Mark 7:24-37
“Dog Faith”
September 9, 2012 – Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
“Don’t feed the dog at the table!” It was a rule. My sister and I were not to respond to those big, brown, pleading eyes that gazed up as we ate. We weren’t to sneak bits of meat, or better yet, vegetables we didn’t like, off our plates and let our pet gratefully take them, as he licked our fingers. The dog might lie at our feet, but he was not to beg and we were not supposed to feed him.
Jesus agreed with my mother. Children’s food is not for dogs. He said so to a Gentile woman with a demon-possessed daughter in the vicinity of Tyre. It was a region opposed to Israel in the Old Testament and known for its paganism in New Testament times. It’s on the coast of modern-day Lebanon, about fifty miles south of Beirut.
Jesus came to Tyre to escape the crowds and opposition He encountered in Jewish territory in Galilee. He may have wanted quiet time to instruct His disciples. So verse 24 tells us He found a place for them to stay and didn’t want anyone to know they were there. Yet, “he could not escape notice.”
A woman heard about Jesus, says verse 25. Verse 26 explains she was a Gentile, a “Syrophoenician.” Phoenicians were among Israel’s ancient enemies, the Canaanites. They were regarded as hopeless pagans in Jesus’ time. Think of a Palestinian coming to an Israeli for help today. Or a Black person appealing to a white supremacist in our country. In Jesus’ time, a Jewish man would despise this woman. But she came kneeling at His feet to ask Him to cast a demon out of her daughter.
Jesus’ reply in verse 27 is surprising. He sounds like any other Jew of His day. “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” In Matthew 15:24, He added “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” All others are just dogs.
It’s hard to believe this is our tender, compassionate Savior. Jesus looked down at this woman and said cruel words. His people were children. Gentiles were dogs. That’s what they called them. Dogs in the ancient world were strays, like those roaming the streets of less developed countries. They were mangy animals whose social function was to scavenge and eat garbage, even dung. You don’t take good food for children and throw it to dogs.
People love dogs here in twenty-first century America. We spend millions to feed them, groom them, and give them medical care. Yet in Bible times they were “the most despicable, insolent and miserable of creatures,” as one writer put it. In a parable in Luke 16, when Jesus wanted to describe a totally wretched beggar, He pictured a dog licking his sores. Calling someone a dog was a grave insult.
There are various strategies for taking the insult out of what Jesus said. The word for “dog” here is not the usual word for street dogs, but a diminutive form which implied a puppy or a pet. Perhaps Jesus spoke to the woman in a way that implied the kind of fondness my daughter has for her dog, treating her as beloved domestic animal.
Or suppose Jesus was teasing this woman. A text, as anyone who communicates electronically knows, doesn’t let you see facial expression and body language behind words. Cruel-sounding words might have been gentle banter. Jesus reminded the woman who she was and who He was, but not meanly. William Barclay wrote, “We can be quite sure that the smile on Jesus’ face and the compassion in his eyes robbed the words of all insult and bitterness.”[1]
So we could say Jesus kidded the woman and she responded in kind in verse 28, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” It’s a little exchange of wit, and in verse 29 Jesus acknowledges the woman’s cleverness, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” It’s all about gentle humor, not a barbed insult.
But there is more than humor here. Jesus said some funny things, but this was not one of them. In Matthew’s version of this, in Matthew 15:28, Jesus told her, “Woman, you have great faith!” He did not compliment her on her wit. He praised her for her faith. It’s not about a clever comeback. It’s about faith, the faith of a dog.
It’s still insulting to be called a dog. Stupid, vicious men call plain women dogs. Even if you love your canine pet, you know dogs are innately filthy creatures. Left to itself a dog quickly sticks its nose—and if possible its whole body—into whatever vile garbage it can find. Dogs greet each other by sniffing regions humans don’t acknowledge in polite company. Dogs don’t really care about their dignity. That makes them good models of Christian faith.
If a modern woman came to Jesus and He dropped the name “dog” on her, she would bristle with pride. She would stand on her dignity. “I’m no dog! I am a woman, a human being. I’m entitled to respect and help! How dare you?” Yet this Gentile woman meekly accepted Jesus’ label for her. She admits she’s a dog in verse 28 and pleads for His help because she is one. Even dogs get something she reasons. “Help me as a dog if I’m nothing else.” She didn’t ask for her rights, not even for kindness or mercy, but only for the indulgence of scraps falling from a table set for someone else.
It’s not easy or natural for us, but coming like a dog to Jesus is the only way to receive the help we really need. This woman needed deliverance for her daughter from the forces of evil. We need exactly the same. We need to be forgiven and delivered from our sins.
News media keep running stories of people sick with COVID-19 or even dying who now wish they had gotten vaccinated. They tell their friends and family to get the vaccine. But some don’t. A doctor in Utah said, “We have people in the I.C.U. with Covid who are denying they have Covid.” A handful of such people still won’t get the vaccine even if they survive and go home. They refuse to let go of the pride and foolishness which kept them from accepting the one thing that could have helped them. We need to let go of such false dignity and be more like dogs.
The Syrophoenician woman was willing to say she was only a dog. That’s her confession of faith, her admission that she’s a sinner outside of God’s Covenant. Our translation began her reply “Sir,” but it’s the word for “Lord.” She’s the only one in all Mark’s Gospel who directly called Jesus “Lord.” She was a dog, but she made Jesus her Master.
The second part of our text shows us more dog faith. Jesus was on the move again in verse 31. He took a strange route, heading north up the coast before turning south and east to enter a region called the Decapolis, the “ten cities.” He avoided going back to Galilee and went to a region freed from Jewish rule by the Romans. It was another area with a Gentile population.
There in the Decapolis they brought Him another Gentile needing help, a man both deaf and unable to speak we learn in verse 32. His friends and family took him to Jesus and begged Jesus to lay hands on him and heal him.
You can’t bandy words with a man who can neither hear nor speak, so verse 33 tells us Jesus took him aside in private. He submitted the man to humiliating prodding. He poked His fingers in the man’s ears, then spat on those fingers and touched the man’s tongue.
If you say, “yuck,” at the thought of a stranger’s saliva in your mouth, well so would any normal Jewish person. Like all bodily secretions, spit was regarded as something unclean. A Jew would avoid another person’s saliva almost as much as we might now in a pandemic. Yet here Jesus put His spit in this poor guy’s mouth.
It’s dog faith again. Like I’ve said, dogs happily consume all sorts of icky stuff a human being would avoid. My wife Beth has bad memories of being licked by a neighbor’s dog after playing outside on a hot humid St. Louis summer day. The animal was happy to enjoy a little salty perspiration from a child’s sweaty body. A bit of spit would also be a canine treat. Spit on the ground. Your dog will sniff it and probably lap it up.
There is humility in the deaf-mute man’s submission to what Jesus does. He can’t speak his faith out loud, but he demonstrates it by letting Jesus do this disgusting business. He put himself in Jesus hands and let Jesus put His hands on him in an undignified way.
There’s an old Peanuts cartoon where Charlie Brown is sitting eating his lunch with Snoopy alongside. He turns to the dog, “Do you want the rest of this sandwich, Snoopy? I’ve already eaten half of it… you don’t mind? Okay, it’s yours…” Snoopy catches and snarfs down the sandwich, then walks away thinking, “I’m so humble it’s sickening.”
But it’s not sickening. Dog-like humility made that woman’s daughter well. It healed a man and gave him back his speech and his hearing. It’s the opposite of sickening. Dog-faith is the way to health and wholeness. When we come to the Lord like a dog on its belly, admitting our sinfulness and acknowledging Him as Master, He responds to us with grace. Our psalm today, Psalm 146, said, “The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down…”
Being like a dog is part of who Jesus is. Wags like to point out that, “God” spelled backward is “dog.” Jesus asks for dog faith, because He was not ashamed or afraid to turn even Himself around backward and humble Himself like a dog. Philippians 2:8 teaches us that God in Jesus, “humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross.” Jesus let Himself get treated like a dog. He did it for us.
Jesus submitted Himself to God the Father like a dog. At the crucial moment of healing the deaf man in verse 34, where did He look? He looked up into heaven, like a dog looking up to his master. The Father heard Jesus sigh. When He said that Aramaic word “Ephphatha,” “Be opened,” it was done.
In verse 36 Jesus again didn’t want publicity. He would slip away like a dog into the corner for rest. He asked people not to tell anyone about that miracle, but they did anyway. They were astounded, says verse 37, and said, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak,” maybe remembering what we read from Isaiah 35, about God opening the eyes of the blind and unstopping the ears of the deaf.
We learn from this how we should look at each other. We are not some of us privileged children who get to sit at the table while the rest of the world licks up our crumbs. We are all dogs. That’s what James chapter 2 was teaching today. Those of us who are better off should not be treating people who are poor like dogs, “Come sit by my feet.”
In fact, James told us in verse 5 of that chapter, “Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?” It’s James’ way of saying that God likes dogs. He likes those who come humbly, knowing their faults and their failings and throwing themselves on His mercy ready to receive any crumbs that drop from the table.
Ten years ago, Otto von Habsburg died. He was Archduke of Austria, the last son of the Habsburg dynasty that ruled the Austro-Hungarian empire, the Holy Roman Empire. He had royal blood of the bluest shade. He was exiled from his homeland in his early years and eventually renounced any formal claim to the throne, but he was a great scholar and an able politician. He opposed Nazis and communists and was a visionary figure in forming the European Union. He served a time as President of the European Parliament.
Von Habsburg’s funeral was a huge ceremony at St. Stephan’s Cathedral in Vienna. Dignitaries, aristocracy, a Catholic cardinal and several bishops came to conduct the service and remember a great man. But the most remarkable part of the day came at the moment when it was time for his casket to be carried to its last resting place.
A grand procession was led by the Master of Ceremony in a black suit with long tails to the Capuchin monastery, a smaller, yellow stone building in Vienna. There the MC stood at big black doors and rapped three times with a silver-headed cane tasseled in gold. On the video of the funeral you see and hear the brown-robed monks’ prior inside. He answers, Wer begehrt Einlass? “Who desires entry?”
The MC outside began to read all of Otto’s many titles,
Otto of Austria; once Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary; Royal Prince of Hungary and Bohemia, of Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, Galicia, Lodomeria and Illyria; Grand Duke of Tuscany and Cracow; Duke of Lorraine, Salzburg, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola and the Bukowina; Grand Prince of Transylvania, Margrave of Moravia; Duke of Upper and Lower Silesia, of Modena, Parma, Piacenza, Guastalla, of Oświęcim and Zator, Teschen, Friaul, Dubrovnik and Zadar; Princely Count of Habsburg and Tyrol, of Kyburg, Gorizia and Gradisca; Prince of Trent and Brixen; Margrave of Upper and Lower Lusatia and Istria; Count of Hohenems, Feldkirch, Bregenz, Sonnenburg etc.; Lord of Trieste, Kotor and Windic March, Grand Voivod of the Voivodeship of Serbia etc. etc.
Then we hear the prior reply, Wir kennen ihn nicht. “We do not know him.”
So the MC took that cane and knocked again three times, with the same answer, “Who desires entry?” The MC started over:
Dr. Otto von Habsburg, President and Honorary President of the Paneuropean Union, Member and quondam President of the European Parliament, honorary doctor of many universities, honorary citizen of many cities in Central Europe, member of numerous venerable academies and institutes, recipient of high civil and ecclesiastical honours, awards, and medals, which were given him in recognition of his decades-long struggle for the freedom of peoples for justice and right.
But again the prior said, “We do not know him.” Once more then the MC knocked three times and was asked, “Who desires entry?” But this time the MC replied only, Otto, ein sterblicher, sündiger Mensch, “Otto, a mortal and sinful man.”
And the prior looked up and said, So komme er herein, “Then let him come in.” His fellow monks swung open those big wooden doors and they received the body of one more poor sinner relying on the grace of God and waiting to be raised up when Jesus comes again.
Yes, Jesus called that woman a dog. Yes, He put spit in a man’s mouth. But as people then realized, and said in verse 37, He does all things well. He does well when He asks us to come to Him like they did, like dogs, to come in the end like Otto von Habsburg, with no claims of pride or accomplishment, but with simple dog faith in His grace.
So if it feels sometimes, when things go wrong, when you’re sick or poor or lonely or afraid, if it feels like the Lord is treating you like a dog, that may be good. That may be very well. He is the good Master. He wants to help and heal and save you. He only asks a little humble faith. Then He will welcome you to His Table, and even the crumbs from it will be a banquet of joy and blessing. Sometimes it’s good to be a dog.
Amen.
Valley Covenant Church
Eugene/Springfield, Oregon
Copyright © 2021 by Stephen S. Bilynskyj
[1] The Gospel of Matthew, Rev. ed., Vol. 2 (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975), p. 122.