Discrimination

I ran across this editorial cartoon over the weekend.

 

It is interesting because it is a rhetorical question, assuming that the answer is "Nobody."

There is a story in the gospel of Mark (with parallel in Matthew) where Jesus does appear willing to discriminate against someone and/or a group of people.

Mark 7:25-30 (Revised Standard Version)

²⁵ But immediately a woman, whose little daughter was possessed by an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell down at his feet. ²⁶ Now the woman was a Greek, a Syrophoeni′cian by birth. And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. ²⁷ And he said to her, “Let the children first be fed, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” ²⁸ But she answered him, “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” ²⁹ And he said to her, “For this saying you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.” ³⁰ And she went home, and found the child lying in bed, and the demon gone.

 One thing that scholars find fascinating about the story (and that some believers find disconcerting) is that apparently Jesus was willing to change his mind when the woman confronted him with her need.

I note that the child was not merely sick in Mark's story: she was possessed by an unclean spirit (πνευμα ακαθαρτον).

Perhaps the question is not whether Jesus would discriminate, but whether we are willing to change our minds in the face of human need.