The Relentless Coach
I recently attended a high school regional championship basketball game. With two minutes to go, our head coach called a 60-second time out, and charged out on the court to meet one of the players. Now you have to thoroughly understand the situation in order to appreciate it. This team was playing without four of its projected starters. Two had gone down with season-ending injuries at the beginning of the season, and two were suspended for the tournament because of grades. On top of that, the poor boy the coach rushed out on the court to instruct was playing with only one good eye – the other was swollen shut after taking an elbow the night before! I know what you’re thinking, “It must have been a fantastic game to have been this close at the end.” But that’s exactly the point – it wasn’t! This team was down by 17 points and, at this juncture, literally had no chance of winning - but you never would have known that from this coach’s reaction. After teaching the one-eyed boy all the way to the sideline, the coach went down the bench and got in the face of every starter. As the team headed back on to the court, the coach was still yelling instructions to his players. The game had its share of dunks, steals, and 3-point shots; it even had one of the top players in the country, but the most inspirational moment of the game came from a coach who couldn’t stop doing what he loves to do – teaching his boys to become men! Jesus was such a coach.
Mark relates a story in chapter 7 about a Syrophoenician woman who continued to beg Jesus that he would heal her demon-possessed daughter. Once again we have to thoroughly understand the situation in order to appreciate it. Being a Syrophoenician means that this woman was probably born in Syria, and was now living in the region of Tyre. Matthew is a little more explicit, calling her a Canaanite (Mt 15:22). Both authors are emphasizing the point that this woman absolutely was not Jewish, and in no way deserved any favors from Jesus. On top of that Mark says that Jesus’ purpose for going to Tyre was to get away from the crowds for a while. We are about half-way through Jesus’ ministry, and things are going to take a sharp turn very soon. Yet this outcast Canaanite woman continued to plead with Jesus to heal her daughter of a demon. Matthew even says she annoyed the disciples so much that they asked Jesus to send her away. It seems that they were in agreement that this woman was not deserving of the Master’s help.
In response to the disciples’ urging, Matthew says that Jesus responds, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” This is a very important statement, because the church builds doctrines upon this foundation. Dispensationalism depends heavily upon it. Matthew makes it clear – this statement was said to the disciples, not necessarily to the woman, and it's a very odd statement to make for 2 reasons:
The disciples already believed it
Jesus repetitively violated it.
In John 4, Jesus went out of His way to minister to the Samaritan woman at the well (once again, a race despised by the Jews). He stayed an additional two days to minister to the people of her town. Several times the Gospels tell us that Jesus healed all who came to Him. Does this mean that only Jews came? In Matthew 8 and Luke 7 Jesus heals a Roman Centurion’s son. Was this man a Jew? Possibly, but your first inclination might be to say not. Luke 10 records Jesus telling the story of the Good Samaritan. Is it really possible that Jesus refused to deal with the Syrophoenician woman because she was a Canaanite, then less than a couple of months later teaches that it was possible for a Samaritan to be your neighbor? The obvious answer is again, no. My conclusion is that Jesus was not making a doctrinal statement to the disciples in Mark 7, but was doing just the opposite - asking a question that would lead them to tear down their own doctrine. He was asking a rhetorical question, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel?” (Remember that the early biblical texts had no punctuation.)
Jesus came to reveal to us the Father. Wasn't the Father also good to the Samaritans and the Canaanites? Of course He was. It is who He is. The Father can do nothing except that which is good. Even when the correction seems to not be so, He cannot do otherwise – it is His nature. Jesus took the moment of the disciples’ urging to teach them about the Father. In this case, the lesson to be learned was that, no, He wasn’t sent just to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
After teaching the disciples, Jesus “goes down the bench”, turns His attention to the distraught woman and says, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs”. He takes the accepted Jewish norm of His day “gentiles are dogs (κύων, kuon)” and adds the diminutive suffix. Jonathan Watt in “Diminutive Suffixes in the Greek New Testament: A Cross Linguistic Study,” says the diminutive serves “the function of politely softening the edges of a conversation.” Most commentators say the diminished word, (κυνάριον, kunarion ) means a household pet. That was certainly Jesus’ intention. With the disciples probably listening, Jesus took the Jewish concept of gentiles – that of a dirty, wild dog – diminished its impact, and led the woman to the correct answer, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.”
A lot is made of this woman’s humility, and that is true. It took a lot of humility and desperation for her to continue to plead with a Teacher who ignored her, and the disciples who despised her; but that wasn’t the main purpose of the lesson. Jesus was coaching everyone involved to the point where they would recognize the Father's goodness to all people – even the heathen.
I also want you to notice that Jesus never apparently casts out the demon. The girl is not present, and Jesus simply replies, “For this saying go your way; the demon has gone out of your daughter (vs 29)”. Did this statement cast out the demon, or was it the lesson learned by the woman that healed her daughter? I wouldn’t presume to know that. I think it’s similar to asking if our basketball boys become men because of the power of the coach’s teaching, or because they choose to believe it. I don’t know, but this I’ve learned – the more I am taught about the goodness of the Father - the less room there is for demons!