September 5, 2021
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois
Psalm 145:1-13a; Mark 7:24-37[1]
Wow! Did you catch that? Jesus called that woman a dog. Where
did that come from? He was probably exhausted from travel and mentally tapped
out as well. He had just traveled from Galilee, where he had been arguing with
the Pharisees again, to Phoenicia,
which is modern-day Lebanon. He had hidden in a house “and did not want anyone
to know he was there” (Mark 7:24). Then this local woman found him.
The Syrophoenician woman—we never learn her name—had the
cards stacked against her. She was a Gentile, not a Jew, not one of the
children of Abraham. She was a woman, and in those days, women just didn’t talk
to men who were not members of their family. And to top it off, she caught
Jesus on a bad day.
Wasn’t she hurting her cause to interrupt him as he rested?
She was breaking customs, which made everyone around them uncomfortable. But
she was desperate. She was driven by something more powerful than customs and
protocol. Her daughter had been possessed by a demon, and she feared for the
life of her daughter. What else could she do? She intrudes into the house and
begs this Jewish holy man for help.
Jesus responds by telling this desperate woman that his
mission is for the Jews and the Jews alone. He compares her to a dog looking
for scraps. We squirm around in our seats, but it would not have been so out of
character in those days for cultures to clash so rudely. Early Christians would
have known that she was a pagan, and the healing of a foreign child by Jesus
would be far more shocking than the words which offend us.
She must have been crushed, offended, deeply hurt. But, she can
no longer bear the suffering of her child, so she does what she has to do. She
responds with courage. She challenges the dismissal. She confronts Jesus, and it
is this Gentile woman who teaches him, the Messiah, the true nature of his
mission. Jesus is reminded of what he had just been teaching his followers: social
conventions, like ritual hand washing before a meal, should not stand in the
way of helping those in need. Indeed, she also challenges his derogatory label,
calling to mind that it is the things that come out of us, our words and
actions, which can cause harm and defile us.
One New Testament scholar remarks, “Could the story of the
Syrophoenician woman be a kind of ‘conversion’ moment for Jesus, in which he
realizes how (maybe in a very human moment of physical and mental exhaustion)
he has lost sight of the point of his mission and has to be reconnected with it
by someone assumed to be outside of it? Then for Mark the woman is more than
simply rhetorically gifted: she is prophetic.”[2]
The Messiah is supposed to bring salvation to people of
Israel, yes, but not only them. In Isaiah we read, “I will give you as a light
to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (Isaiah
49:6). Up until this point, Jesus has been focused only on ministry with the Jews.
This journey into pagan lands, meant to be an opportunity for retreat and
renewal, is the critical moment when Jesus truly grasps the universality of his
mission.
This courageous woman confronts Jesus, and it changes him. The
love that this mother has for her child touches something deep within him, and
he is moved. From this moment on, there will be a new focus, a new mission
field. From now on the children of God will be understood to include more than
a chosen few. Mark ends his Gospel with these words: “Go into all the world and
proclaim the good news to the whole creation” (Mark 16:15). And as we heard
from the Psalm: “They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom, and tell of
your power, to make known to all people your mighty deeds, and the glorious
splendor of your kingdom” (Psalm 145:12).
Alas, I would be lying to you if I said that that the news
proclaimed to all the world by Christians is always good. We Christians have
not, as a whole, been very accepting or welcoming of people who are different
from us. Our churches are much more likely to be segregated by race and culture
than they are multi-racial or multi-cultural. Women find it much more difficult
to hold a leadership role in the church, let alone be called as pastor. People
of a certain sexual orientation or gender identity have heard in no uncertain
terms that they are not welcome in most churches.
Somehow, the Syrophoenician woman got through to Jesus, and
changed his heart. I have every reason to believe that if the heart of Jesus
can be changed, so can mine, and so can yours. There are evil intentions in our
hearts, but there are also good intentions. Sometimes it takes someone from
outside of our comfort zone to help us realize that we are not expressing the
best intentions of our hearts.
We are faced with an ever-growing list of serious problems
that we need to address as a community, as a nation, and as a planet. In the
first century, the poor, the widow, the orphan, the infirm, the mentally ill,
the alien, and women had the cards stacked against them. In the twenty-first
century, many of these people still live at the margins of society. We have
become a nation more inclined to incarcerate people than rehabilitate them.
Many of us still believe that people who are homeless or addicted to drugs must
have brought it upon themselves. As the refugees from Afghanistan begin to
arrive on our shores, does the voice of Lady Liberty still say “Give me your
tired, your poor / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”?[3]
If we are going to get rid of the demons that are eating
away at us, we need to be more like the Syrophoenician woman. We need to decide
that the people that we love and the issues of justice that lie close to our
hearts deserve our courage. We need to decide that we can no longer bear the
suffering of God’s children and confront those with the power to make a
difference.
The desperate mother and a deaf man who wouldn’t be silenced
are children of God just as much as we are. They matter just as much as we do.
Jesus demonstrates the love of God that reaches beyond all barriers, beyond
race, culture, age, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation,
ability, or socio-economic status. We too must seek to love beyond all
barriers. Amen.
[1] The
scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard
Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of
the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[2] Loye
Bradley Ashton, Theological Perspective on Mark 7:24-37 in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year
B, Volume 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 44-48.
[3] Emma
Lazarus, “The New Colossus.”
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