Mark 7:24-30-- Jesus the Racist

Jesus got up and went away from there to the region of Tyre. And when He had entered a house, He wanted no one to know of it; yet He could not escape notice. But after hearing of Him, a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately came and fell at His feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of the Syrophoenician race—a Canaanite. And she kept asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter. And He was saying to her, "Let the children be satisfied first, for it is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." But she answered and said to Him, "Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table feed on the children's crumbs." And He said to her, "Because of this answer go; the demon has gone out of your daughter." And going back to her home, she found the child lying on the bed, the demon having left.

Although we occasionally see Jesus evaluating whether he should do a miracle or not (Mark 9:20-24; 10:51), and see a time when he is unable to do miracles (Mark 6:5) this is the only case in which Jesus refuses to use his authority to help another.  We see in Matthew that the possibility of refusing is there (Matt. 7:6; 10:5, 14), and has probably been used before.  Jesus refuses to help this woman for good reasons.  She is a Canaanite, a race that God had declared doomed to destruction, not salvation (Deuteronomy 7:1-2; Judges 2:1-3).  And so having some Canaanites be demonized would be their normal state, for they are under perpetual judgement.  At first Jesus ignored her.  When she refused to be ignored, then Jesus insulted her.  Instead of walking away, she accepted the insult and built upon it in order to gain the deliverance of God.  Jesus recognized then that this woman—although a Canaanite—was a woman of faith in Yahweh.  This faith was displayed by her persistence (Mark 10:46-52; Luke 18:1-8) and her extreme humility (Matthew 8:5-10; Luke 18:9-14).  Everyone, even those whom God declared to be forever separated from his people, will be accepted by God if they have faith, for example Rahab and Ruth, both in the genealogy of Jesus (Matthew 1:2-5; James 2:25-26).

The prejudice of Jesus is deeply disturbing.  It is natural for a first century Jew to have this opinion of a Canaanite, but Jesus?  Well, we thought better of him. His attitude in this paragraph is simply racism.  There is no question about it.  He is judging this woman on her genetic heritage.  

On the other hand... he came all the way to Tyre, where there are few Jews and a lot of Gentiles, and certainly a number of Canaanites.  He was not planning on personally ministering to Gentiles, although he did on occasion.  Why did he come to Tyre?  He was in hiding... but why Tyre?  Because he needed to meet someone there?  Because the disciples needed to learn a lesson?

However Jesus starts out, his conclusion is amazing.  Because this woman who was cursed of God by her birth, Jesus declared her to be a saint of God, one chosen to be worthy of the blessing of the faithful.  This transformation happened in an instant.  How?  By demonstrating her faith.

She did not declare her faith by stating a doctrinal statement.  Or even saying any conventional prayer or liturgical flourish.  Rather, she just cleverly accepted an insult that was given to her by Jesus.  What did this show?  First of all, it showed her absolute faith in Jesus.  Not only that he could do the miracle she was requesting, but that his evaluation of her was correct.  She so trusted him, that his insult was accepted and her humiliation was complete.

And humiliation is the perfect demonstration of faith.

She provides an introduction to Jesus' teaching about the cross and his own demonstration of faith.  The greatest demonstration of faith is the acceptance of humiliation.  This is not self-deprecation, nor is it false humility.  Rather, it is accepting an authority's lowering of your status.  More about this later.  It is enough to know that to have faith is also to accept deep humility.  If we reject all humiliation, then there is a question whether we have the faith of Jesus at all.