October 12, 2025 homily on Exodus 18:5-27 and Mark 7:24-31 by Pastor Galen
Unsung Heroes
Often when we think about heroes throughout history, we picture warriors, people of valor who led armies and won battles of epic proportions.
But throughout this series, we’ve been exploring some of the unsung heroes of the Bible — men and women whose names are often forgotten and whose stories are seldom told. In their lives, we’ve seen examples of humility, faithfulness, and submission to God that changed the course of history in subtle yet significant ways.
The first week in our series we reflected on the Hebrew midwives who refused to obey a tyrannical pharaoh’s evil decree. We then looked at an Ethiopian official who rescued the prophet Jeremiah, and the unnamed disciples who helped the Apostle Paul escape from those who were plotting to kill him. A few weeks ago, Bruce and Michele led us in looking at people in the Bible who showed hospitality. None of the people we’ve looked at fought epic battles, yet through their humble obedience, they made a positive impact on the lives of others and on society as a whole.
Such is the case with the unsung heroes we’ll be looking at this morning: Moses’ father-in-law Jethro, who helped shape the judicial and governmental system of Israel, and an unnamed Syrophoenician woman whose encounter with Jesus marked a significant turning point in his earthly ministry.
The Israelites in the Wilderness
The story of Moses and his father-in-law Jethro, found in Exodus 18, takes place in the wilderness, after the Israelites had been delivered from slavery in Egypt, before they received the Ten Commandments, and before the forty years they would eventually spend wandering in the wilderness before entering the land of Canaan. Moses was clearly the fearless leader of the Israelite people, but they had no specific governmental structure as of yet. Moses served as prophet, judge, and de facto king all rolled into one.
Moses was the one who primarily heard from God and delivered God’s message to the people. And although they often grumbled and complained about being hungry or thirsty, and in the previous chapter even seemed ready to stone him, he was still their only leader. So if anyone had a complaint or dispute that needed to be settled, Moses was the one they came to.
To get a sense of the scale here, Exodus 12:37 says that there were about 600,000 Israelite men, plus women and children. Exodus 12:38 adds, “Many other people went up with them, and also large droves of livestock, both flocks and herds” (NIV). Some biblical scholars think that this number is figurative, but if it’s literal, Moses had upwards of two million people under his charge. That’s more than three times the population of Baltimore City! With that many people living in difficult conditions where they were often tired, and hungry, and thirsty, and weren’t sure where their next meal was going to come from, you can imagine how many arguments and disputes there must have been.
In Exodus 18, the Israelites were camped at the foot of Mount Sinai, where Moses had encountered God in the burning bush and received the call to free the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. This was also near where Moses’s father-in-law Jethro lived, who, if you remember, was a Midianite priest and not an Israelite himself.
While the Israelites were camped at Mount Sinai, Jethro came to visit Moses and spent the day watching him in action. He noticed that people were standing around waiting to see Moses all day long, “from morning until evening.” At the end of the day, he asked Moses about it, and Moses explained that the people came to him to settle their disputes. Jethro said to him, “What you are doing is not good. You will surely wear yourself out, both you and these people with you, for the task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone” (Exodus 18:18 NRSV).
Jethro advised Moses to appoint a multi-tiered system of judges who could handle the minor complaints and disputes, while only the most difficult cases would be brought to Moses. This would free Moses to focus on teaching and explaining God’s statutes and decrees. If his time wasn’t consumed with hearing every minor complaint, he could focus on developing longer-term guidance and leadership for the people. He could focus on developing laws and policies to govern the people, and instruct them in what it meant to be followers of God.
Moses accepted Jethro’s advice and set up a system of judges, a structure that not only had a positive impact on Moses and the Israelites but also set a lasting pattern for wise leadership in government, church, and community life that still applies today. Interestingly, just a few chapters later, Moses went up the mountain to receive the Ten Commandments from God—something he almost certainly would not have had the time or space to do if he had not followed Jethro’s counsel.
Just as Jethro, a foreigner and outsider, offered Moses wisdom that shaped Israel’s future, so too the Syrophoenician woman, another outsider, played a role in expanding the scope of Jesus’s ministry. Her story, like Jethro’s, reminds us that God often speaks and acts through unexpected people, crossing boundaries to bring about transformation.
Jesus and the Syrophoenician Woman
For the story of Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman, we turn to the Gospel of Mark, chapter 7, verse 24 and following.
Here we have what seems to be a rather tense and awkward interaction between Jesus and a non-Israelite woman, an unnamed Gentile who came to him asking that he cast an evil spirit out of her daughter. Jesus had recieved this kind of request often, and typically, he said yes. But this time, he refused at first, saying, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs” (Mark 7:27). His response seems to suggest that it wouldn’t be right to turn his focus away from the Jewish people he had been ministering among in order to heal the daughter of this Gentile woman.
There are a lot of gender and cultural dynamics at play here. Jesus’ words sound harsh, even rude and condescending. This is not at all how we usually see Jesus interact with the poor and powerless, which makes me think that this woman was not poor or powerless at all. Historically and culturally, members of the Greek ruling class (of which this woman was likely a part) had been exploiting the labor of Jewish settlers in the surrounding countryside. As one commentator put it, “the woman belongs to a group that, in a sense, has been taking other children’s bread.” It is possible that Jesus was intentionally echoing the kind of derogatory language that Syrophoenicians themselves might have used toward Jewish people, turning it back on her to make a point.
But no matter the reason for Jesus’ initial refusal, the woman’s response seemed to have a profound impact on Jesus’ ministry going forward. She replied to Jesus’ analogy about giving the children’s bread to dogs with both courage and humility, pointing out that even dogs get to eat the crumbs that fall from the children’s table. Healing her daughter, she seemed to reason, would not take Jesus off course or away from his mission. She believed that Jesus had the power to accomplish the purpose for which he had come as it related to the Jewish people, and that his power and compassion could also reach beyond them to heal her daughter.
Jesus told her, “‘For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.’ And when she went home, she found the child lying on the bed and the demon gone” (Mark 7:29–30).
What happened next is even more fascinating to me. After this encounter, Jesus went to the region of the Decapolis, a federation of ten Greek cities, where he healed a man who was deaf and then performed a miracle similar to the feeding of the five thousand, this time feeding four thousand people with seven loaves of bread and a few small fish.
The encounter with this Syrophoenician woman seems to have broadened the scope of Jesus’ ministry so that his ministry from this point forward included not only Israelites but Gentiles as well, paving the way for the Gospel to go out to people of every nation, as we later see in the book of Acts and beyond.
Conclusion and Application
Both Jethro and the Syrophoenician woman remind us that God often uses people outside our expected circles to speak truth, offer wisdom, and expand our understanding of who God is and what God is doing in the world. Jethro helped Moses see that leadership does not have to be carried alone. He offered a new structure that allowed justice and wisdom to flow more freely among the people of Israel. The Syrophoenician woman, through her persistence and faith, opened Jesus’ ministry outward to those who had long been considered outsiders.
In both stories, God’s purposes move forward because someone on the margins was bold enough to speak, and someone in power was humble enough to listen. That is a lesson for all of us. Whether we see ourselves as leaders, helpers, or somewhere in between, we are called to listen for God’s voice in unexpected places and to recognize the image of God in those who are different from us.
World Communion Sunday
This message feels especially fitting for World Communion Sunday, when we remember that the body of Christ stretches far beyond any single nation, culture, or denomination. Around the world today, followers of Jesus gather at the same table, speaking different languages, singing different songs, yet sharing the same bread and cup. The same Spirit who spoke through Jethro and the Syrophoenician woman still speaks through voices that challenge us, stretch us, and remind us that God’s love is always larger than the boundaries we build.
So as we come to the Lord’s Table this morning, may we do so with open hearts, ready to receive not only the grace of Christ but also the wisdom and faith of those who may not look, speak, or worship like us. For in the kingdom of God, even the smallest act of humble obedience, even the smallest crumb of faith, can become a feast of grace for the whole world.
Amen!
Hampden United Methodist Church 