Theology Today - Vol 51, No. 4 - January 1995 - ARTICLE

508 - Spirit, Mercy, and the Other

Spirit, Mercy, and the Other
By Judith Gundry-Volf 1

The Gospel stories of Jesus' encounters with the Samaritan woman (Jn. 4:1-42) and the Syrophoenician woman (Mk. 7:24-30; Matt. 15:21-28) can both be read as tales about the inclusion of the other," about crossing the boundaries caused by ethnic, religious, social and gender otherness and bringing about a new, inclusive community of salvation. Exclusion is overcome in two radically different ways in these stories, so that they present us with two different, but complementary, models for dealing with a problem both urgent and complex in our own world. In John 4, the divine gift of the Spirit breaks down barriers between people and leads to reconciliation and fellowship. In Mark 7 and Matthew 15, human insistence on divine mercy, which is blind mercy, dramatically reverses a pattern of exclusion.

LIVING WATER

"How is it that you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?" (Jn. 4:9). So the woman at the well answered Jesus when, wearied from a long journey, he bid her give him a drink of water. It was a simple request, yet at the same time an extremely problematic one. The evangelist explains why: "For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans" (Jn. 4:9). Either he had in mind the fact that Jews could contract ritual impurity by using a common vessel to draw water ² or that they avoided social contact

Judith Gundry-Volf is Associate Professor of New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary and author of Paul and Perseverance: Staying in and Falling Away (1990),

¹ I would like to thank Miroslav Volf and Young Lee Hertig for the inspiration they provided in my reflections on the multicultural dimensions of the biblical texts and Robert H.Gundry for his helpful comments on the earlier version.
² Mishna Nidda 4.1 states: "The daughters of the Samaritans are [deemed unclean as] menstruants from their cradle" (Danby's edition, p. 748). It may reflect an earlier attitude; on this text see David Daube, "Jesus and the Samaritan Woman: the Meaning of συγχρāσaz," Journal of Biblical Literature, 69 (1950), pp. 137-147.

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in general with Samaritans, as also with Gentiles. Jews found plenty of religious reasons for such avoidance: The Samaritans, although they came to worship Yahweh, recognized only the Pentateuch as scripture, and their holy mountain was Gerizim, not Zion. ³ The Jews regarded the Samaritans' Yahwism as a "thin veneer spread, for convenience, over an essential and deep-seated heathenism." ⁴ There was also a history of conflict between the two peoples. The Samaritans had impeded the Jews' restoration of Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile and aided Syria in wars against the Jews. The Jews in turn had burned down the Samaritan temple on Gerizim in 128 B.C. The hostility was, thus, mutual. All of this forms the background for the woman's question, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?" It was indeed an unlikely request-yet, for the reader of this story, not unprepared for.

Already in the narrative, Jesus has acted in disregard of expectations and taboos. He took the route from Judaea to Galilee less travelled by Jews, the one through Samaria (4:3-4). ⁵ Jews who wanted to avoid contact with Samaritans went the longer and more difficult way through Perea. Jesus comes to the Samaritan city of Sychar (4:5). Not only does he not avoid Samaritan territory, he strikes up a conversation with one of the natives. Moreover, the native he engages in conversation is a woman.

“Jesus’ request for a drink of water, therefore, is deceptively simple. To make it, he had to cross great gulfs-geographical, ethnic, religious, and gender in nature."

Now, Jewish men were supposed to avoid contact with women, who were seen to pose a threat of seduction. Even conversation with one was dangerous: "Meet not a strange woman, lest you fall into her nets…. By the comeliness of a woman many have been ruined" (Sir. 9:3-9). This stereotypical view of women explains the disciples' shock when they return to the well: "They marveled that he was speaking with a woman" (4:27). But, just as Jesus did not shun the Samaritans, so also he does not treat this woman as an obstacle in his path. For him, she is not a sex object to be held at a distance. He is ready to join in conversation with her, in fact to enter a theological dialogue (as he does later), as well as to share her water jar. Jesus' request for a drink of water, therefore, is deceptively

³ Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John I-XII (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co., 1966), pp. 171-72. But see Jerome Neyrey, "Jacob Traditions and the Intepretation of John 4:10-26," Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 41 (1979), pp. 419-437. for Jewish traditions that challenged Jerusalem as the right place of worship; cf. also R. J. Coggins, Samaritans and Jews: The Origins of Samaritanism Reconsidered (Atlanta: John Knox, 1975), pp. 140-142.
⁴ T. H. Gaster, "Samaritans," in The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. 4 (Nashville: Abingdon, 1962), p. 191.
⁵ He "had to" (edei) pass through Samaria" (4:4) suggests either the necessity of taking the shorter way, or a divine necessity.

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simple. To make it, he had to cross great gulfs-geographical, ethnic, religious, and gender in nature. ⁶

The Samaritan woman's question, "How is it that you ask me for a drink?" shows that she recognized the barrier-breaking significance of Jesus' request. It struck her because it was so improbable. Furthermore, it must have struck her favorably. Here was a Jew who did not impose on her the Jewish stereotype of a Samaritan, someone with whom he wanted nothing to do. Here was a man who did not impose on her the stereotype of a woman. And her experience with men seems, indeed, to have been unfortunate: She had had five husbands, and the man she had now was not her husband (4:17-18). ⁷ She had doubtless experienced suffering in those relationships, possibly, also unjust suffering. Her experience with Jesus was different. He pierced through the stereotypes and saw her as a woman who had come to draw water but was in need of much more than the water Jacob's well could provide. She needed living water.

What is the "living water"? The Samaritan woman takes it to be flowing water, or spring water (cf. 4:11), which was superior to water that collected through infiltration in a well. She understands that Jesus is claiming to give better water than the water of Jacob's well; therefore, he must know of a source of better flowing water (4:11).⁸ Most interpreters think that the woman is completely mistaken. The "living water" is not water that comes from a spring; rather, Jesus means the "water of life." These are not really alternatives, however. For Jesus says that the living water he gives "will become a spring of water which bubbles up unto eternal life" (4:14). While the woman's understanding of living water is mistaken in a literal sense, it is true in a figurative sense: The living water has the superior qualities of spring water. As the story unfolds, those superior qualities become evident. Not only does the living water begin to well up in the Samaritan woman and her fellow Samaritans to eternal life as they believe in Jesus as the savior of the world. The living water also overflows the boundaries dividing the figures in this story and envelops them in a new, inclusive fellowship. It is this reconciling power of the living water between people that deserves further attention.

The Samaritan woman needs this kind of living water. Jesus addresses her need: "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given

⁶ Bultmann comments: "Jesus' request for water signified an abandonment of the Jewish viewpoint. The problem is brought out by the astonished question of the woman (v. 9): how can Jesus, as a Jew, ask a Samaritan woman for a drink?" (John, p. 78); cf. Gail O'Day, Revelation in the Fourth Gospel. Narrative Mode and Theological Claim (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), p. 58.
⁷ Allegorical interpretations of her five husbands-they have been taken to represent various aspects of Samaritan religion-have fallen out of favor.
⁸ Jacob's well may have provided spring water, since both the terms pege, "spring," (4:6, close to "fountain," see H. G. Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. πηγή, II) and phrear, "well," (4:11, 12, close to "cistern," see Liddell and Scott, Lexicon, s.v. Φρέαρ, 2), are used for it here. But this possibility need not destroy the contrast between the "living water" and the water of Jacob's well.

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you living water" (4: 10). She had come to her people's well to draw water. But that water could not supply her deeper need. Indeed, Jacob's well itself symbolizes the need for reconciliation between people. It stands for the alienation between Samaritans and Jews, for it is the well of the Samaritan patriarch that supplied him and the Samaritan community for generations (4:12), but whose water is inaccessible for a thirsty Jewish traveler with no vessel with which to draw (4:1 1). Jacob's well also symbolizes the Samaritan woman's alienation from her very own people. Note that she comes to draw water at the sixth hour, or in the middle of the day, counting from 6 A.M. She does not come in the morning or evening, when others would be drawing water, but at the hottest time of the day. ⁹ She seems to be trying to avoid social contact. Jesus is alone at the well when she arrives. Perhaps she had been ostracized because of her irregular marital history, which included multiple remarriages and current nonmarital status. ¹⁰ Jacob's well thus stands for the bitter water of her marginalization.

Jesus' spring, by contrast, is a symbol of the sweet water of inclusion. As the Samaritan woman experiences inclusion through Jesus' dismantling of ethnic, religious, and gender barriers, she begins to taste this water and, then, to thirst after it. ¹¹ Her initial, reflex response to Jesus is filled

"Forget the paternal well! She will not be deprived of Jesus' spring. "

with ethnic and religious pride. She is skeptical of his claim to have something better than the water from Jacob's well. "You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do you get that living water? You are not greater than our father Jacob, are you, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself, and his sons, and his cattle?" (4:12). How is a weary and thirsty foreigner with no water jar going to provide something

⁹ But some count the sixth hour from 12 o'clock, which would put her trip to the well at a normal time. Against this construal, however, is the fact that nobody else seems to be present at the well besides Jesus.
¹⁰ Gail R. O'Day warns against assuming the woman had been divorced numerous times, since there are other ways to account for her marital history, e.g., Levirate marriage ("John," in The Woman's Bible Commentary, edited by Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe [Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1992], p. 296). In any case, her marital history was irregular and could have drawn criticism or disapproval.
¹¹ Since the woman must have interpreted the living water in the light of Jesus' unexpectedly favorable behavior toward her, it is simplistic to say that she just viewed the living water as magical water and thus totally misunderstood Jesus, as, for example, Josef Blank does: "She had not understood that the point is the new, eschatological existence of human beings, the radical new quality of life which is different from everything earthly" ("Frauen in den Jesusüberlieferungen," in: Die Frau im Urchristentum, edited by G. Dautzenberg, et al. (Quaestiones Disputatae 95; Freiburg: Herder, 1983), p. 75 (translation mine).

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better than Jacob's well has done for generations? ¹² Bultmann's explanation of the obstacle to the woman's believing in Jesus misses the dimension of presumed ethnic superiority. The obstacle is not simply that the Revealer is clothed in the form of a "tired traveller" ¹³ but that he is a Jew and that he challenges the Samaritan hero. ¹⁴ At first, the woman grasps onto traditional notions of ethnic and religious superiority.

Yet these are not finally satisfying. Jacob's well is reliable and familiar, but superior living water would relieve her of recurring thirst and the wearisome and lonely journey to the well. Further, Jesus' open and accepting manner has intrigued the woman. So she abandons her stance on Samaritan ethnic and religious superiority in favor of something that Promises to be better: "Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty, nor come all the way here to draw" (4:15). Forget the paternal well! She will not be deprived of Jesus' spring.

Her hunch about Jesus and the living water receives further confirmation. Jesus speaks with prophetic insight about the woman's life: "You have had five husbands; and the one whom you now have is not your husband" (4:18). She concludes that he is a prophet (4:19), for he told her all the things she had done (4:29, 39). But not only his insight, also his compassion must have impressed her. Knowing all she had done, he did not reject her but reached out to her, a Samaritan, a woman, an outcast. Her estimation of Jesus grows. He is indeed greater than "our father Jacob." For he brings a new quality of life that alleviates her own physical and social suffering.

Indeed, it appears that he is the Coming One: He "told me all the things that I have done; this is not the Christ, is it?" (4:29). ¹⁵ She shares the expectation that when the Messiah comes, "he will declare all things to us" (4:25). She has seen Jesus demonstrate this ability. But it is surely not this ability in and of itself alone that suggests to the woman that he is the Messiah. Rather his declaration of all the things she had done is the critical indicator. For he brings her deeds to the light, and she now stands completely exposed before the Revealer-yet she stands! And with outstretched arms he offers her the living water. Is not this the promised blessing, the messianic blessing of shalom?

¹² Neyrey suggests that the tradition of Jacob's well as miraculously overflowing (cf. Tgs. Yer. 1, II, Neof Gen 28:10) stands behind the woman's remark: Without a bucket, Jesus will have to perform such a miracle to provide water ("Jacob Traditions," pp. 422-23).
¹³ Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971), p. 132.
¹⁴ Jacob played an important role in legitimizing the Samaritan's claim that Gerizim was the right place of worship. See Neyrey, "Jacob Traditions," p. 427. Nevertheless, Jewish sources also claim Jacob in support of Jerusalem as the right place of worship. The discussion of the living water of Jesus versus the water from Jacob's well is a continuation of, not a break with, the Jew-Samaritan issue raised in 4:9, contra Bultmann, John, pp. 130-31, who thinks that the issue is not taken up again until vv. 20-26.
¹⁵ The Samaritans expected a Taheb, a prophet like Moses (on the basis of Deut. 18:15-18), not a royal Davidic Messiah, although the term messķas is put on the woman's lips in Jn. 4:25. On the Samaritan Taheb, see F. Dexinger, "Der Taheb. Ein 'messianischer' Heilsbringer der Samaritaner," Kairos 27 (1985), pp. 1-172.

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The living water satisfies. The woman leaves her water jar at the well and goes back to the city (4:28). What need does she have for a water jar when she has drunk the living water that makes one never thirst again? She goes to her fellow Samaritans to tell them of this Jesus who offers something better than their patriarch Jacob. "Come, see the man . . . !" She brings this good news to the very people who had ostracized her. They too, like Jesus, know the things she had done, but unlike Jesus, they had rejected her. The ethnic bond was a thin veneer over a thick layer of alienation between her and her people. But when the living water flows, boundaries are traversed, social and gender boundaries as well as ethnic ones. The differences no longer separate. The woman regains a voice in her community, her witness is heard and believed, and her key role in the salvation of the Samaritans is recognized, as we find out in the climax to the story.

The Samaritans in the city listen to the woman's testimony, they heed her call to come and see, and they go out to Jesus to make the comparison themselves between the living water and the water of Jacob's well (4:28-30). And they, too, believe. They believe not just that Jesus is the Samaritan Messiah, the Taheb. They believe that he is the "Savior of the world" (4:39-42). ¹⁶ Ethnic and religious exclusivism is overcome once again. The reconciling power of the living water between people again comes to dramatic expression, for the city folk believe "because of the word of the woman who testified" (4:39). The one whom they had marginalized has now become the one through whom they believe. Thus, believing in Jesus is also at the same time reconciliation between those who are estranged, the creation of an inclusive fellowship.

And in the climax to this story where all boundaries are traversed through the inclusive power of the living water, the Samaritans press Jesus "to stay with them" (4:40). A Jewish traveler crossing through Samaria to Galilee ends up in the welcoming arms of his traditional antagonists. Samaritan skepticism-"How is it that you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?"-has given way to "Christian" hospitality in the deepest sense. Jesus accepts their offer and stays two days with the Samaritans (4:40). "And many more believed because of his word" (4:41). The entire story testifies that the gift of eternal life is experienced in the fellowship of those once estranged but now reconciled and that that fellowship is an integral part of the gift itself.

NEW WORSHIP OF GOD

This new inclusive fellowship is possible through the new worship of God that Jesus brings, and that is the subject of the final part of his conversation with the Samaritan woman (4:19-24). She puts to him the question of the true worship of God: "Our fathers worshiped on this

¹⁶ 0n the designation "Savior of the World" as transcending national boundaries, see Craig R. Koester," 'The Savior of the World'(John4:42), "Journal of Biblical Literature, 109 (1990), pp. 665-680.

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mountain; and you [Jews] say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship" (4:20). "This mountain" is Mount Gerizim, at the foot of which she and Jesus were standing; it is the traditional site of Jacob's well. The woman wants Jesus, who speaks with the authority of a prophet, to confirm that the Samaritans have the true worship of God, the Jews not. Gerizim and Jerusalem are mutually exclusive alternatives. Steeped in her own religious tradition, the woman can only pose the question of true worship in terms of this "either/or."

The question of true worship and the way in which it is posed in terms of mutually exclusive alternatives is really a continuation of the discussion on water at the beginning of Jesus' conversation with the Samaritan woman. The water of Jacob's well represents Samaritan worship. Neyrey observes that, in traditions concerning Jacob, his well is portrayed as "itself the cipher for knowledge, cult and spirit." ¹⁷ Here, that well stands over against the living water the Jewish Jesus has to offer, so that the woman sees herself forced to choose between Samaritan and Jewish cults. Thus "John's dialogue in chap. 4 intends the reader to link the well part of the discourse with the subsequent material on worship." ¹⁸

"Believing in Jesus is also at the same time reconciliation between those who are estranged, the creation of an inclusive fellowship. "

Jesus, however, "refuses to accept the alternative as such, but contrasts the present cultic division with the future." ¹⁹ "An hour is coming when neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall you worship the Father" (4:21). The new, true worship of God will not be tied to any particular cult. "An hour is coming and now is when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in Spirit and truth…. God is Spirit; and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth" (4:23-24). The new worship of God is thus worship in the Spirit, who indwells both Samaritan and Jewish believers in Jesus. It is ethnically inclusive worship; for that matter, it is also gender-inclusive and socially inclusive.

The hour of true worship has come with Jesus' gift of the living water, which is the Spirit (see 7:37-39). ²⁰ Just as the water of Jacob's well is superseded by the living water that Jesus gives, so also the Samaritan cult, and also the Jewish cult, are superseded by the new worship of God "in

¹⁷ Neyrey, "Jacob Traditions," p. 136.
¹⁸ Ibid.
¹⁹ Bultmann, John, p. 189.
²⁰ Cf. the association of water with Spirit in the Old Testament (e.g., Ezek. 36:25-27) and Qumran (e.g., IQS 4:19-21); cf. also Jn. 3:5, "born of water and Spirit." The use of the verb hallesthai at 4:14 for the "leaping" action of the living water also suggests its identification with the Spirit, which "leaps up" when it falls on a person (e.g., I Sam. 10:10 LXX). See Brown, John, pp. 171, 179.

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Spirit and truth. " ²¹ Jesus does not mean that true worship is essentially inward. Rather it is the indwelling Spirit, not the external cult which makes for true worship, so that both Samaritans and Jews worship in truth not by virtue of the legitimacy of their cult but because they have been "born of the Spirit" (3:5). The answer to the woman's question, on which mountain ought one to worship God, is thus: on no mountain, but in Spirit. Or: on any mountain-in Spirit.

THE CHILDREN'S BREAD

The story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman sits well with us. It portrays an admirable Jesus. He does not operate with stereotypes. He is open; he embraces people who are unlike him, even hostile to him. He does not try to squeeze them into a mold or demand their conformity to foreign ways for. the enjoyment of salvation. He patiently draws them out to see and desire this marvelous gift. He breaks down the barriers that stand between people. He gives the living water, the Spirit, and the blessings of salvation roll down to all.

That is not the same Jesus we encounter in Mark 7:24-30 and Matthew 15:21-28, however. These evangelists record an encounter of Jesus with another non-Jewish woman, the Syrophoenician, which is strikingly different from that with the Samaritan. In the story of the Syrophoenician woman, it seems that the barriers-ethnic, gender, socio-economic, and political-between her and Jesus will in fact prevail, that no inclusion of the Gentiles in salvation is in sight. Only at the end, after Jesus himself and the disciples have reinforced these barriers, do they fall through the Syrophoenician woman's own challenging of them. ²²

Jesus has withdrawn into the district of Tyre and Sidon. This was predominantly Gentile territory. ²³ But he does not seek any mission activity among the Gentiles .24 He wants privacy. In Mark, he retires to a house "and wanted no one to know" (7:24).

²¹ "Jesus, who supplants Jacob's well and water, replaces the reality for which well/water are symbols. As 'greater than Jacob' he supplants the old traditions of spirit, cult and knowledge which were associated with Jacob's well" (Neyrey "Jacob Traditions," p. 136).
²² The origin of the universal mission of the Christian church is debated. To what extent is it rooted in Jesus' ministry? The Gospels suggest different answers. For example, the exclusivism of Matt. 10:5-6 (see n. 30) contrasts with the inclusivism of John 4:4-42. But to what degree do texts such as the latter reflect the mission of later Christian communities? (CL C. Scobie, "Jesus or Paul? The Origin of the Universal Mission of the Christian Church," in From Jesus to Paul. Studies in Honour of Francis Wright Beare, edited by Peter Richardson and John C. Hurd [Waterloo, Ontario: University Press, 19841, pp. 47-60). It is not my intention to make historical judgments in comparing, on the one hand, the Johannine Jesus' openness to the Samaritan mission and, on the other hand, the Matthean Jesus' reservation about the Gentile mission in the texts discussed.
²³ Gerd Theissen, however, points to evidence for Jewish villages in these parts (Jos Bell 2.588; Vita 372; Ap 1.154), which suggests that Jesus could have found Jews to whom to minister there also (The Gospels in Context! Social and Political History in the Synoptic Tradition (Minneapolis: Fortress, 19911, pp. 67-68). For the socio-economic background of this pericope, I draw further on Theissen in the following discussion.
²⁴ Cf. Matt. 15:24; also 10:5-6: "Do not go in the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter any city of the Samaritans; but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."

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Nevertheless, a woman hears about him and seeks him out. She is "a Hellenist, of the Syrophoenician race" (Mk. 7:26; compare Matthew's "a Canaanite woman from that district," 15:22). She is both Gentile by race and Greek by culture. Hellenis, "hellenized person," refers to someone who speaks Greek and is otherwise integrated into Greek culture. The designation also suggests the woman's socio-economic rank, since Hellenization had had the greatest impact among the upper class. When this upper class, Greek-speaking Gentile woman comes to a Jewish Galilean wandering teacher and healer, as Theissen remarks, "Here two different 'social worlds' meet." ²⁵

From Jesus' standpoint as a Jew by race and a carpenter by trade, the differences would have been sore points as well. The inhabitants of Tyre are described by the Jewish historian Josephus as "notoriously our bitterest enemies" (Ap 1.13). There was a history of economic and political oppression of Jews by the cities of Tyre and Sidon. The Galilean back-country and rural regions around Tyre, where Jewish farmers could be found, produced most of the food for the city-dwellers. But the latter bought up and stored so much of the harvest for themselves each season and during times of crisis that the country folk did not have enough. ²⁶ Tyre and Sidon also posed a political threat to the Jews because the cities pursued a policy of territorial expansion to the south and to the east, which at times proved successful. ²⁷ So when a Syrophoenician Hellenist woman from this region seeks out help from Jesus, who has deliberately withdrawn from the public eye, her mission seems doomed from the start.

As the story unfolds, this impression is confirmed. Matthew's account brings this out most forcefully. The woman has to come out after Jesus and pursue him, shouting to get his attention. ²⁸ She cries out, "Have mercy on me, 0 Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon possessed." But her pathetic plea falls on deaf ears: "He did not answer her a word." She, however, kept shouting out her request. ²⁹

First the disciples turn against her. They ask Jesus to "send her away, for she is shouting after us." She is a pest. Jesus responds, apparently to the disciples, with a justification for his ignoring her: "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Jesus senses a divinely given responsibility to Jews but not to Gentiles such as the Syrophoenician woman. The mission he has embraced is defined by ethnic boundaries.

The woman finally catches up to them. She "came and began to worship him," that is, prostrated herself before him in a position of

²⁵ Theissen, Gospels in Context, p. 70.
²⁶ Galen, deprobis pravisque alimentorum succis, cap. 1; ed. Kühn VI 749f.
²⁷ Kings 9:10-14; Jos Ap 1. 110; Bell 3.35; 4.105 with Ant 13.154; in the Roman period, Ant 18.153.
²⁸ In Mark's version, she simply enters a house and falls at his feet and begs.
²⁹ Note the iterative senses of the imperfect ékrazen, "kept shouting" (15:22), and the present krįzei, "keeps shouting" (15:23), followed by the woman's coming and "saying," 1égousa (also present), "Lord, help me!" (15:25).

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worship. In this position, she addresses him as "Lord" and pleads "Help me!" Still her desperation does not affect Jesus. Surprisingly, even her worship of him as Lord ³⁰ does not lead him to respond in a way befitting his role as divine helper. He is still operating with two mutually exclusive alternatives. If he is sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, then he is not sent to the Gentiles. Again, he formulates the possibility of a mission to the Jews and a mission to the Gentiles as alternatives: "It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." The "children" are the Jews, children of Abraham. The "dogs" are the Gentiles. The term "dog" was used in a metaphorical sense for a Gentile. ³¹ If one throws the bread to the dogs, the children will be deprived. And, after all, it is the children's bread. In Mark, the opposition is less stark. The dogs will get the bread only after the children do: "Let the children get full first, for it is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." Mark's version allows for a mission to the Gentiles following the mission to the Jews and, thus, presents salvation not as limited to one ethnic group. But Matthew transforms "a reference to sequential priority into a flat refusal." ³² His Jesus does not even foresee the future salvation of Gentiles.

By the figure of speech Jesus uses, he appears not just to refuse the Syrophoenician woman but to insult her. The epithet "dogs" for Gentiles had derogatory connotations. Dogs roamed the streets scavenging for food, and the Jews considered them unclean animals. ³³ Further, if the economic oppression of Jews by Gentiles is conjured up by association through the term "bread," then Jesus' words could have a sarcastically insulting ring. Theissen suggests that Jesus may be using a familiar proverb that would have been understood to mean: "First let the poor people in the Jewish rural areas be satisfied. For it is not good to take poor people's food and throw it to the rich Gentiles in the cities." ³⁴ On the other hand, it is possible that Jesus' use of the stereotypical designation "dogs" for Gentiles is not pejorative. He could have in mind household pets rather than strays, since the dogs are pictured as eating by the table explicitly in the next verse and, perhaps, implicitly in the context of the feeding of the children. The use of the diminutive kynįrion may suggest the meaning "little dogs, puppies," ³⁵ which would also make the epithet non-pejorative. Yet the contrast between children and dogs remains. The woman is being told that she has no right to expect Jesus to help her.

³⁰ The address Kyrie probably means more than the usual "sir," given the woman's belief in Jesus' supernatural powers. Cf. Robert Gundry, Mark: A Commentary on his Apology for the Cross (Grand Rapids: Eardmans, 1993), p. 374.
³¹ See O. Michel, "kżōn, kynįrion," TDNT3, pp. 1101-1 102.
³² Robert Gundry, Matthew: A Commentary on his Literary and Theological Art (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), p. 314.
³³ See Michel, kżōn, pp. 1101-1102.
³⁴ Theissen, Gospels in Context, p. 75.
³⁵ Not, however, if it is a faded diminutive, one that has lost its diminutive force. See Gundry, Matthew, pp, 314-15.

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In this story, Jesus encounters the other but excludes her. He does not see his mission as encompassing her. But the other will not let herself be excluded!

RESISTING EXCLUSION

The Syrophoenician woman knocks down every obstacle in her path to making Jesus her Lord, the helper of the Gentiles. She meets his stony silence with more pleading. She drowns out the disciples' request for Jesus to send her away with her own repeated requests for Jesus to have mercy. She factually negates his exclusive mission to the Jews when she, a Gentile, calls him Lord and worships him. Finally, she cleverly turns his own maxim supporting exclusivism into an illustration of inclusivism in salvation.

Accepting the designation "dogs" for Gentiles, she turns it to the Gentiles' advantage in her illustration. The illustration is drawn from her domestic experience: mealtime around the table, at which even the lowliest members of her household receive nourishment. "Yes, Lord," she counters Jesus, "but even the dogs under the table feed on the children's crumbs" (Mk 7:28). In her maxim, the dogs and the children both eat. And they eat simultaneously. She bests both the Matthean and

"Jesus senses a divinely given responsibility to Jews but not to Gentiles such as the Syrophoenician woman. The mission he has embraced is defined by ethnic boundaries. "

the Markan Jesus: She denies both exclusivism and sequential priority in salvation based on ethnic identity. The Gentiles can have the bread of salvation, and they can have it now.

Jesus has the power to fulfill her request, she implies in Matthew's version of her illustration. The falling crumbs that the dogs eat come from "the masters' (kyrion) table" (Matt. 15:27). She has addressed Jesus as Kyrie, "Lord" (15:25). By implication, then, "the falling crumbs from the lords' table" must refer to the bread that Jesus, the Lord, gives. The "children's bread" is his to give. He must decide whether or not he will really withhold it from the Gentiles. She challenges him to rise up to a new, ethnically broadened sense of his mission and his Lordship. Although she does not point out the fact, how ironic it would be for Jesus to withhold the "children's bread" from a child, for whom she is entreating Jesus' help, her own daughter, cruelly possessed by a demon. Jesus had shown appreciation for the need of the children in his maxim: The children ought to receive bread. She capitalizes on this appreciation by

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implicitly contrasting it with the "factual devaluation of the need of her own child. " ³⁶ Even a household pet fares better.

BLIND MERCY

What was the source of the Syrophoenician woman's hope that Jesus would deliver her daughter, despite all the obstacles? What motivated her to persist in hope at every turn, to apply her ingenuity, her life experience, even her powerlessness as a woman by falling down at his feet and pleading for mercy, in pursuit of the miracle?

She does not appeal to any right. Jesus does not allow for any right of the Gentiles to the fruits of his mission, and she does not argue to the contrary. She accepts the position of "dogs" in contrast to "children." She cannot assume a position of strength over against Jesus. She is a woman, entreating for another woman, a double gender disadvantage in the context of male/female relations of the day. Even if she does come from a higher socio-economic status than Jesus, this is more a disadvantage than an advantage for her, since Jesus would presumably identify her with the oppressors of her Jewish neighbors. Her ethnicity, her gender, her socio-economic status-she can build on none of these things a case for Jesus' intervention.

Her appeal is rather to mercy. We see this in her body language: She came and fell at his feet, prostrated herself. We see it in her pleading: "Have mercy on me, OLord, Son of David…. Lord, help me!" We see it also in her argumentation. She counters Jesus' assertion that the dogs ought not to get the children's bread with an assertion that the dogs can expect mercy-the falling crumbs-nevertheless. Thus, Gentiles can expect deliverance from the Son of David. How does she come to this conclusion? The woman does not meet in Jesus the grace that crosses ethnic boundaries. She concludes it from her domestic experience. The dogs around her own table certainly do not have the same status as her beloved daughter, and the food is not prepared for them. Yet they are fed just as her daughter is. Mercy is a principle by which a woman runs her household. If she operates this way every day, would not also the Lord, who is in a far better position to exercise his power mercifully? Viewing the situation from her own life context, the woman must have been stunned at Jesus' duty-bound reluctance to work a miracle for a Gentile.

But this does not become a "stone of stumbling" for her. She believes. She believes that divine mercy knows no bias. And she believes that Jesus will show this kind of mercy. As she expresses this faith in him, he also begins to believe. He, the one sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, can also do a miracle for a Gentile woman. He can extend help even to a Syrophoenician Hellenist, who belonged to his and his people's oppressors. For mercy is unbounded, Jesus rises up to her faith in him as Lord of Gentile as well as Jew, of oppressor as well as victim. When he marvels at

³⁶ Theissen, Gospels in Context, 80.

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her faith, exclaiming "O woman, your faith is great" (Matt. 15:28), he does so not as one who has simply tested her faith and approved it, but as one who is himself inspired by her faith. ³⁷

Jesus also performed a miracle for the Roman centurion, another Gentile, and marvelled at his faith (Matt. 8:5-13). Yet that incident does not force the issue of a Gentile mission, as does this one. ³⁸ The Roman centurion too believed that Jesus could do a long-distance miracle: "Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering great pain…. I am not qualified for you to come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed." The centurion appeals to Jesus' unchallenged authority in hope of a miracle. He too finds an analogy in his own sphere of power: "For even I am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, 'Go!' and he goes, and to another, 'Come!' and he comes, and to my slave, 'Do this!' and he does it." Here Jesus sees no problem for his exclusive mission to the Jews in the fact that a Gentile is seeking help from him. Perhaps the reason is that the centurion has approached Jesus man to man, commander to commander. The commonality between them apparently bridges the ethnic gap. Jesus responds without hesitation to the centurion's faith (8:7, 13). But this ministry to a Gentile is not programmatic; a Gentile mission does not develop from it.

“Viewing the situation from her own life context, the woman must have been stunned at Jesus' duty-bound reluctance to work a miracle for a Gentile.”

The basis on which Jesus performs the miracle, namely, his unchallenged authority, does not imply the extension of his mission to Gentiles on a broad basis.

Not so in the case of the Syrophoenician woman. Her kind of faith, faith in unbiased, undeserved mercy-the faith of the powerless, not of

³⁷ Cf. Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel, A Land Flowing with Milk and Honey: Perspectives on Feminist Theology (New York: Crossroads, 1986), p. 122: "The result of this activity of women is that Jesus changes. Thanks to the Canaanite woman Jesus also becomes the helper and healer of the Gentiles." The solution to the difficulty posed by the pericope-namely, that Jesus refuses a request for the healing of a child by saying that "children" are to be preferred to "dogs"-lies in the transformation of Jesus' understanding of his mission through the woman. This growth in understanding of his mission is to be understood in terms of his humanity and does not diminish the fact that Mark and Matthew show a strong interest in portraying Jesus as divine (e.g., Mk. 1:1 1; 2:5-12; 3:1 1; 9:7; 12:35-37; Matt. 1:23; 2:15; 11:25-27; 14:33; 16:16; 28:19). Cf. Theissen's critique of three other resolutions of the difficulty of the pericope: the biographical, the paradigmatic, and the salvation-historical interpretations (Gospels in Context, pp. 62-65); contrast Theissen's own solution: Jesus' rejection of the Gentile woman should be understood in the context of oppression of Jews by Gentiles in the region from which the woman came (pp. 65ff.).
³⁸ 1n Matt. 8:11-12, Jesus simply notes that, at the messianic banquet, "many shall come from east and west, and recline at table with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven," whereas "the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness," and then continues his mission to Israel.

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the powerful-did not overshadow her ethnic and gender otherness but highlighted it. In the encounter with her, Jesus is faced squarely with the contradiction between fulfilling this Gentile's request and his perceived mission to Israel alone. Yet, when the powerless woman impresses on him the power of mercy that is not based on privilege through birth or deserts, Jesus' sense of his mission is expanded through this principle of mercy, the basis of her faith. In this light, he senses how appropriate it is that Gentiles should experience the fruit of his work now. So, finally, Jesus says the word-"Be it done for you as you wish"-"and her daughter was healed at once" (Matt. 15:28). Fittingly, her wish determined Jesus' action, for she rightly expected divine grace to be extended to the Gentiles.

The principle of blind mercy that intrudes into Jesus' understanding of his mission through the Syrophoenician woman does result in an extension of his mission to Gentiles, broadly speaking. In Matthew, Jesus immediately goes to the Sea of Galilee, attracts great crowds, and heals many, so that the multitude "glorified the God of Israel" (15:29-31). This last statement identifies the crowds as Gentiles. ³⁹ The aloofness and disinterest toward Gentiles that the Syrophoenician woman experienced have warmed to compassion and active concern, evident in Jesus' feeding

“Her kind of faith, faith in unbiased, undeserved mercy-the faith of the powerless, not of the powerful-did not overshadow her ethnic and gender otherness but highlighted it. “

of the four thousand (15:32-38). Surveying the throng, he says, "I feel compassion for the multitude, because they have remained with me now for three days and have nothing to eat, and I do not wish to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way." Whereas "he did not answer her a word," now he expresses words of compassion for the Gentiles. Whereas the disciples wanted Jesus to "send" the woman away, Jesus does not want to "send" the crowds away hungry. ⁴⁰ Whereas he initially denied "bread" to the "dogs," here he feeds the four thousand Gentiles with "bread" and fish. Whereas Jesus intended that only the children "be satisfied," the multitude of Gentiles "are satisfied" at the miraculous feeding. Whereas there would not be bread for the children if it were thrown to the dogs, Jesus multiplies it, so there is now so much that seven baskets full of leftovers remain after the feeding.

Jesus does not try to hide from the crowds in Gentile territory (as in Mark). He launches out to minister to them. Matthew's redaction of

³⁹ Further, the Sea of Galilee is associated with Gentiles in 4:13-18.
⁴⁰ The reader should consult the Greek text for the exact correspondences in terminology of the terms in quotation marks here and in the following sentences.

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Mark emphasizes Jesus' intent to minister to Gentiles. ⁴¹ Jesus embraces the Gentiles as part of his mission field and thus shows the triumph of divine mercy over ethnically based exclusivism.

This triumph is portrayed as coming about through a Gentile woman's bold and persuasive insistence that God's mercy is not doled out along ethnic, gender, or socio-cultural lines. The proof comes with Jesus' climactic exorcism of the demon from the Gentile girl. Her faith and his power provide models for overcoming the exclusion and rejection of the other." For with the exorcism of the demon from the little girl's body, "the equally threatening demon of prejudice between the members of different nations and cultures was 'driven out.'" "The miracle would not consist [only] in healing someone far away, but in the overcoming of an equally divisive distance: the prejudice-based distance between nations and cultures, in which the divisive prejudices are not simply malicious gossip, but have a real basis in the social, economic, and political relationships between two neighboring peoples. " ⁴² Finally, it should not go unmentioned that the Syrophoenician woman's challenging of exclusion through divine mercy and wrestling for the divine blessing was for the sake of a child, a powerless one, and for that child's liberation.

One day after having worked on this article, I left my office and was waiting outside for my husband to pick me up. I was standing on the curb at a place where there is a lot of foot traffic. It is a downtown neighborhood, not an upscale one, and people of all descriptions could be seen passing by. Some were well-dressed, others had tattered clothes. There were people of all skin colors, students, business people, children, street people. I don't remember whether I was still thinking about Jesus and the Samaritan woman and the Syrophoenician woman. But I saw a man approach me. He was very thin and his clothes were dirty. He looked me in the eye. His eyes were sad, but expectant. He asked me if I had a penny for him. "I'm a homeless person," he said. I was feeling nervous. The man had come close and was standing quite near, as near as a good acquaintance would. I had a good lump of cash in my wallet and was concerned about that. I wanted to give him some money, but didn't want to take my eyes off him while searching for it. I couldn't be sure he wouldn't pull out a weapon, or grab my purse and run. When you live in greater Los Angeles such things enter your mind, especially if you are a woman. You hear stories, not just in the newspaper, but from your students, your friends. "I won't do you no harm," he assured me. I opened my purse and quickly pulled out some change. I put the coins in his open, thin, black hand. He lifted up his head and looked at me again, still standing close. "God bless you," be said. A gust of alcohol blew into my face as be spoke the words. Then he turned away, counting the money as he went. It was over. I was relieved. At that moment the car pulled up to the curb, my

⁴¹ See Gundry, Matthew, p. 310.
⁴² Theissen, Gospels in Context, pp. 79-80.

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husband behind the wheel. I got in and was whisked away to my home on the edge of the city.

The next time I thought about the Samaritan woman and the Syrophoenician woman, the man came to my mind. He had come to me asking for just a penny, because he was thirsty, he needed a drink. The demon of his addiction possessed him and made him seek to fulfill its desires. I gave him what he asked for, basically, just a little bit more. That sent him away. I had felt the barriers between us: he was a black man and I am a white woman; he was a street person, I am an academician; he was poor, I am rich by comparison. The stereotypes came without being invited. This man may be a threat to me; in any case, he is not someone with whom I have anything to do. No boundaries were crossed. No fellowship came about. No living water was tasted. I just gave him some change and he went to buy his liquor. It was not the first bottle, and it would not be the last. He would be thirsty again, until he drank the living water welling up like a spring, the water of life that overflows the barriers. He went off without any miracle of liberation. In fact, it was I who received the blessing from him: "God bless you," were his parting words.