A Fresh Perspective

Well, let’s go ahead and admit it. This is a hard passage to hear. It’s a hard passage to hear because Jesus treats this non-Jewish woman so harshly. Mark says she was of Syrophoenician origin. Matthew calls her a Canaanite. But what both agree on is that she is a Gentile, a non-Jew. The hard thing about this story is that in Jesus’ initial response to this Gentile woman, he treats her with a harshness and a disdain that is so unlike the Jesus we read about in so many of the other Gospel stories. In story after story Jesus extends welcome and hospitality to all people, tax collectors and prostitutes, poor and wealthy, unreligious and religious, Samaritans and Gentiles. In an attempt to lessen the impact of Jesus’ words it has been pointed out by some that “dogs” were pets and members of the family as they are today. And while that’s true, it’s fairly obvious Jesus does not use the word here in a positive sense. And the fact is, most often when this word in used in ancient Jewish ...

The late William Sloan Coffin, when he was chaplain at Yale University , would sometimes ask students, “Who tells you who you are?” Coffin knew all too well the power of higher education to tell students who they are. I ask myself, “Who tells me who I am?” My greatest regret is that for a large part of my life my need to be somebody—to be successful, popular, and important—influenced so many of my decisions and controlled so much of my thought. My ego, attached to American ideals of success, determined who I was. In high school, I strove to be a stand-out basketball player so I would be popular. I danced to the music of whatever tune would win me applause. One Sunday in church, a girl from another high school attended my Sunday School class. Attracted to her, I asked her out and we started dating. She was not popular and I began to catch drift of rumors questioning my judgment. She was a good person—real and authentic; I was shallow and superficial, driven by ego. Wit...

In John 21:1–19, Jesus asks Peter three times, “Do you love me?” Peter is singled out not because Peter is more noteworthy than the others. Peter functions in a kind of representative role. He is the one who tends to talk the most and shout the loudest. The three times that Jesus addresses Peter corresponds to Peter’s three denials (18:17, 25–27). All the disciples betrayed Jesus and fled in fear, but Peter was the most adamant in his claim to loyalty. He had insisted that he would never desert Jesus. It was painful for Peter to have to respond to Jesus three times, each time remembering his betrayals. Jesus holds no grudge; there is no retribution. We need not fear condemnation, but we all, like Peter, must be led through a process whereby we face the pain our betrayals and denials and failures have caused those we have hurt. Without such a process we cannot enter into the new covenant of forgiveness. It’s not that God withholds forgiveness, it’s simply that we will be u...