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” [Mark 7:27-28]. In last week’s Gospel, Jesus confronted “the Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law” [Mark 7:1] regarding their holier-than-thou attitude, reminding them—without criticizing the Jewish law itself—that nothing outside a person could defile; it was what came from within a person that defiled [Mark 7:15]. As if to illustrate that very point, in this Sunday’s Gospel lesson, Mark 7:24-37 [the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, RCL,…
"Dispatches to the Front" -- a collection of theological meditations by Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., M.Div.