She Has Ears to Hear

Summary

People make assumptions about each other based on appearance, personal affiliation or both. A well-dressed person is assumed the better candidate; good taste is mistaken for competence or moral credibility; worst of all, people judge each other by association, as though a person's social circle, identity, family, or organizational affiliation have any bearing on their knowledge or wisdom. For instance, one might assume that the Pharisees—Israel's learned religious teachers—would understand Jesus. One might also assume that the disciples—the closest associates of Jesus—would be the first to grasp his parables, let alone his plain explanations. But in the Gospel of Mark, it is a woman—from a nation that is neither holy nor modest—who has no trouble accepting the criticism of Jesus or her station as the lowest and the least in his presence: a gentile dog. In this way, Mark demonstrates the teaching of Paul: “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:27-29) Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Mark 7:24-30. Episode 167 Mark 7:24-30; Subscribe: http://feedpress.me/the-bible-as-literature; “Shaving Mirror” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http:// creativecommons .org/ licenses /by/3.0/