Mk 7:24-30
24[Jesus] went off to the district of Tyre. He entered a house and wanted no one to know about it, but he could not escape notice. 25Soon a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him. She came and fell at his feet. 26The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter. 27He said to her, “Let the children be fed first. For it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” 28She replied and said to him, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.” 29Then he said to her, “For saying this, you may go. The demon has gone out of your daughter.” 30When the woman went home, she found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.
The woman was a Greek: The Old Testament teaches how foreigners should be treated—with care and with kindness. And the reason is simple: because the Jews were themselves aliens once. With the world shrinking because of technology and travel made easy, it is commonplace to meet foreigners every day and everywhere. And come to think of it, we are all aliens in this “valley of tears.” We have one real home, and that is heaven, and only one Father who is in heaven.
Jesus comes to us as a foreigner. But he treats everyone as neighbor, even though he and his message remain foreign to some until the end. That is why his test or challenge is, “Who acted as neighbor?” (cf Lk 10:36). There is no foreigner for a Christian.
Greek Woman: The district of Tyre in Phoenicia, north of Galilee, is inhabited by pagan Hellenist Orientals. The woman who meets Jesus is not from Greece; she is a native Phoenician whose culture is from Syria which, in turn, is influenced by Greek civilization spread by Alexander the Great and his successors. Being worshipers of idols and foreigners, she and her kind are seen as “dogs,” a strong insult since dogs were scavengers and not domestic pets. The woman confesses her unworthiness and is rewarded with the cure of her daughter.