How Far Will You Walk?

If you have ever read Matthew 15:21-29, or Mark 7:24-31, you'll find a curious story.  Jesus goes to the region of Tyre and Sidon, after leaving Gennesaret (Matthew 14:34 & Mark 6:53), where he meets a Canaanite woman.  She comes up to Jesus and their interaction goes something like this:

"Jesus, Son of David, heal my daughter!"

Jesus ignores her.

"Jesus, Son of David, heal my daughter!"

She says again, but Jesus ignores her.

"Jesus, Son of David, heal my daughter!"

Jesus still ignores her, and by this time the disciples must be a little annoyed by her, so they come up to Jesus like, "Hey, uhhh, Jesus, can you send her away or something?  She's like bothering you and everyone else."

"It is not fit to take the children's food and feed it to their dogs."  Replies Jesus.

"That's true, but even their dogs eat the crumbs that fall off the table."  Says the woman.

"I like your answer," Jesus says, "Go.  Your daughter is healed."

She goes home to find her daughter healed, and Jesus and his disciples leave the region of Tyre and Sidon to go to the Sea of Galilee.

This story is so odd: Jesus seems to be calling this woman a dog, and her reply doesn't seem sufficient enough to warrant her daughter's healing, yet Jesus approves of how she responded to him, and Jesus is always wanting to heal and teach, but this time he seems to purposefully withhold his healing.  There are three points I want to make about this story.

The first point I want to address is the fact that Jesus called her a "dog".  The greek word he uses here is "κυναρίοις", or "kynariois", which means "little dog". So Jesus wasn't calling her a "dog", as much as he was calling her "precious, little puppy".  At the time, the Jews called Canaanites "dogs", and Jesus's decision to call her "little puppy" was more a play on the words and references between their two cultures than an insult.

When Jesus said he was there for the "children of Israel", not for their "dogs", her response was that she knew she wasn't a child of Israel, that she was a dog and had no right to the blessings God would give them, but all she wanted was a breadcrumb.  Her sense of humility and gratitude was what moved Jesus to heal her daughter; she knew she didn't deserve what he could give, but she was grateful for what little God would bless her with.  We too, do not deserve the blessings God has given us, and yet how often do we take what God gives us for granted?

The second point is the distance Jesus and his disciples traveled, going from Gennesaret to Tyre and Sidon.  Some people estimate that the distance Jesus traveled on this leg of his journey was around 50 miles.  It is reasonably assumed that Jesus didn't travel via donkey or camel, much less a car, so that means Jesus and his disicples probably hoofed it via foot during the entire journey.  Assuming a natural pace of 5/mph, Jesus spent about ten hours to travel that distance, not including stops for resting and eating a snack before moving on.  This means that Jesus traveled an entire day to get there, and when he arrived, he did no teaching or miracles, aside from meeting this woman, testing her faith, and healing her daughter, before he left that area.  Jesus walked 50 miles for one person.

Think about that for a second: Jesus walked 50 miles for one person.  Just one person.  How far will you walk for one person?

I want to encourage us all to follow Jesus's example: how far will you walk?  Will you walk 50 miles for a friend, much less a stranger?  In America (and especially Orange County, where I live), we are so busy trying to pay our bills and living our lifestyle that I think we forget to commit to people more.  Sitting down to eat or walking around a mall and shopping with a friend doesn't quite fill the needs we have as social creatures. 

When was the last time you stayed up all night with a friend because they were in grief?  When was the last time someone did that for you?  When have you given someone $100 because they were in need, and you told them to not bother paying you back?  When was the last time you had a fight with a friend, and you stuck with them, despite your differences?

We are social creatures, and we need our relationships to help us function and live our daily lives.  I think Americans pride themselves on their independence, resilience, and self-sufficiency, so we are not ready to admit our weaknesses or our need to have help from time to time.  Perhaps if we are better friends with the people already in our lives, maybe, just maybe, we'll have people who are better friends to us.

My final point is that there are many facets and lessons we can learn from this one account.  How often do we read our Bibles (if some of us read it at all), find a curious passage like this, and just keep skimming through it?  In one short account, we find the heart we need to please God, Jesus's cleverness and sense of humor (and his humanity), and the depth of level of commitment Jesus had for one person to measure against our own sense of commitment to other people.

The Bible is an ancient document that records a culture's relationship between God and man.  The purpose I want to establish about this blog is not only the literary and historical context of the Bible, but keeping God's heart and desire to have a relationship with us, while writing in a style that's more accessible to everyone, because I think that most people feel a little intimidated about the countless dry, academic papers that examines God's word.

I'll be tackling many topics, and I'm open to discuss pretty much anything; so don't feel shy about asking me a question.  Hopefully, I'll be making a new post every Tuesday, and I'll try to preface my posts with remarks on what I believe are doctrinal (like issues on what makes us saved, what is and isn't a sin), and things that I believe are my opinion (should Christians be in the military? Run for political office?  Vote?). 

Next week I'll be talking about the Daniel prophecy of Jesus. 

Let's get started.