The Gospel lection for this Sunday (September 8, 2024, in the Episcopal edition of the Revised Common Lectionary, Year B, Proper 18) is Mark 7:24-27. It includes two pericopes, including one of the Gospel accounts of the story of a Gentile woman whose child is ill:

Jesus set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

In the parallel story found in Matthew’s Gospel (where the woman is referred to as Canaanite), the disciples intervene, and Jesus almost seems to take his cue from them. I think most women can relate to how this woman must have felt in that scenerio.

Many interpretations of this story abound, from the more classic “Jesus was trying to test her faith” to the more contemporary accusation that Jesus was being a little racist, or even—to find a middle ground—that he was tired and didn’t want to be bothered, or he was laser-focused on his mission and simply needed convincing that he could minister to Gentiles too.

One of my side gigs is to prepare bulletins for a parish church, and in doing so, I like to find art for the bulletin cover. (Sadly, I can only print the bulletins in greyscale). This week, I found this captivating painting:

I wanted to share in this space what I wrote up for the bulletin. It’s short; that’s the nature of a bulletin blurb. So, no analysis of the biblical text from me; just this reflection on a work of art by an artist I wasn’t aware of before. Disclaimer: This is my reflection, knowing pretty much nothing about the artist, this piece, or his intentions.

This image has a modern style that takes cues from the icon tradition: rather than natural and realistic, the figures’ gestures are accentuated through the circular composition and contrasting angles. The mother’s distorted facial features draw our initial focus. The composition directs our eyes clockwise, following the daughter’s movement toward the begging dog, and back around to the mother’s hand and then again to contemplate her facial expression. While in her stillness she seems almost stoic, her gaze is active and demanding. While her one eye appears to be attentive toward her daughter, the other eye looms large, fixed on us, as if trying to determine whether we, the viewers—and also Jesus, perhaps—understand her point.

By leaving Jesus out of the scene, this image centers the woman, her relationship with her daughter, and her rejoinder that “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Here, the artist imagines the child actively sharing not only her crumbs, but what looks like a more substantial piece of her food with the dog. In answering the Syrophonecian woman’s request, Jesus gave her much more than crumbs. The daughter in this painting can be seen as embodying an admirable, child-like impulse to share what we ourselves have been given.