Running naked with a Gentile woman

Genesis 2:18-25

The LORD God said:
"It is not good for the man to be alone.
I will make a suitable partner for him."
So the LORD God formed out of the ground
various wild animals and various birds of the air,
and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them;
whatever the man called each of them would be its name.
The man gave names to all the cattle,
all the birds of the air, and all the wild animals;
but none proved to be the suitable partner for the man.

So the LORD God cast a deep sleep on the man,
and while he was asleep, he took out one of his ribs
and closed up its place with flesh.
The LORD God then built up into a woman
the rib that he had taken from the man.
When he brought her to the man, the man said:

"This one, at last, is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
this one shall be called 'woman,'
for out of 'her man' this one has been taken."

That is why a man leaves his father and mother
and clings to his wife,
and the two of them become one flesh.

The man and his wife were both naked, yet they felt no shame.

No shame huh? Any of you who are parents have no doubt from time to time had toddlers running naked through your house (at least I hope they are toddlers). I have had my fair share of naked toddlers over the years. What they all have in common is that they don't care if they are naked. They feel no shame. Why is that? They have an innocence about them that we "grown-ups" have lost. This original innocence seems to be lost by the time a child reaches the age of accountability. As a child becomes more and more accountable for their actions they seem to lose that childlike innocence they had when they were 2 or 3 running through the house yelling "catch me Daddy", wearing nothing but a smile on their face. Adam and Eve had this original innocence up to the point they ate the forbidden fruit. As we will see tomorrow, when they ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, "their eyes were opened and they both realized they were naked".  I'll speak more about that in another article.

When we were children, we didn't see the evil in the world. When we were children, we couldn't see the sin in the world. When were were children, those we admired could do no wrong. As we have grown older, we see things differently. We see the right from the wrong at a price of our childhood innocence. Nowadays it seems like people are trying to take things that are evil and wrong and whitewash it with what is right, pure, and holy. What we have then is the whole nothing of "gray area". Sadly the "gray area" is beginning to overtake both the evil and the good. One drop of black paint placed in a bucket of white paint still stains the paint a shade of gray and is no longer white. Therefore, even the "gray area" contains evil, even if it is "pleasing to the eye" and "tastes good", it's still evil.

Mark 7:24-30

Jesus went to the district of Tyre.
He entered a house and wanted no one to know about it,
but he could not escape notice.
Soon a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him.
She came and fell at his feet.
The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth,
and she begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter.
He said to her, "Let the children be fed first.
For it is not right to take the food of the children
and throw it to the dogs."
She replied and said to him,
"Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children's scraps."
Then he said to her, "For saying this, you may go.
The demon has gone out of your daughter."
When the woman went home, she found the child lying in bed
and the demon gone.

Mark tells us that Jesus is seeking to extend His ministry, His message, His Gospel to the non-Jews, the Gentiles. Up to this point, the Gospel has been a Jews only club. He leaves Galilee and goes way north. He meets a Gentile woman who has heard of him and seeked him out. Jews didn't associate with non Jews. They treated dogs, only slightly better than pigs, better than Gentiles. This is really one of Jesus' "mini-parables". Mark is full of these. The children are the Jews, the dogs are the Gentiles. The woman realizes this of course and in her humility she accepts what Jesus says that he needs to take care of the Jews first and that Gentiles will be taken care of next. This is of course all fulfilled with His Crucifixion. Once the work of Redemption was completed on the Cross, Salvation was for everyone, not just Jew. This non-believing gentile woman (non existing in the eyes of a Jew) had the humility to seek out Jesus, throw herself at His feet and beg for Him to cure her daughter. And when he gives her an explanation that it's not yet time, she ACCEPTS his answer. It's that acceptance, that combined faith and humility that moves Jesus to cure the daughter. We see this example time after time in Mark's Gospel.

Thought for the day: Would it not take childlike innocence to have the faith and humility this Gentile woman had to move Jesus to heal her daughter? That doesn't mean we as adults go running through the naked wearing nothing but a smile on their face yelling I just went potty! No sir you can keep that to yourself. How am I humble in my life? Am I willing to admit defeat or admit a mistake? How can I as an adult have the faith in Jesus as a child has faith in their parent?