Are you beset with gloom?
Gloomy because someone like me refuses to accept your dehumanizing
dream, crushing his nose for an answer?
Oh well, still I rise. Maya audacious,
defiant backtalk is a sassy refusal to accept the life restricting consequences
of the denials, discrimination, and oppression by a dominant center and
patriarchal system.
Today we hear of a similar sassy refusal to accept a denial
of life in our Gospel reading. Here too,
we hear backtalk to someone in a position of power, supernatural power, that is,
whose denial of life and wholeness is also one of discrimination and
exclusivity. The episode is tense, upsetting
and complicated.
I cannot speak for you, but such is certainly true for myself
and in fact, the same appears to be true for the author of the Gospel of Mark
who locates a tired and possibly quite aggravated Jesus in the region of Thyre,
a Gentile dominated territory. It is
hard to imagine Jesus being at ease. He
is alone, attempting to go unnoticed in a house in a region in which there is
some history of animosity between the Jews and the Gentiles.
view more