Was Jesus Racist?
Musings on Jesus and the Syrophoenician Woman
Today in Church one of the passages from the Revised Common Lectionary dealt with the story of Jesus healing the daughter of a Syrophoenician woman. I thought my pastor handled the passage quite expertly, but I have struggled greatly with this passage myself. It is taken from Mark 7:24-30 (CEB):
Jesus left that place and went into the region of Tyre. He didn’t want anyone to know that he had entered a house, but he couldn’t hide. In fact, a woman whose young daughter was possessed by an unclean spirit heard about him right away. She came and fell at his feet. The woman was Greek, Syrophoenician by birth. She begged Jesus to throw the demon out of her daughter.
He responded, “The children have to be fed first. It isn’t right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
But she answered, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
“Good answer!” he said. “Go on home. The demon has already left your daughter.”
When she returned home, she found the child lying on the bed and the demon gone.
Some clarifications
Jesus was in another part of the Roman Empire, in the city of Tyre, which is in modern day Lebanon. He was seeking some peace and quiet, but even in this area, his reputation proceeded him. A woman, who was described as a “Syrophoenician,” begged Jesus to come heal her demon possessed daughter. To Jesus, who was a Jew, she was a foreigner.
We know through many different contexts that demon possession was more than likely another physical or mental ailment. I won’t debate on whether or not she was actually possessed by a demon.
The daughter was sick. Her mother was a foreigner. Jesus could heal her, but he said no.
A Dog
Jesus’ response to the woman makes me uneasy, even today. “It isn’t right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” (Mark 7:27 CEB)
Did Jesus call this woman a dog? Yes he did. Was it offensive or racist? Yes, it was.
I have heard many people try to reason this away. They might say that Jesus was testing the woman’s faith or that he wasn’t actually saying the woman was a dog.
I have a difficult time accepting that. Jesus called the woman a dog and at first refused to heal her daughter. It wasn’t until the woman used a clever bit of logic on Jesus that Jesus agreed to heal her daughter.
What is the problem here?
One major tenet held by most Christians is that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine. In my old denomination, one of their doctrines state that Jesus was “truly and properly God and truly and properly man.”
If Jesus is God, why would he call this woman a dog? Why would he imply that she was unworthy of help? I don’t have a great answer for this, but this is where my train of thought goes.
Jesus was human as well. Humans make mistakes all the time. I sincerely doubt that Jesus started talking and walking as soon as he was born. He had to learn how to walk. He had to learn how to talk. How do we learn to do these things? By making mistakes. By trial and error.
Jesus grew up in a culture that rarely had anything to do with other cultures. When they did, they had to ritually purify themselves, which normally involved taking a ritual bath. There are passages in the Bible, warning against intermarrying with other cultures. It went even so far that in the Book of Ezra, the priest, Ezra, ordered all Jewish men to divorce their wives if they were not Jewish (see Ezra 9 and 10).
There were always notable exceptions, which the Bible is always ready to point out: Ruth, the foreign woman who was the direct ancestor of King David is a notable example.
Is it any wonder that Jesus, who grew up learning to distrust foreigners, also refused at first to heal this foreign woman’s daughter? I don’t think so.
Sometimes we Christians are so ready to accept that Jesus is divine that we often forget that he was human as well.
Queering the Text
As a queer person myself, I identify so much with the Syrophoenician woman: seeking help and acceptance from the Christian community.
That doesn’t always happen. My old denomination made it all too clear that I was not welcome. Thankfully my new church has welcomed me with open arms.
Maybe that’s what we queer people need to do: Be clever. I never thought about how being clever was also a part of my faith journey. I would love to explore that more in my own spiritual path. I might not always find people, like Jesus, who are willing to change their minds, but I will persist.
If I ever call correctly, she's the only person in the Gospels to effectively correct Jesus. She basically informed him that he was missing the mark, and he repented.
Some of this is taken from an RC Sproul sermon, but this is an instance where understanding Jewish culture is key to showing that Jesus wasn't racist or sexist in this statement. The language used qualifies "dogs" in his statement as "little dogs", dogs that *were* allowed into the household. During dinner, these dogs only ate after the family, and could not eat the human food until the meal was complete. However, if crumbs fell to the floor, the little dogs were allowed to eat those before their feeding time.
The implication of his statement is that the Jewish people, God's children, eat first or are given first access to Christ, and the time for the Gentiles to 'eat' will come later. However, if 'crumbs' fall to the floor, like Christ's miraculous power, the Gentiles are allowed to eat them up.
And even her response makes it clear that she understands the illustration. Translated from metaphor, "Yes, Lord; I understand that you're not here for us Gentiles yet, but we can still be blessed by your power." She shows remarkable faith and wit in that response.
It's great to face these challenging passages and dive into them, but your ultimate conclusion that Jesus *was* racist and that the woman 'changed her mind' is, unfortunately, heretical. You make great pains to bring up how Jesus is fully man and how that *must* mean he made mistakes here and there, but it's only by his sinless nature that salvation means anything at all. Jesus cannot be the Savior and yet still be *racist*.