(OPINION) A Lutheran minister claimed in a recent sermon that Jesus, who was holy and never sinned, “screwed up” and called a woman a b—- in her retelling of a biblical story that some have decried as blasphemous.
Speaking in a chapel service at the ELCA-affiliated Augsburg University in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on March 11, a self-described “pastrix,” the Rev. Andrea Roske-Metcalfe, drew from Mark 7:24-30, explaining that the passage was her favorite Bible story because it was an example of Jesus’ humanity in which Christ “screws up bigger here than in any story I know.”
The story remains her favorite because of the Syro-Phoenician woman’s purported “improv skills,” she said. In the exchange, the woman falls at Jesus’ feet while He’s in the region of Tyre and Sidon and she begs Him to heal her daughter, who is demon-possessed.
Christ responds: “Let the children be filled first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.” The Syro-Phoenician woman then replies: “Yes Lord, yet even the little dogs under the table eat from the children’s crumbs.” Jesus then says: “For this saying go your way; the demon has gone out of your daughter.”
Roske-Metcalfe described this exchange by explaining how the desperate woman had nothing to lose, so she asked Jesus to heal her daughter. “And Jesus responds by calling her a b—-,” she claimed.
But then the Syro-Phoenician woman activated her so-called improv skills, agreeing that she was indeed a dog, catching Jesus off-guard, she continued, likening the encounter to a completely unrelated account of a supposed Ukrainian soldier telling Russian troops to “go f— yourself,” as they attacked Snake Island in the Black Sea.
“I would bet good money that Jesus wasn’t expecting that. Like I don’t care if He’s the son of God. He didn’t see that coming. This is the beauty of improv. This is what makes it so subversive. Nobody sees it coming,” she said.
Roske-Metcalfe continued: “Jesus screwed up. The Syro-Phoenician woman used her improv skills to call him on it. Jesus changes course. And this story marks the beginning of His ministry among the Gentiles. Dear friends, I find my redemption in Jesus Christ, but on this day in this story, the Syro-Phoenician woman is the one who redeems Him, who calls Him back to Himself, who calls Him back to His calling.” FULL REPORT
