Mark 7:1-30 (December 3, 2009)
12/03/2009 12:46
First, Jesus was hard on the Jewish religious leaders who assumed they were the clean ones). Then Jesus walked into Gentile territory and was hard on a Syrophoenician woman who knew she was an unclean one. In the first case He was confronting damaged and damaging religion. In the second case He was drawing faith out of somebody. In our society we constantly update our clean/unclean lists. Last week Tiger Woods was clean. This week he is unclean. We are as guilty as the Jewish religious leaders when we decide we are qualified to pronounce who is clean and who is unclean. The woman agreed with Jesus that she was a dog, ironically putting herself right where Jesus wanted her to be, so that He could honor her faith and heal her daughter. Crunching these two stories together…the people who exalted themselves were humbled, and the woman who humbled herself was exalted. I think I want to be careful about my categorizations about others and instead bow before Jesus with my heart in my hands and agree with whatever He says about me or to me.
