#BTColumn – The audacity of truth

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by Guy Hewitt

John 8:32 tells us “…the truth shall set you free.” But is this really the case? Or is it as Jack Nicholson’s character told Tom Cruise’s in the 1992 film ‘A Few Good Men,’ “You can’t handle the truth!” Nicholson may be right.

Some political theorists and philosophers claim we live in a ‘post-truth’ world, where there is no shared objective standard for truth, where facts less inform public opinion than random sentiment and points of view.

Consider those who claim COVID-19 is a conspiracy only to pay for their folly with their lives. Consider those who try to project an image of success while only one payment away from bankruptcy. Consider those who dismiss serious ailments as a passing condition. Consider those who try to explain away dysfunctional relationships as miscommunications and misunderstandings.

A recent US YouGov poll indicated that two-thirds of Republicans still believe the 2020 presidential election was rigged.
Too often persons seem unable or unwilling to handle the truth. In this week’s Gospel (Mark 7:24-37) we encounter the audacity of truth in the interaction between the Syrophoenician woman and Jesus as she seeks healing for her child. While this passage is often underemphasised, perhaps because Jesus seems to compare the woman to a dog, it is profoundly significant to those who seek truth.

Although unnamed, we are familiar with the woman in the Gospel narrative. We know of those who would go anywhere, do anything, risk everything to save their beloved child, or loved one. Although unnamed, we can empathise with her plight and hence may be troubled by Jesus’ initial response.

In trying to reconcile the notion of the perfection of Christ to this pleading woman being dismissed, as if a lesser being, some assert that the insult, her rejection, isn’t real but rather a test of her faith, which she obviously passes.

The trouble with this notion is that there is no mention of a test, as in Job. Others posit that the narrative simply describes the focus of Jesus’ mission on the children of Israel.

The context of the story is that Jesus is far from home, in the Gentile region of Tyre and Sidon without his disciples and followers.
The narrative makes clear he seeks solitude. While we don’t know why he desires seclusion, we can presume it may be a combination of physical, emotional, and spiritual exhaustion.

We know that he has recently been feeding the multitudes, healing the sick, liberating the demon-possessed, and confronting the Pharisees – all while trying to teach his seemingly clueless disciples and being rejected by his townspeople. For any understandably human reasons, we feel he deserves a break.

In this short narrative we encounter Jesus who is in every sense as much human as divine. His journey that meanders through the wilderness experience, agony in the garden and ultimately the anguish on the cross, confirms that he is authentically one of us.
The good news is that Jesus, who is both fully human and fully divine, shows us what it means to be transformed, overcoming the influences of culture, time, and place. There is no piece of scripture that brings this across more clearly.

This narrative bears witness to a Messiah who is taken beyond ransoming his life for the children of Israel towards making disciples of all nations. In Abraham’s negotiation on the judgement pronounced on Sodom, we find precedent for God having his perspective altered (Genesis 18:16-33).

The Syrophoenician woman’s response “ . . . even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs” is profound. It cuts to the very heart of Jesus’ boundary-breaking, division-destroying table fellowship.

After all, he’s the Messiah who breaks bread with sinners and whose disciples are rebuked for eating with unclean hands.
It is therefore fitting that it is at the table that this Gentile, this ‘other’ challenges him, as if to say, “When will the Good News be good enough for me and my daughter? Widen the table some more, remove all the boundaries so my daughter too can receive your Good News.” When truth gets told, one possibility is for profound change to take place. When the Syrophoenician woman confronts Jesus with the truth, her world is profoundly transformed as is his.

However, sometimes despite desiring change some hesitate because with change things are never the same.
So, some choose not to seek truth, and instead stay put because it is a lot less risky than to muster the strength and courage that change requires. Embracing truth requires audacity. Consequently, many don’t speak the truth but remain silent, waiting on that right moment which often never comes.

Many remain trapped in made-up constructs carefully and strategically assembled to resemble a reality that they desire but it is a delusion. Then there are those who reject the truth because change may not be in their favour, as told in John 11:50 “…is better to have one man die than for us to be destroyed.”

The Syrophoenician woman’s truth teaches Jesus that the good news was possibly more inclusive than he originally conceived. For this, he who never lost a verbal contest concedes to this audacious, female outsider, “For saying that you may go – the demon has left your daughter.”

Those who seek the path to salvation are called to embrace the truth. We are called to be open enough to learn what sometimes only an outsider can teach. We are called to insist on the good news for people who don’t look, think, or behave like we do.
We are called to be open to the truth that liberates and sets free. But will we, or is it that we can’t or won’t handle the truth? May the Lord continue to be the people’s guide.

Guy Hewitt is Barbados’ former High Commissioner in London. He currently lives and works between Barbados and Florida and can be contacted at guyhewitt@gmail.com