NOTES: 1] Compare this with MT 15: 21-28. Both incidents here take place outside Israel. Maybe as he has abolished the distinction between unclean & clean foods, now he abolishes it between between 'clean' and 'unclean' people? 2] It was religiously incorrect for Jesus to have anything to do with a) a foreigner, and, b) a woman not a close relative.3] The use of the Aramaic word 'ephphatha' (= be opened) is evidence of the story being told & retold orally, using the native word as distinct from the Greek of the rest of the text. 

WARMING UP:   How hard is it for us to ask someone we don't know to do something for us? 

TREASURES OLD & NEW: Identify God at work in anything this week?

ENTERING INTO THE STORY:

24        Given Jesus' fame has gone before him, even into Gentile territory, has the fact that we were known ever affected us somewhere  we've gone? What about now? What is fame? What do we make of today's cult of the 'Celebrity'? How much do we value our privacy? Why is it important to us - if it is? What are the 'no-go' areas for us so far as others are concerned?

25-30  What categories of 'cleanness' or 'uncleanness' do we 'impose' on either people or things? In what areas of life do we find ourself 'activating' these categories? How deeply do these distinctions run in us? What about in society? How do we make the transition from understanding illnesses described in 1st C. biblical language as 'unclean', 'possessed', etc. to viewing them through today's more informed ways of looking at things? Or, are they fixed forever if they're biblical? Might viewing them differently change our approach to issues like healing?
        
          Do we find it at all hard to cope with a Jesus who's as blunt (some would say, rude) as he is here? Is he simply testing, pushing the woman, or is there more to it than that? What kind of 'demons' are most dangerous today? Are most of them from inside us rather than some exterior force?

31-37  If the actions Jesus uses here parallel practices used by magical 'healers' of his day, is what he does really much different from some of the healing practices that go on among us (even in the church?) today? What place do things like medallions, amulets, crystals, laying on hands, anointing, etc. have in the way we offer healing? Is it all really just 'mind over matter' stuff? If it's harmless, does it matter if it helps someone feel better, or is the issue deeper than that? What's our own experience, if any, in this field?

         In what kinds of ways do we / the Church need to become more eph-pha-thatic? (How much do we need to open ourselves up more to people? What do we need to do to help others open themselves up more to us?) In what ways might people then be astonished at the change(s) in us? What kind of changes do they need to see in us - or is it too late for that in some cases? Do we have enough experience of being opened up by Jesus to spread any worthwhile news of what's happened to us, or is all of it / too much of it second-hand?