When I first heard this in church as a child, it made zero sense to me. A mother asks Jesus for help with her sick daughter, and Jesus talks about table manners. Later explanations for this metaphor for the divide between Jews and Gentiles tried to soften it by saying that Jesus didn’t really liken the Gentile mother to a dog; the term was actually a diminutive, more like “puppies.” In other words, Jesus didn’t really mean it. But one thing we know about this short and concise gospel is that Mark didn’t use words carelessly. Then and now, to refer to another person, especially a person of a different ethnic or cultural origin, as a dog, is a cruel insult. Hearing it from the mouth of Jesus is like hearing your sweet mild-mannered granny using a racial slur—it’s shocking.

It’s not that Jesus was never grumpy. He railed at his disciples, he talked back to his mother, he called Pharisees hypocrites, and he turned over Temple tables. But this is different. Jesus not only refuses to help a desperate mother; he also cruelly insults her. This is jarring and troublesome, and perhaps one reason why the lectionary follows this episode with the story of the healing of the deaf man—one that shows Jesus in a more positive light: “He has done everything well!”

Surely, we hope, Jesus has his reasons for speaking so harshly, but reasons do not excuse. We’re called to engage with the discomfort of this story, not to gloss over it. This passage in its entirety, with both healings, is telling us something; not only about the boundary-transgressing grace of God, but about the gift of confrontation.

“Jesus set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there.”

Jesus is apparently alone in Gentile territory. Unlike the occasions where word has gone out and crowds await him, he has somehow managed to find a measure of deeply desired quiet. But not necessarily peace and quiet. Mark has set the scene deliberately; Jesus is an outsider in a land of wealthy Gentiles—out of his comfort zip code.

This region has history. It is the home of people descended from the Hellenist Seleucid dynasty, which included Antiochus IV Epiphanes, infamous oppressor of Jews, desecrator of the Temple, and the one whose actions triggered the second century BCE Maccabean Revolt. In addition, Tyre is neighbor to Sidon, also weighted with baggage. The Book of Kings says that King Ahab of the Northern Kingdom of Israel married Jezebel, the Sidonian/Phoenician daughter of the King of Tyre. The ever-notorious Jezebel normalized idol worship in Israel and committed all kinds of mischief until meeting a violent death. (That is the short version.)

So for a moment imagine travelling to a country with a fraught historical/cultural relationship with the U.S.; a place that makes you feel uncomfortable, if not unsafe.

Now you are in Jesus’ sandals.

There is a knock at the door. It is a woman. And Mark makes clear what he wants you to know about her: “a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin.”

As they face each other, what are the cultural boundaries they face in this moment? He is a man and she is a woman. He is a Jew and she is a Gentile. He is an outsider while she is native to the area. He represents the demographic margins of the region, while she represents the dominant culture.

He is a Messiah. She is a mother with a sick child.

We usually refer to her as the Syrophoenician Woman, but it is more accurate to call her the Syrophoenician Mother. Because it is in this capacity that she comes before Jesus, transgressing his solitude and pleading for help for her daughter. That’s what most mothers do when their children are in peril, and they are at the end of their resources to help. We don’t know how she found out about Jesus. We only know that her world was upside down as long as a demon held her daughter, and that she had heard that Jesus was known for turning worlds right-side up again.

The mother bows before Jesus and begs. Please, help my child.

She is a Gentile. Jesus has healed a Gentile before in Mark’s Gospel, when he exorcised a legion of demons in the land of the Gerasenes. But they are in this place, with its freighted history, with its wealthy Hellenistic majority. Is this the lens through which he sees her? Not as a mother, but as a trigger?

“Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” 

God’s blessing and grace belong first to God’s chosen children, he says. And then he calls her a dog. Not a 21^st century pampered member of the family, but a first century wild, dangerous, dirty scavenger.

And with that, he refuses to heal her daughter. Think about that for a minute.

It shocks us. Why would he say such a thing? Reasons are not the same as excuses.

We hold our breath to see what comes next.

Our eyes turn to the mother. Which may be what Mark intended all along.

How will she respond to Jesus’ rejection?

Biblical storyteller Richard Swanson observes that, “the decisive moment in this scene is NOT the moment the mother kneels before Jesus, but the moment she stands up to him.”

“Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

So much is happening here. First, she has a choice to slink away under the weight of his insult, but she doesn’t. Instead, she chooses to confront him. But she is a clever mother. She doesn’t dismiss his negative feelings; she maneuvers around what she cannot deny, which is that there is much that divides them—gender, history, culture, religion—and she says, “yes, and”: Yes, and my daughter is still deserving of God’s grace and healing.

She has listened carefully; heard Jesus say that the children of Israel should be fed first, not exclusively. Her “yes, and” acknowledges the primary focus of Jesus’ mission to the Jews, while at the same time claiming healing for her daughter. Her confrontation is in effect a prophetic act—an insistent call to Jesus to remember that God’s Dream will encompass both Jews and Gentiles. She reminds him of his calling; that’s the work of a prophet.

Jesus’ eyes are opened, and he no longer sees the Syrophoenician Gentile. He sees the mother.

In Matthew’s version of this story, Jesus’ response is, “O woman, your faith is great.” Mark, on the other hand, emphasizes not the mother’s faith, but her words:

“For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.”

It is her gift of confrontation, her persistent, self-aware—and, yes, faithful—willingness to speak her truth to Jesus that opens his heart to her plight and reminds him of the transgressive nature of the Dream of God; a Kingdom without boundaries.

“Ephphatha,” “Be opened.”

The gift of confrontation. It’s a little strange to think of it this way. Our culture is filled with confrontation–the destructive confrontation of polarization, rigidity, and fear, of literally or figuratively getting up in someone’s face. And it is perhaps for that reason that many of us fear it. We don’t want to rock the boat or risk rejection. Anyone who has been on the wrong end of an angry confrontation may understandably be shy about risking it again. Believe me, I resemble that remark.

So to claim the gift of confrontation we need to listen, to be self-aware, and to engage our imagination—to be open to new possibility for the future—a world turned right-side up.

This is an important calling for all of us—to cultivate the ability to speak honestly, yet vulnerably, to those in power, to the entrenched, to those we disagree with, and even to God. Like the Syrophoenician Mother, we bear love and fear for a world in peril and need, beset by  demons of all kinds. Yes, and, we are equipped with prophetic imagination to envision a more expansive and inclusive future and to challenge our neighbors, our government, our culture, and yes, our churches to choose love over fear, healing over division, compassion over complacency.

The gift of confrontation carries with it the risk of rejection. Yes, and it also carries with it the possibility of transformed relationship and expanded vision. It’s worth the risk to try.

“Ephphatha”—Let us “be opened.”