Bible Reading: Mark 7:24-37
Dear Friends,
The Syrophoenician woman in this Sunday’s gospel reading in Mark 7:24-37 defied a lot of social customs. A woman approaching a man. A Gentile approaching a Jew. Most would scoff and call it inappropriate. Some would see it as incredibly brave. And at the same time, incredibly desperate.
This is the last resort. She’s likely tried everything else in her power to help her sick daughter. She doesn’t do this on a whim. She does it because she has no other choice.
What if she is teaching us about the power of the stranger. Newcomers, strangers, people who are different from us, they stretch our perspective and teach us things about themselves, about the world, and about us. But only if we will listen. And while from time to time you will meet persons as bold or desperate as is the woman in this story who will offer their insight to us unprompted, more often these people sit at the margins of our faith communities if they enter the door at all. So we will need to reach out to them and convince them that we care about their opinion. So we might ask a question, whom are we overlooking? Who is a part of our fellowship but does not often participate, does not sit at the center, is not enfranchised but might have a great deal to teach us.
Like the Syrophoenician woman and the deaf man in Decapolis, there are a lot of people out there who yearn for healing. Physical healing, but also healing of our hearts and souls. Healing of this world that is so very broken. Healing from all of the things that cause people to be displaced and get on boats and cross dangerous borders. Healing from all of the things that cause so much hatred among people.
God is still working. God is still mending and healing. God has not, and will not, and will never, abandon us, no matter where we find ourselves. Like the Syrophoenician woman who fights for her daughter, God will keep fighting for each and every single one of God’s beautiful, beloved, worthy children. Even when it seems impossible and so unbelievably unlikely, God is, somehow, working in this world to restore and redeem. God is at work tearing down boundaries and breaking down barriers and making all things new. For us and for the children. For the stranger and the enemy and the friend and the neighbor, for the refugee and for the migrant. And for their children. They are worthy. We are worthy. God, let it be so. Show us it is so.
Solomzi