Above:  Jesus and the Woman of Canaan, by Michael Angelo Immenraet

Image in the Public Domain

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Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning:

Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them,

that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of life,

which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ,  who lives and reigns

with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

—The Book of Common Prayer (1979), page 236

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Exodus 19:2-8 or 1 Kings 8:1-21

Psalm 56

2 Corinthians 13:5-14

Mark 7:24-37

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God exceeds our wildest imaginations.  Yet God pities us, heals us, calls us become more than we are, and empowers us to accomplish that purpose.  God calls us to be a people of priests.  God equips us to shine the divine light into the world of the nonevangelized and the apostate, and to disciple the converted.

You, O reader, almost certainly do not read these devotions in the same manner in which I do.  I know how much, contrary to my aversion to much repetition, I repeat myself.  I know how often I repeat myself in these posts based on different lectionaries.  I know that I have already repeated myself many times regarding the Gospel pericope for this Sunday as I repeat myself yet again–this time, regarding an ancient, supposedly orthodox hermeneutical tradition that is wrong because it violates the dogma of the perfection of Jesus.

At least since the time of St. Ephrem of Edessa (306/307-373), Jesus initially rejected the plea of the Syro-Phoenician woman heal her daughter, but the woman changed our Lord and Savior’s mind through her persistence .  This tradition has informed every analysis of the pericope I have read in commentaries and heard in sermons, regardless of how liberal or conservative they were.  St. Ephrem was orthodox, certainly according to the standards of his time.

That element of supposed orthodoxy is heretical.  (That charge means much coming from me, one who owns a shirt that reads, “heretic.”)  The thought of Jesus honestly calling he woman a “little bitch” (the closest translation in English) is one that runs afoul of sound Christology.

Jesus, who had purposefully entered Gentile territory, was testing the woman.  He was making comments so she would refute them.  He liked her answer, the one he wanted to hear.  Then he healed her child.

Sometimes we need to say something, to express our faith audibly.

God exceeds our wildest imaginations.  It welcomes and beckons those who are similar to us and those who have little in common with us.  If that makes us uncomfortable, we have a spiritual problem.  If we do, we need to take it to Jesus.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JULY 24, 2019 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF THOMAS À KEMPIS, ROMAN CATHOLIC MONK, PRIEST, AND SPIRITUAL WRITER

THE FEAST OF JOHN NEWTON, ANGLICAN PRIEST AND HYMN WRITER

THE FEAST OF WALTER RAUSCHENBUSCH, U.S. BAPTIST MINISTER AND THEOLOGIAN OF THE SOCIAL GOSPEL

THE FEAST OF SAINTS VINCENTIA GEROSA AND BARTHOLOMEA CAPITANIO, COFOUNDERS OF THE SISTERS OF CHARITY OF LOVERE

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Adapted from this post:

https://ordinarytimedevotions.wordpress.com/2019/07/24/devotion-for-proper-17-year-b-humes/

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