by ©Mitzi J. Smith, PhD
(Manuscript from Dr. Mitzi J. Smith’s April 12, 2022 Presentation)
It is toxic to marginalize the world in front of the text where we live and where we encounter the living God among us when doing biblical interpretation. When we idolize or deify the biblical text at the expense of prioritizing the violence and injustices that impact human lives, I think we do God and humanity a disservice. I have read Mark’s story of the Syrophoenician woman through the lens and in dialogue with Sandra Bland’s story—her story, her death, changed me. She was a Black woman and activist—relocated to TX for a new job– whom a Texas State Trooper stopped in or near Spring, TX, July 20, 2015, for failure to change lanes without signaling. Bland talked back to the officer; she asked why she was being stopped; that was her right. Bland ended up dead in a Waller County jail cell shortly after the encounter. Some folks argued that Bland should have kept her mouth shut; they implied that death
was an appropriate outcome for a Black woman who dared to talk back to a trooper. Sometimes our speech is our only defense; it is all the agency we possess. Race and ethnicity often mitigate whose speech and right to protest are protected. We watch videos of black girls thrown against classroom floors and walls for talking back. We know, as Audre Lorde has written, our silence has never saved us. During her confirmation hearings Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson had to demonstrate the epitome of self-control as
some US Senators, with hostility, lies, deceit and respect interrogated her. In their minds, she did not deserve a seat at the table, on the US Supreme Court, no matter how brilliant or over-qualified. Yet, Judge Jackson had to appear before these men to get what she wanted and the country needs.
What social Justice lens could you bring to a reading of this story about the Syrophoenician woman? How would it impact how you read it? The Syrophoenician woman finds Jesus because she believes he has the power to make her daughter whole. According to the literary context of Mark, people from her region of Tyre and Sidon have already witnessed the power that Jesus exercises (Mark 3:-12). I imagine they returned home to testify about the many people Jesus cured and the unclean spirits he exorcised. The unclean spirits Jesus exorcised identified him as the son of God; this does not mean he is God. Jesus has come to proclaim the good news
of God, not of himself, but of God, saying “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near.” Jesus is very human. Jesus does not want to be bothered; he is lodged in a house where he thinks he can avoid contact with other human beings who need something from him. Being any group’s only source of help is taxing on any human being.
It is toxic to refuse to see Jesus as human or to mitigate his humanity with theological constructions that make him less than human. What are we saying about God when we insist that this Jewish man is God? To acknowledge Jesus’s humanness is to acknowledge that he embodies fallible human flesh, is shaped by fallible human institutions and formed by human culture(s) in which he was nurtured and those that impact him as he experiences the world, including the experience of living under the Roman Empire.
Rome is in us, to some degree.
It is toxic to always center Jesus at the expense of other human beings in the story, even if it’s Mark’s intention. It is toxic to think that the only way to center God is to center Jesus. According to Mark, Jesus is baptized by John, he was tempted in the wilderness (can God be tempted?); he speaks in human language, he uses the same modes of transportation as other human beings—he travels by foot, boat, animal; he eats; he sleeps even during storms; he has a home and friends and family; he is accused of having an unclean spirit—acting strangely; he fasts; he attends synagogue; he can be hurt and violated, shed tears, bleed and die.
It is toxic to seek wholeness solely in another human being. How does the idea of or the practice of seeking a single Messiah paralyze us from engaging in collective protest or acts of justice? In the Hebrew Bible, God chose Messiahs, before Jesus’s time. And none of them were perfect; Cyrus the Persian was, it seems, the most just.
Mark is not ethnically “color blind”; he identifies the woman as Gentile and Syrophoenician. But she is anonymous; unnamed. Anonymity often obscures humanness and encourages engagement with others based on group-identity and racial-ethnic stereotypes. She is intersectionally different from Jesus. Nevertheless, she implores Jesus to cast the demon from her daughter. Demons or lesser deities could be good, neutral, demonic and/or complex. Whatever her child’s ailment, it is connected with a harmful or unclean spirit. Sometimes behaviors and ailments that cannot be diagnosed are attributed to demonic forces or placed in a catchall category. Sometimes, I am suspicious of this diagnosis—unclean spirit. When we compare this story with exorcism stories in Mark, Jesus does not perform an exorcism here. Yes, Jesus has miraculous powers, but he was not alone in having and exercising them in his historical context. Perhaps, as Reza Aslan argues in his book Zealot, Jesus performed miracles free of charge—despite his own poverty.
Jesus responds to this mother’s request: “Let the children (τα τεκνα) be fed first, for it is not fair or good to take the children’s/τα τεκνα food and throw it to the dogs.” In this pithy response, it’s clear that mother and daughter are not considered τα τεκνα/the children. The dogs seem to be at a distance fromwhere the children are fed, perhaps in the alley or at least outside the house. Jesus’s words as an insult, whether Jesus meant them to be or not. Intentional or not, insults diminish and hurt, especially when targeted at the already desperate, marginalized or oppressed. Perhaps, Jesus grew up in a context where folks did not keep dogs as pets, where poverty and culture did not permit one to feed or keep pets. He speaks from his own socio-cultural context. She will speak from her own.
It’s toxic to fail to critique oppression and violence in an authoritative text and think it will not encourage a similar response in life. To avoid critiquing Jesus, some interpreters argue that what he says to the woman is a metaphor or parable. It is toxic to believe that metaphorical language cannot do violence, diminish, or deter. Others say Jesus tested her. Like the diabolos tested Jesus in the wilderness. Jesus did not have a child at home dying. So, God believes in testing us while our loved ones are suffering and dying? I struggle with and reject that conception of God. (By the way, the author of James disagrees: – God tempts no human being and God will not be tempted). I’m with him or her.
In story time, this disparate mother does not skip a beat. Sometimes our needs are so dire, our mission so important, we don’t have time to lick our wounds or allow insults from others to deter, paralyze, or silence us, no matter how painful. This mother responds but maintains composure, like Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson did as she was insulted by some Republican members of the US Senate: “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s [παιδιων/ παιδια] crumbs.” She responds from her socio-cultural context where house pets set under the table and eat the crumbs while the children eat; all eat at the same time. What kind of God must triage like human beings do? I like to think Jesus’s heart and consciousness are pricked; he stands corrected. Some people cannot be moved beyond their own cultural biases, but Jesus could be. Angela Davis once said that the difference she saw in Obama and some Presidents that preceded him was that he can be moved. Change requires a movement of the people to effect societal change, to prick the consciousness of the powerful.
Ultimately, Jesus changes his mind and says to this mother, “because of your speech, your saying (logos), you can go home and find the demon has left your daughter. Jesus acknowledges the power of her words, her saying; he performs no exorcism. Something powerful happens when this mother exercises her own power and agency.
It is toxic to see those who seek Jesus as powerless. God has given all human beings potential, power and agency. It’s toxic to always read with the grain of the biblical text. There is never one way to read, but how shall we read toward freedom, liberation, and justice?