Mark Chapter 7

Jesus did more to impart value to people, and elevate the status of oppressed groups, than anyone who has ever lived. This chapter offers some classic examples.

The disciples were not criticized in verse 2 for eating with dirty hands. They were criticized for not upholding the Pharisees' racist views. Their tradition held that Jews, as well as any cups and dishes they used, were ceremonially defiled through contact with Gentiles (non-Jews), and therefore must be washed before coming in contact with food. Jewish ceremonial washings were institutionalized racism with religious reinforcement. They were a daily, public reminder that all non-Jews were dirt. Gentiles, women, people with diseases or deformities, and anyone who associated with such people (especially anyone who ate with them) were considered "unclean." Basically, if you weren't a healthy, religious Jewish male who obeyed all the rules, you were nobody.

So Jesus' next miracle healing is, of course, the daughter of a Greek woman. Check mate.

His conversation with her (which itself was forbidden) is fascinating. In keeping with first-century racism, Jesus refers to the Jews as "the children" in verse 27 and Greeks as "dogs." That's really offensive. I don't know that I understand all the reasons why he would address her in this way, but these are the words she would expect to hear from a Jewish man and Jesus chooses to mouth them to see how she will respond. She accepts the humiliation; she would accept anything for her daughter's sake, and she obviously believes Jesus can heal her. And Jesus' response, and the subsequent healing of her daughter, tells her in no uncertain terms that he doesn't consider her a second-class citizen.

Jesus is gaining a following outside the Jewish circle, and he is not turning them away. This had to take even the disciples by surprise, and this internal struggle escalates all the way into the life of the early church, when thousands of Gentiles begin embracing the Christian faith, forcing the Jewish Christians to re-evaluate their identity as God's chosen people.

At the same time, Jesus often seems to work inside the status quo, even as he shakes things up. He eats with "sinners" and talks to Greeks and women, but he doesn't attempt to immediately shatter all the societal barriers that suppress them. Some healing was immediate; some is still in process to this day, especially when we have a role to play. Lord, we long for the day when your plan is fulfulled, and "there is no slave nor free, Jew nor Gentile, male nor female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus."