Mk 7:26 The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.

     

Mostly Jesus went to his own people, the Jews. There was a reason for that: they were a prepared people, and they were the people of God, and they should, therefore, have been the most receptive to him, and should have been able to become the light to the world that the Old Testament spoke about. Eventually it would be the time of the Gentiles, when God's people went to the rest of the world, to be witnesses, “in all Judea and Samaria , and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8)

 

But in Israel and on the fringes of Israel, for Jesus was up in the north near Tyre when this happened, there were Gentiles. This one, a Greek woman, heard and saw what Jesus was doing and facing the problem she had with her own child, realised that Jesus could help her. She didn't see racial boundaries and therefore what Jesus did for others, he could do for her. In a sense she came and prematurely pushed Jesus' boundaries out and, because he was full of grace (Jn 1:14 ) he responded to her and healed her daughter through deliverance.

 

Simple question: do we have racial or social boundaries that stop Jesus moving out to touch all the world? Are there people around us who we consider ‘beneath' us, or less than us, so we wouldn't consider sharing Jesus' love with them? This woman pushed the boundaries. So may we!