The Syrophoenician Woman
Plot Overview
The Story's Role in the Gospel of Mark
Main Characters
Challenges
Jesus
The Syrophoenician Woman
Jesus has a role of curing and healing people from their demons. In the story, at first, Jesus rejects the Syrophoenician woman's request to remove the demons from her daughter's body. Jesus' perspective changes after the Syrophoenician woman begs him respectfully.
The Syrophoenician woman is a greek, Gentile, and Syrophoenician origin. Her daughter is haunted by demons and she goes to Jesus to request him to remove the demon. At first, she is denied, but she respectfully begs Jesus and convinces him. The woman was also very smart and had just 1 trait.
Jesus denies the request of the woman to perform the exorcism.
The Syrophoenician woman persistently begs Jesus. The woman answers Jesus' riddle.
The Syrophoenician woman's daughter is possessed by a demon.
Jesus rejects the woman because demons possess humans that do not have pure faith or lack faith. These challenges will come to those who do not have faith.
Jesus' disciples did not understand his mission and did not support him. Jesus did not want to be noticed.
In the story, Jesus retreats to a Gentile region, near Tyre and Sidon, and enters a house. Jesus does not want to be noticed. A Greek woman approaches him and requests him to heal her daughter. The daughter is possessed by demons and requests Jesus to heal her. Jesus denies the request at first with a riddle. Jesus states that the food of children shouldn't be thrown to dogs. The woman responds that dogs eat the scraps of what children eat. This a clever response that Jesus is convinced and heals her daughter. Jesus moves on to another territory in Gentile and leaves a man with Leprosy.
In this story, the Kingdom of God is shown to us. God's rule and power to heal is everywhere. In the Kingdom, faith is an important for miracles and healing to occur. This story is a turning point because the spread of Good News occurs. Jesus explains that faith and belief in him would grant healing. The characters in this story do not actually know who Jesus, the Messiah, is yet, but they have faith in him regardless. Jesus conflicts with authorities and with his disciples because they do not believe in him.
Some of the information, like the Syrophoenician woman's description, in this story matches what is said by Mark. Jesus has a conflict with suppliants and demons; however, the suppliants have faith in Jesus. These suppliants go to Jesus and requests him for help. The narrative that Jesus tries to hide who he is as a secret is also seen in this story. There are some who have doubts about Jesus in the story, which is also keeps true to the narrative that people didn't believe him.
Reflection
This narrative was interesting to read because I didn't realize that people went to Jesus for him to perform miracles and healing. The importance of this narrative is that this is the start of Jesus' healings in the Gentile region. I was confused at first because I didn't understand what Jesus' riddle was about so I had to dos some research and look up sources that talked about this story.
This story is also important because this is the beginning of Jesus' journey to heal and mission of the Gentiles.