Daily Lesson for March 12, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson is from Mark chapter 7 verses 24 through 30:

24 From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, 25but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. 26Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27He said to her, ‘Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ 28But she answered him, ‘Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.’ 29Then he said to her, ‘For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.’ 30So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

This week the youth are on their Spring Break mission trip down in Beaumont doing Hurricane Harvey relief. They could be home — sleeping in every day. It’s wonderful that they have chosen to go and to help others in need.

Jesus’ own life’s work took a dramatic turn on a trip much like the one our youth are on. Jesus had gone to a place called Tyre — a gentile place by the coast. He wasn’t looking to do work there; but was instead hoping for rest. But the work fame and found him. A gentile woman with a sick child cake and found him. 

Jesus wasn’t inclined to help at first. He was tired and here was a Gentile woman coming and interrupting his time away. He was not inclined to help. He saw his own mission as one to his own people only. They should be taken care of first. “Let the children be fed first,” he said.

And then side of Jesus we are mostly unfamiliar because of all the whitewashing is seen — a side that could be derogatory towards people of other races. “Let the children be fed first; for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ To refer to people as dogs was as much an insult then as it is now. It was cold and calloused statement which I can only interpret as lacking empathy. 

But then the mother answered, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” This mother was desperate and in dire straits; and she was willing to be a dog if it would mean this child of hers would live.

Jesus healed the child. And he came back from the trip changed. He had a new vision of the world and a new consciousness about himself. His mission would turn now on that moment in Tyre, with that woman and her need. 

Sometimes we have to get out of our own place in order to gain a fuller depth of vision, to get beyond our own prejudice, to see people — poor people, black people, brown people, white people, undocumented people — as people, and to find deeper place of compassion and mercy within. 

And that’s my prayer for our youth this Spring  Break.