In case you didn't get Jesus's message on people before rules, the lessons continue in Mark. This one is fascinating because Jesus seems to learn the lesson again himself. The Syrophoenician woman is the worst of the worst. And Jesus calls her a dog...one of the worst epithets you could call anyone in that culture. It's a shocking scene when you understand what is actually happening. Jesus-the-perfect appears far less than perfect here.
All kinds of questions are raised about the definition of sin. Are you sinning if you don't understand what you are doing? Once Jesus is challenged by the woman, he changes his decision, his behavior --and heals her daughter. The abundance of God's grace is that healing one doesn't take away from another. There is an abundance for all.
Jesus's practice gets corrected. Inclusion for all is reinforced and, in fact, expanded. But the undeserving? the terrible? the outcast? the condemned?
Inclusion for all...
Again...
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