The Power of the Gospel Explodes in Radical Inclusion: The Syrophoenician Woman in Mark 7:24-31


The Power of the Gospel Explodes in Radical Inclusion 
The Syrophoenician Woman in Mark 7:24-31
©2007 Cindy F. Serio
Intro to New Testament
 Professor K. K. Yeo
Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary

 The emotional desperation of a mother failed to open the heart of Jesus the Healer as she begged him to cast a demon from her daughter.  However, the persistent wisdom of this woman opened the mind of Jesus the Teacher as she appealed to the inclusive nature of his own teachings regarding purity.  Without even knowing what those teachings were, she led him to see their inclusiveness from a different point of view.  As a result of the verbal interaction between Jesus and the Gentile Syrophoenician woman, the power of the gospel explodes in radical inclusion.  

Scripture references throughout Paper: Harold W. Attridge, ed. et al, The HarperCollins Study Bible Revised Edition, NRSV (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2006).

I.                   Background:  Historical and Cultural Tension

The author of the Gospel of Mark may or may not have been the man traditionally proclaimed as friend and confidante of Peter, the disciple of Jesus Christ.  Although early tradition locates the writing of the Gospel “at Rome, sometime after the martyrdom of Peter during the persecution of Nero (A.D. 64)”[1] recent scholarship reveals a more likely location as “Galilee or southern Syria”[2] perhaps between the years 60 CE and 75 CE.[3]
The longer time span indicates a historical context in which there is increasing upheaval in the Christian community due to the Jewish Rebellion which eventually led to the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE.  Although the Jesus movement had initially been seen as a sect of Judaism, and his followers had enjoyed the protection of the Roman government in order to express their religion freely, the Christian community was blamed for the fire of Rome in 64 CE which led to their persecution by Nero.[4]  Therefore, we know by the time of the writing of the Gospel of Mark, “Christians were [then] clearly regarded as distinct from Jews.”[5] 
With the background of separation and increased friction between Christians and Jews in Rome spreading throughout the empire, our pericope locates Jesus in “the region of Tyre.” (Mark 7:24)  “Three different cultural ‘worlds’ met in this region”[6] and as Jesus traveled into the unknown, his encounter with the Syrophoenician woman brought those worlds together.  First, Phoenician and Jewish culture had long been in historical conflict. Second, Hellenistic culture permeated the city areas and into the country.  Third, the Jewish culture was moving into the outer areas of Tyre as Jews continued to move into villages along the borders they shared.[7]  Having noted these three cultural worlds, one should recognize that they did not emerge as distinct entities at any one time or place.  Different people coming from different worlds will always interact and influence each other and will inevitably clash at times. 
By the time of the writing of the Gospel of Mark, the Hellenistic and Jewish cultures would have blended to some extent as the Christian community became a merged family of Gentile and Jewish Christians.  These Christians lived alongside the Jewish people with increasingly close proximity throughout the region.[8]  Conflict developed both inside and outside the community.
No conflict was as contentious as the struggle over the purity system, which can be defined as “a social system organized around the contrasts or polarities of pure and impure, clean and unclean.”[9]  Purity issues created division between people.  In order to be a part of the community one had to be pure, meaning that one was “free from any physical, moral, or ritual contamination.”[10]  Simple contact with anyone or anything considered impure rendered a person unclean.  The unclean person was ostracized and instantly expelled from the fellowship of the community.  “Physical signs of impurity were seen as the symptoms of … moral or religious imperfection … which necessitated the complex system of purificatory rituals”[11] for that is the only way one would have been welcomed back into that fellowship of the community.  “Rules surrounding meals were deeply imbedded in the purity system”[12] which was diligently studied and followed so that one would know what one could eat and who one could eat with.  The power of the purity conflict in the cultures of the first century cannot be emphasized enough, for without a thorough understanding of this struggle, one may not understand the depth of the radical inclusion that emerged when Jesus interacted with the Syrophoenician woman.  Within this cultural context – the verbal interaction between the Syrophoenician woman and Jesus becomes an intriguing puzzle with which to deepen our journey.


II.                Exegesis: The Journey from Exclusion to Inclusion

The gospel story circulated orally for over thirty years before being transformed into a cohesive narrative by a literary master into the Gospel of Mark.  With today’s highly visual learning styles which stress reading rather than listening, the modern reader often misinterprets or misses completely many of the literary signals which captivated the attention of readers in ancient times.[13]   In addition, the Gospel of Mark flows at such a brisk pace as it builds anticipation that it can be difficult to slow down long enough to notice, let alone savor, its literary structure.  The original readers would have understood how to “hear” the story within the writing.  When the Gospel of Mark is viewed as narrative, the power of the story is most beautifully discerned when one steps back to view the whole before focusing in to move back and forth along the “verbal threads”[14] that have been tightly interwoven into the storyline by the author. 
Although it is outside the scope of this paper to step back far enough to view Mark in its entirety, it is helpful to examine our pericope embedded in the larger chiastic structure (6:30-8:10) within which it is located in order to find the edges of our puzzle and catch clues for deeper meaning.  Chiasm, also referred to as parallelism, is used “to symbolize the inverted sequence or crossover of parallel words or ideas in a bicolon, sentence, or larger literary unit.”[15]  As a chiasm, this larger literary structure can be seen as:

      A         (With compassion), Jesus feeds 5,000 Jews (with many crumbs to spare)     in a desert in Jewish territory and walks on water
      B         (Jesus) heals those who come to him (in Jewish territory they were most      likely Jews)
      C         (Jesus becomes engaged in conflict with) Pharisees over eating food with   defiled hands (which is a purity issue regarding the clean and unclean)
      D         (Jesus) teaches his Disciples (regarding Purity, as “he declared all          foods clean” (7:19b) and states “it is from within, from the human   heart, that evil intentions come … they defile a person.” (7:23))
      C’        (Without compassion, Jesus enters into Gentile territory and becomes          engaged in conflict with a Gentile woman regarding an unclean spirit after        which he steps across cultural boundaries to heal without touch from a    distance)
      B’        (Jesus continues deeper and farther into) Gentile territory (and heals a man             by touch and words in Gentile territory he was most likely a Gentile)
      A’        (With compassion), Jesus feeds 4,000 Gentiles (with many crumbs to          spare) in a desert in Gentile territory[16]

As C’ – our pericope is not the central focus of this chiasm, yet it is directly influenced by its position within it.   The edges of the chiasm are the miracles of multiplication.  As Jesus moves from Jewish territory to Gentile territory, he provides with such abundance there is plenty of food to spare.  The center of the chiasm and the focal point is the teaching session with the disciples regarding purity at which time “he declared all foods clean.” (7:23) What a tremendous change of traditional thought! 
            The reader waits with anticipation to see the impact of this change.  As we focus in on our pericope, we note the author’s use of chiasmus to highlight the central focus of his message:

      A         (Jesus arrives in Tyre region and seeks seclusion)
      B         The woman approaches (Jesus)
      C         (The woman begs for healing)
      D              (A               Jesus responds with exclusion)
      E              (B               The woman speaks)
      D’             (A’              Jesus responds with inclusion)
      C’        (The woman receives healing)
      B’        The woman returns home and (finds healing)
      A’        (Jesus leaves the region of Tyre)[17]

Finally, we zoom in more tightly to analyze the dialogue in Mark 7:27-29 within its chiastic context to see a desperate mother become the catalyst for radical inclusion.

A.                A:  Jesus Responds with Exclusion

With the anguished cries of her demon-possessed daughter ringing in her ears, the Gentile Syrophoenician woman heard about Jesus, the powerful Jewish healer from a foreign land.  She shattered boundaries as she walked boldly into the house where Jesus had secluded himself after his difficult confrontation with Jewish officials and the disappointing teaching session with his disciples.  She dared to shatter those boundaries because a desperate mother with a broken heart will do anything to alleviate the suffering of her child.  The woman fell down at his feet and begged for her daughter’s life.  Jesus refused to help her because of her status as an outsider of the Jewish community as he said, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” (7:27)
As Jesus speaks, one might characterize his attitude as exclusionary and his behavior as uncompassionate.  One might wonder why Jesus acts so uncharacteristically callous toward this mother and her daughter by calling them dogs.  The simple answer may be that this verbal exchange serves the story being told and the people it is being told to.  While the exchange of thoughts does serve the story very well, the more complicated answer is that the underlying cultural conflicts provide tension in a way that makes it difficult for Jesus to see clearly the desperation of the mother who lies prostrate before him.  The author has given the reader a stated reason: 1) the mother is a Gentile.  He also gives at least three other clues for the reader with her identification as: 2) a Syrophoenician, 3) a woman, and with the location of the meeting as: 4) the region of Tyre.  
Jesus symbolically infers the first cultural conflict between Jews and Gentiles when he refers to the Jews as children, and the Gentiles as dogs.  Jesus used the word kuna,rion or kynarion which is rendered in the text as “dog”, but in a diminutive sense meaning “little dog.”[18]  Although this may seem to mitigate the insensitivity of the remark, it does not for “sayings in the Hebrew Bible portray them as contemptible scavengers who lick human blood, and the term is a metaphor for Israel’s enemies.”[19]  When Jesus refers to throwing food to the unclean dogs, he is obviously referring to these types of scavenger dogs. 
The second conflict may be the deeply embedded bias born of historical conflicts between Phoenicians and Jews.  The text refers to the woman’s familial background for she is a “Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin.” (7:26) Mark often uses a type of literary device which helps the reader remember key details called a “two-step progression … the first step gives a generality, while the second step, the repetition, gives more specific detail and usually contains a crucial element.”[20]  Apparently it was crucially important to the author to identify the woman as a Phoenician for the reference would have had historical meaning for readers. 
The third cultural conflict is based on gender which is an issue of both purity and shame-honor.  Many cultures throughout history have systematically subordinated women simply because of the natural process of menstruation which renders them unclean.[21]   However, there is no evidence in this episode that the women had any personal female issues that would render her unclean.  The woman approached Jesus apparently without male support.  Although we do not know whether the woman followed her own cultural protocol, in a shame-honor culture, “daring to approach a strange man in behalf of her family, was an unconventional and, evidently to Jesus, unacceptable act … [so that] the request itself – coming from a woman – was shameful, drawing both Jesus’ refusal and his disdain.”[22]
The fourth cultural conflict is found in the identification of social status.  There are two different ways of the imagining the woman’s social status, for one will never know her status definitively.  The woman is from the region of Tyre.  Therefore, this woman “may be from one of the peripheral villages of Tyre, where people’s lives were not as easy as the lives of those in urban cities.”[23]  With this in mind, the first view, “and by far the most pervasive among late-twentieth-century feminists, understands the Syrophoenician woman to be poor, needy, and of lesser status than Jesus.”[24] 
On the other hand, the woman is from the region of Tyre, which was “a rich city.”[25] She is labeled as a ~Ellhni,j or HellÄ“nís, which is  translated “Gentile” by the NRSV and equally often translated “Greek” in other versions.  HellÄ“nís in Mk. 7:26 is ambiguous; it might simply mean Gentile or it could be a cultural term” [Greek].[26]   It may be that “Greek” is a more accurate translation in this instance for the “knowledge of Greek language and culture point to a member of the upper class.”[27]

B.                 B:  The Woman Speaks

Although one cannot be certain about the Syrophoenician woman’s social class, certainly the desperate mother shows a depth of experiential wisdom as she refuses to take no for an answer.  In the only words she speaks, the woman turns the words of Jesus around and teaches with reason and logic: “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”  (7:28) With her provocative reply, she sounds more like Jesus than Jesus does at this point.  For Jesus was continually in the midst of challenging and reinterpreting traditional Jewish teachings in order to bring forth new meaning with which to change attitudes and behavior. 
From the chiastic structure, it can be seen that the Syrophoenician woman’s reply is the central point of the pericope.  As she speaks, one can hear the humility with which she responds to her humiliation.  She calls to Jesus using the title of ku,rioj or kyrios which is translated “Sir” by the NRSV but is more often translated “Lord.”  The word can serve as either a humble address or an address to a divine figure (pagan, royal, or otherwise) however it should be noted that “Kyrios is not a major Christological figure in Mark.”[28]
The Syrophoenician woman speaks in a way of witty wisdom.  Yet in order to hear the wisdom in the woman’s words Jesus had to listen to her with an open mind, even if his heart stayed closed.  The woman asks Jesus to see the dogs from another point of view as she gave him a visual picture of dogs that wait under the tables of Gentile children to share their crumbs.[29]   In the Jewish purity system, dogs are unclean animals.[30]   In the Jewish culture, dogs are not welcome under the table.  As a result of the Jewish purity system, Gentiles were not welcome at the table.  Therefore, in order for Jesus to change his mind and respond with radical inclusion, he had to cross cultural boundaries imprinted upon his psyche in order to set a table that was truly open to all. 

C.                A’:  Jesus Responds with Inclusion

Jesus responded at just the right moment as he said, “For saying that, you may go – the demon has left your daughter.” (7:29) With these words and the transformation that has taken place within Jesus, he brings the hope of inclusion, not just to a mother and her daughter but to the whole world.  In a powerful act of healing, Jesus casts the demon from the woman’s daughter at a distance.  The mother is desperate no longer for she returns home from her journey to find the promise fulfilled and her daughter no longer possessed by an unclean spirit. 
In contrast to Matthew’s account of the Canaanite woman in which he credits the healing of the daughter to the mother’s faith, Mark’s story of the Syrophoenician woman is silent on the issue of faith for Jesus heals on the strength of the woman’s lo,goj or logos which is rendered as “saying” and means reasoning “as mental activity; it has the basic sense ‘to reckon’ or ‘to explain.’”[31]  The woman truly did become a teacher to the Teacher.[32]  In her desperation as a mother, the woman who shattered all the boundaries, with her action and her speech, became a catalyst for radical inclusion.
Perhaps one could label the woman’s action and her speech as faith.  Although faith is not a key theme in the Gospel of Mark and therefore lacks development[33] Mark’s Jesus, on three occasions (2:5, 5:34, 10:52), attributes healing to the pi,stij or pistis of either the one being healed or the faith of the one bringing someone to be healed.  Pistis is translated as faith which means “trust in or reliance on God.”[34]  It seems unlikely that an author with such a gift for literary detail would fail to verbally recognize the faith of the woman if that is indeed the reason Jesus changed his mind.  Perhaps even if there were seedlings of faith that resulted, Jesus healed the woman’s daughter, not because of “her faith alone or [even] her reasoning alone, but because of her speaking up and speaking out – because of her action”[35] in persistently refusing to take no for an answer. 
When the Syrophoenician woman refused to take no for an answer she shattered the cultural boundaries separating her from Jesus.  Using passive resistance, this interesting and surprisingly well-developed character in Mark’s narrative became a catalyst for change.   In her exchange of words with Jesus, she illustrates the modern feminist theological hermeneutic of the trickster figure as she “embodies ambiguity and chaos, and who reminds the established orders that such forces of indeterminacy are inescapably present in their midst.”[36]  Yet the very definition of trickster locates her at the edge of authority.[37]  Regardless of the woman’s social status, Jesus is the one who is in power for he is the one standing, and she lies begging at his feet.  For this reason, one should remember that Jesus Christ is the main character of the gospel narrative and “the focus must return to Jesus, because without his transformation the woman’s situation would have remained unchanged, her bold protests against injustice in vain.”[38]


III.             Theological Summary/Application:  Radical Inclusion
           
When Jesus made the physical journey from Jewish territory into Gentile territory he walked a spiritual path from exclusion to inclusion.  Jesus was ready to cross cultural boundaries in order to meet a mother who spoke up because she had nothing but desperation to give in exchange for the gift of healing.  Radical inclusion means one must be ready to cross boundaries, ready to listen, ready to change, ready to accept, and ready to give to those who speak out of their desperation.  Jesus “breaks through the boundaries of insider-outsider [as he] challenges Christians who operate rigidly within [all] boundaries.”[39]  Christians today, especially those in power, must rise to the challenge in order to follow the example of Jesus Christ[40] breaking through boundaries (physical and spiritual) so the power of the gospel can explode in radical inclusion. 


[1] John R. Donahue, The HarperCollins Bible Commentary, James Luther Mays, ed. et al (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2006), 901.
[2] Donahue, Commentary,  901.
[3] Mary Ann Tolbert, The Women’s Bible Commentary. Expanded edition. eds. Newsom, Carol A. and Sharon H. Ringe (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), 351.
[4] Everett Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 593 & 602.
[5] Ferguson, 602.
[6] Gerd Theissen, The Gospels in Context: Social and Political History in the Synoptic Tradition, trans. Linda M. Mahone (Edinburgh: T & T Clark Ltd, 1992), 68.
[7] Theissen, 68.
[8] Theissen, 66-67.
[9] Marcus J. Borg, Meeting Jesus again for the First Time: The Historical Jesus and the Heart of Contemporary Faith (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1994), 50.
[10] Paul J. Achtemeier, et al eds., The HarperCollins Bible Dictionary (New York: HarperCollins, 1985 & 1996), 902 .
[11] Achtemeier, 902.
[12] Borg, 55.
[13] Tolbert, 351.
[14] David M. Rhoads, “Jesus and the Syrophoenician Woman in Mark: A Narrative-Critical Study,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 62 Sum (1994): 363.  This article later appeared as Chapter 4 of Rhoads, “Jesus and the Syrophoenician Woman” in Reading Mark, Engaging the Gospel (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004) from which I take my understanding of Mark as narrative.
[15] Richard N. Soulen and R. Kendall Soulen, Handbook of Biblical Criticism (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 32.
[16]  Rhoads, 348.  Although I am using Rhoads chiasm, chiastic structures are subjective and can be seen those who know what to look and listen for.  I changed and adapted this structure for the purpose of the exegesis in this paper.  My additions/changes are in parentheses and my emphasis is in bold. 
[17] Sharon H. Ringe, “A Gentile Woman’s Story, Revisited: Rereading Mark 7:24-31” in A Feminist Companion to Mark, ed. Amy-Jill Levine & Marianne Blickenstaff (Sheffield, Eng: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 82.  My adaptation of Ringe’s structure is for the purpose of exegesis in this paper. Additions are in parentheses and my emphasis on central ABA’ mine is in bold.  
[18] John R. Donahue and Daniel J. Harrington, The Gospel of Mark. Sacra Pagina Series Vol. 2 (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 2002), 234.
[19] Ringe, 89.
[20] Rhoads, 74.
[21] Ranjini Wickramaratne Rebera, “The Syrophoenician Woman: A South Asian Feminist Perspective” in A Feminist Companion to Mark, ed. Amy-Jill Levine & Marianne Blickenstaff (Sheffield, Eng: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 102.
[22] Tolbert, 56.
[23] Hisako Kinukawa, “De-colonizing Ourselves as Readers: The Story of the Syro-Phoenician Woman as a Text” in Distant Voices Drawing Near (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2004), 139.
[24] Jane E. Hicks, “Moral Agency at the Borders: Rereading the Story of the Syrophoenician Woman” Word & World Vol. 23, No. 1 Winter( 2003), 81.
[25] Theissen, 72.
[26]  Gerhard Friedrich and Gerhard Kittel, eds., TDNT: Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995, c1985), S. 228.
[27] Theissen, 70.
[28] Donahue, Mark, 234.
[29] Sabine Van Den Eynde, “When a Teacher Becomes a Student: The Challenge of the Syrophoenician Woman (Mark 7:26-31)” Theology 103 no 814 July-Aug (2000), 277.
[30] Donahue, Mark, 234.
[31]TDNT, S. 506.
[32] Eynde, 274-279. See article for full discussion on this interpretation.
[33] Achtemeier, 327.
[34] Achtemeier, 327.
[35] Elizabeth Struthers Malbon, “Fallible Followers: women and men in the Gospel of Mark,” Semeia no 28 (1983), 37.
[36] Claudia V. Camp, “Feminist Theological Hermeneutics: Canon and Christian Identity,” in The Theological Interpretation of Scripture: Classic and Contemporary Readings, ed. Stephen Fowl (Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 1997), 64.
[37] Camp, 64.
[38] Surekha Nelavala, “Smart Syrophoenician woman: a Dalit Feminist reading of Mark 7:24-31,” Expository Times 188 no 2 (2006), 64.  As a Dalit woman and self-proclaimed liberationist, Surekha Nelavala understands and articulates the role of the “trickster” well as she brings her own experience into dialog with the text. 
[39] Nelavala, 67.
[40] I am indebted to Hisako Kinukawa, “De-colonizing Ourselves” for educating me on the need for de-colonizing the text by recognizing oppression from both imperialism and patriarchy.  I was challenged to realize that often white middle-class women (as I am) analyze patriarchy in the text due to their own oppressive life experiences, but neglect the study of imperialism because their life experience does not give them insight.  For example, I may be living a life that is enhanced as an indirect result of oppression.  I found it helpful to explore my own status as one who is a “cultural colonizer” and what impact that has on my study of Scripture.  This requires being able to “discern whom we are oppressing and by whom we are oppressed,” 133. If I am able, I may be teachable enough to become radically inclusive of people who are different from me. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Amjad-Ali, Christine. “Breaking Barriers to Establish the New Community: The    Syrophoenician Woman.” In Affirming Difference, Celebrating Wholeness.
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Burkhill, T Alec. “Historical Development of the Story of the Syrophoenician Woman,      Mark 7:24-31.” Novum Testamentum 9, no. 3 (1967): 161-177.

Camp, Claudia V. “Feminist Theological Hermeneutics: Canon and Christian Identity.”    In The Theological Interpretation of Scripture: Classic and Contemporary          Readings, edited by Stephen Fowl. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 1997.        53-68

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            (2000): 274-279

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            Phoenician Woman as a Text.” In Distant Voices Drawing Near: Essays in Honor
             of Antoinette Clark Wire, edited by Holly Hearon. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical      Press, 2004: 131-144.

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            Mark.” Semeia 28 (1983): 29-48.

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            7:24-31.”  Expository Times 188, no. 2 (2006): 64-69.

Rebera, Ranjini Wickramaratne. “The Syrophoenician Woman: A South Asian Feminist
            Perspective.”  In A Feminist Companion to Mark, edited by Amy-Jill Levine and   Marianne Blickenstaff. Sheffield, Eng: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001.

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            Study.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 62 Sum (1994) 343-375

-- -- -- Reading Mark, Engaging the Gospel. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004.

Skinner, Matthew L. “‘She departed to her house’: another dimension of the
            Syrophoenician mother’s faith in Mark 7:24-30.”  Word & World 26, no. 1 Winter
 (2008): 14-21.

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            Westminster John Knox Press, 2001.

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