Gospel: Mark 7: 24-30
Jesus attempts to get away for a bit of a holiday. He goes to a foreign territory and stays at a house where he intends not to be recognized by anyone. But Jesus does get recognized by a woman who is a foreigner, not by anyone else. Not a male citizen, but a foreign woman recognizes him and seeks him out so that Jesus could liberate her daughter from a demon that possesses her. This person with no status in Jesus' society comes asking for help for her daughter who has even less status than she does!
What is more, this foreign woman exhibits a faith so great that Jesus had never seen the likes of such faith. This woman with no status - with a negative status in his culture - shows the greatest faith of all. In every instance within the Gospels it is women and foreigners who show the greatest faith in their encounters with Jesus, not men and not citizens. In fact, it is the people of status who always exhibit the greatest infidelities and lacks of faith.
In an age of toxic and fragile masculinity and one marked by hatred for immigrants, migrants, and refugees, this passage is a rebuke to us. Perhaps if we honored women and welcomed the immigrant, migrant, and refugee the Lord might expel the demon that grips us - the demon of selfishness, the demon of arrogant chauvinism and nationalism, the demon that keeps us from loving all people as Jesus did.
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