Gospel: Mark 7: 24-30
The encounter between Jesus and the foreign woman in today's reading is a shock to us. Jesus seems rude to her by our standards, but there is a lot happening in this passage as it is not merely an encounter between Jesus and a foreign woman. It is also an encounter between Jesus and the entire history of Israel that he seeks to exorcise of its demons.
Jesus enters the region of Tyre, a region that Israel had conquered through a campaign of genocide. The foreign woman is Greek, a people whom Israel undertook a bloody civil war during the time of the Maccabees. Israel's history had been marked by violence as the primary solution to its problems and enemies. However, in this story the woman is able to heal her daughter through faith in the one true God. This faith would now be the tool - the only tool - for healing and salvation.
It is through faith that healing comes to us. It is through faith that all forms of difference among peoples is overcome. Never again will discrimination based on race, ethnicity, class, gender or any other category be a part of religion in the mind of Jesus. For he calls all people to one human family through this faith that will also enable us to overcome our demons of today, of yesterday, and of the future in the healing of this woman's daughter.
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