Crumbs from the Table, Part II: Crossing Boundaries, Women of the ELCA

Crumbs from the Table
Part II: Crossing Boundaries
by Michele Robinson

Introduction
As depicted in Mark, Israel’s leaders erected and maintained many boundaries to preserve holiness. They refused to eat with sinners and in many other ways avoided contact with others. Jesus crossed boundaries. Immediately after Jesus declares all foods clean (7:19), the Syrophoenician woman enters the story. As a result of his encounter with the Syrophoenician woman and the boundary-crossing nature of their exchange, Jesus returns to the region of the Decapolis (7:31).1

The Study
Jesus clarifies boundaries
Jesus does not eliminate the boundary distinguishing God’s people from others. He provides a crisper definition of how that boundary actually falls (7:1-23), speaking about the core of a person as opposed to a person’ moral behavior. With the feeding of the 4,000 Gentiles (8:1-9), the previous boundary crossing (preparation for the global mission of the church) are no longer questioned. See Mark 13:10, where Jesus tells his disciples, “the good news must first be proclaimed to all nations.”

Jesus crosses boundaries
The catalyst of the Mark 7:24-30 exchange was simple: a woman’s daughter needed healing. The encounter between Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman brings together two persons who couldn’t be from more different cultural contexts. She is a woman; he is a man. She, a Gentile; he, a Galilean prophet. She, of a class perceived as oppressing Jews; he, poor and itinerant. Clearly, many social, economic, and religious differences separated their worlds. This encounter served as a springboard for the global mission of the church as it is now understood: crossing boundaries to reach all people with the gospel. Can you give examples of barriers that have prevented you from knowing another person or group of people? What barriers have kept others from involvement in your congregational unit?

Have you ever crossed boundaries to advocate for another who would have otherwise have been discounted? How can your congregational unit cross boundaries to get new people involved?

Followers of Jesus cross boundaries
Instead of avoiding contact with perceived outsiders, Jesus crossed boundaries and gave all people the opportunity to experience the good news of God’s reign. Followers of Jesus also cross boundaries. They recognize that holiness is extended by making contact and reaching out. Years ago a lame woman who lived in a shelter would come to the church building of a small urban parish throughout the week. Gladys had suffered much abuse in her life. Finally, on Sunday, Gladys came to a worship service. Recognizing the parish worker who fed and sat and talked with her on weekdays, Gladys sat with her throughout the service, punctuating the sermon with affirmations. As soon as the benediction was given, Gladys left.
Following the service, some members of the congregation stood around and marveled at the church worker for having physically touched the woman. Other shared how significant Gladys’s presence had been for them. Her sitting up front where she could clearly been seen and heard had touched something within them. Gladys had made their worship experience richer. To this day, that parish worker remains enriched from having known Gladys. Overcoming obstacles and barriers is not a new thing. Can you recall others in Scripture who have overcome barriers to healing and inclusion? (See Mark 2:1-12, 9:14-29.)

Share examples of what you have seen people do to cross boundaries. Were these attempts always successful?

Faith is the basis and means for crossing boundaries
Often faith is seen as the voluntary crossing of a boundary. Theissen states, “Faith means an act by which a human being crosses a boundary in the fact of actual suffering. ...”2Martin Luther, in his sermon on Matthew’s account of this text (15:21-28), said the Syrophoenician woman found the “yes” in God’s “no.” “Whoever understands here the actions of the poor woman ... catches God in his own judgment and says: Lord, it is true. I am a sinner and not worthy of thy grace; but still thou hast promised sinners forgiveness, and thou art come not to call the righteous, but, as St. Paul says in 1 Timothy 1:15, ‘to save sinners.’ Behold, then must God according to his own judgment have mercy upon us.”3 How does your congregation faithfully share the good news of Jesus Christ with those who are visibly different? How does your congregational unit extend itself to those who are not usually involved?

At what point do we ourselves become worthy of God’s grace? Our need for the grace of God compels us to cross boundaries

That faith overcomes obstacles is clearly illustrated in this story. The Syrophoenician woman finds and approaches Jesus, challenges, his words, influences him to reconsider, and becomes the agent of healing for her daughter. Yet the real miracle may be the crossing of the historical, religious, and cultural boundaries that separated, and continue to separate, God’s children. The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., along with others, commented that the hour between ten and eleven o’clock on Sunday morning is the most racially segregated hour in this country. Clearly, the baptized are divided. Women and men struggle to understand each other. People with physical and sensory disabilities lack access to many churches, church functions, and church resources. The aged can feel discarded, and youth often feel like afterthoughts. Perhaps the most hidden of those who feel unwelcome are the baptized who are gay and lesbian. What in your life has prompted you to cross a significant cultural or social boundary? What role did faith have in this experience?

What opportunities do you imagine are missed when we fail to cross cultural and social boundaries? What could such Jesus-like boundary crossing do for Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America?

Conclusion
This story gets to the heart of human resistance to the universality of the good news, calling those “who have ears to hear” to sow the seeds of God’s dominion to the ends of the earth. As Luther preached, all of us are the Syrophoenician woman. And, like her, we have the best of God revealed to us in our time of deepest need.This story challenges the sexism, racism, and ethnocentricism of its hearers (ancient and modern), who tend to consider those who are different as the “other.” The story invites us to place ourselves in the role of the “other.” We are invited to struggle not only with God (as the Syrophoenician woman did) but also with our own perception of whom we regard as the “other.” As baptized children of God we can dare to believe that there is grace sufficient for us to cross boundaries and discover community and communion with each other.

Notes
1. David Rhoads, “Jesus and the Syrophoenician Woman in Mark: A Narrative Critical Study,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 62, no. 2:362.
2. Gerd Theissen, Studies of the New Testament and Its World (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983), 140.
3. Martin Luther, Sermons of Martin Luther, Vol. 2 (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1983), 152-54.

Michele Robinson serves as pastor of United in Christ Lutheran Church.

Copyright © 1998 Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. All rights reserved. May be reproduced for use by the Women of the ELCA in congregations, provided each copy carries this notice: © 1998 Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Reprinted with permission.