those whom the Lord told to say nothing went about and broadcast the news of what the Lord had done for him.  This could well have been the case here, and the healed man or woman began to whisper to the neighbors that this was the one who had performed the cure, had healed the lame legs, had restored sight, who had taken away disease.  It would have been inevitable that a Gentile with a desperate problem should come to him: “Soon a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him.”  Mark identifies the woman as “a Greek, a Syro-phoenician by birth”, and she could only have learned about Jesus from her Jewish neighbors.  Her daughter is in a bad way: “She begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter.”  We might think of her condition as similar to that of the possessed boy in Matthew 17, 15: “He is a lunatic, and suffers much: for he falls often into the fire, and often into the water.”  The Ancient Greek term translated as “lunatic” implies deranged, wild, destructive behavior.  

“Let the children be fed first. For it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.”  The Lord compares the Jews to the children of a household and the Gentiles to the dogs who live there and are fed table scraps.  It is interesting that the Lord answered her in this way, bringing up the distinction between the Jews and the Gentiles when the woman simply appealed to him as “Lord”.  It is possible that he does so because the Jews of the city were treated as second-class citizens by the majority Greeks.  He also uses a word that means not merely “dog” but “a little dog”.  The Lord is testing her here.  A proud Greek would never go to a Jew for help, but this one has.  Why?  The Lord is also teaching the Apostles.  “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.”  she accepts his term for her people out of her daughter’s dire need.  She does not let her pride come before her daughter’s healing.  She humbles herself completely before him in order to save her.  “For saying this, you may go. The demon has gone out of your daughter.”  Notice that the woman did not ask Jesus to come to her house, for she knows the Jews did not enter the houses of Gentiles.  The Lord rewards her humility by casting out the demon, and he makes it clear that it is her humility that has won the day.  The Apostles see the Lord granting this healing to even a Gentile who abases herself before him and learn from this the attitude with which they ought to make requests of him.

We often attempt to bargain with God, or we accuse him of not caring about us in our need, or we point to some good we have done as deserving a favor of him.  But it is our recognition that only God can help us, that we can do nothing of ourselves, that we do not deserve his attention, that prepares us to make any request from him and disposes us to grant our requests.