Not far from my house is a stretch of Woodward Avenue that attracts heroin-thin women who wear their clothes like Saran Wrap and hairstyles like Medusa. They sport brash attitudes and colorful vocabularies that would make rugby players blush. They strut and wave and shout into the wee hours of the night in desperate hopes of attracting the attentions of the drivers whizzing by in a 50 mile per hour zone. Most of them are feeding drug habits. Some are feeding children.

I see them in rare instances when my morning run begins before dawn. There they are, giving shout-outs to their associates, heckling for customers, keeping up the neighbors. They’re obnoxious, immoral and rude, and so it’s hard for me to believe that the only place in the Bible where Jesus is bested in a debate, is by someone like this.

This Sunday’s gospel reading, about Jesus’ encounter with the Syrophoenician woman drips with irony. Jesus has just finished cutting the Judean Elite down to size for their judgmentalism regarding hand washing. And here Jesus is, allowing the exact same rules to keep him from helping a woman with a legitimate need – the healing of her daughter. Sure, she’s a Gentile, some say a hooker, who has violated all sorts of taboos like being out alone, talking to a man and talking back to a man. And Jesus seems well aware of this, ‘Let the children be fed first,’ he says, surely not expecting any back talk. But here it comes; ‘Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.’ It is a retort that sends Jesus, backpedaling; ‘Go- the demon has left your daughter.’

Grit, determination, courage, willpower, fortitude. The Gospel writer is willing to paint Jesus in a bad light so that a greater point can be made: dogged determination goes a long way. Many of us are sitting around, wallowing in self-pity and inertia, and need to wake up to the importance of getting up and doing what we’ve been called to do. We need to drop the apathy, lethargy and indifference and find out what’s really burning inside – what do we really want out of life? And perhaps more importantly, what does life want out of us?

The poverty that plagues the majority of the world, the stupid disease that kills thousands of children every day – were the body of Christ to harbor a prostitute’s desperation toward the suffering of the world, there is probably no social ill we could not conquer. Jesus did not come to save individual souls, but to save the world. What role is Jesus calling us to play in this divine plan?

Reading:
The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It – Paul Collier
The Limits of Power – Andrew Bacevich
Mere Christianity – CS Lewis