Gospel: Mark 7: 24-30
Today's Gospel is shocking to us. Jesus is approached by a woman asking him to expel the demon from her child. The woman and child are foreigners, and Jesus treats her harshly. He tells her that his own should be healed before any foreigners receive any consideration. But she implores him, and eventually Jesus heals the child, liberating her from the demon that possessed her. Jesus himself is changed by this encounter with this woman and her child.
We often hear from Christians today about how a nation should take care of its own before helping foreigners, or how we should not help foreigners at all. Leaving aside the fact that these same Christians would not want to help their own citizens either, this Gospel story challenges us in the same way it challenged Jesus. Need is need regardless of who needs it. Everyone is a child of God regardless of race or any other category.
This encounter with the Syrophoenician woman is a direct challenge to us today in our times. Significant parts of the Christian world seek to make God's love ever narrower and exclusionary. The entire panorama of salvation history and the Gospel suggest the exact opposite. God continually calls us to an ever wider scope of love. God continues to seek to dilate our hearts ever wider to care for all of humanity and not just one narrow corner of it.
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