Hearing Dogs for the Deaf - that is the charity that the children in the church chose to support and raise funds for between now and Christmas, as a result of their own study of this passage. It was amusing and moving when they reported back at the end of the service, as this decision manages to combine both stories in a creative and useful way to benefit others. Oh what we learn from children!
Here is my less adequate take on the text.
Last week we read the first part of Chapter 7 of Mark’s gospel, which was ostensibly about hand-washing, and this week we follow on from that with a story of Jesus insulting a Gentile woman and then healing two Gentiles.
Last week I talked about this part of Mark’s gospel showing us the progression of Jesus’ mission, through unclean hands to unclean people i.e. Gentiles, and I suggested that Jesus was saying that even Gentiles are acceptable to God; that although the passage seemed to be an argument about man-made tradition and God’s law, it was actually about more than hand-washing – it was about the overflowing love that includes us in God’s salvation plan – love in action.
Today I want to talk a bit more about that, and to show that this passage today is also about abundance.
Before I move on to look at the specifics of this story, I’d like to take a helicopter view of this part of Mark’s gospel, and you might find it easier to follow if you have your bible open.
I see this story as part of a set that starts at Mark 6:34, where Jesus feeds five thousand. The story implies that these are Jewish people, and the twelve baskets left over is enough, symbolically, for the twelve tribes of Israel to have one basket each. The generosity is overflowing and there is plenty to go around. While we may feel uncomfortable with that, I think the message here is clearly that Jesus has come to feed the Jews.
In the next instalment, in Chapter 7, the boundaries between clean and unclean, Jew and Gentile start to dissolve. The overflowing generosity, grace and love that God has for humanity is there to feed, firstly the Jews, but is now starting to include Gentiles, and purity becomes something that we reflect because our hearts are engaged, rather than simply because we are told what to do. This is the moment when our story, our Gentile story, is grafted into the history of the Jews to become the history of humanity.
Moving swiftly on we see today’s story of healing two Gentiles, and then to come - another story of feeding – this time of four thousand, many of who would have been Gentiles, with seven baskets of food left over. The boundaries of love are overflowing.
Coming back down to earth, today’s story shows the beginning of God’s direct mission to the Gentiles.
Jesus had moved into Gentile territory – north to Tyre – 40 miles north-west of Capernaum. (Sidon is another 26 miles north-east of Tyre). Jesus was a long way from Galilee, well into Gentile territory. Despite his attempts to travel quietly, his fame had spread and a Greek woman heard of his healing ministry and came looking for him.
Tyre was wealthy. She was probably better educated and from a higher social class than Jesus so for her to seek him out would have been socially unacceptable to her. Likewise, as a Jew, Jesus would not have been expected to speak to her because she was Gentile, a woman, and she had a demon-possessed daughter – contact with any one of those three would have made him ritually unclean – put all three together and you can see that Mark is making a powerful point about breaking down barriers.
Yet, her need was great. Her love was great. Her daughter was ill, and she loved her daughter and wanted her to be well. She was helpless to change the situation in her own strength, and she was willing to do whatever was necessary to make her daughter well. She had heard of Jesus and she wanted him to heal her daughter. So she came to visit Jesus and she fell at his feet. She begged him to heal her daughter. As in other healing stories, Jesus didn’t turn her away, but he did point out that he needed to feed the children first- in other words, his mission was firstly to the Jews, not to her.
I think Jesus was quite rude. Some preachers and commentators have tried to dilute what Jesus said by saying he had a twinkle in his eye, or that the word he used actually meant pet dogs rather than wild dogs (which it did). Yet we know that ‘dog’ remains an insult in Middle Eastern countries to this day, and we have similar terms of abuse in our own society. I struggle to see how this was anything less than an insult, and I think it is important to the story that we recognise this.
Because this woman was not one of the Pharisees and teachers of the law that we read about last week, and she was not going to be diverted by outward appearances, even by Jesus’ language. She didn’t hear the words at face value and go away insulted. This wasn’t about her pride, her ego, her view of herself – if it were, would she have been kneeling at the feet of a Jewish artisan preacher?
The woman didn’t want words; she wanted the active love that would express itself in healing for the person she loved. She knew what she wanted and she hoped and trusted that Jesus could supply it.
She didn’t argue about whether or not it was fair for God to choose to favour the Jews. We know from Genesis 18:18 that Abraham was promised that through him all the nations would be blessed. Her reply assumed that generosity, and she used words in response, but turning the argument to her favour.
Like the Samaritan woman by the well in another story, she had a quick mind and was able to reply with an intelligent and reasoned argument – “- isn’t there enough for everyone? Even the left-over’s would be enough?” And of course, the answer was yes. God’s overflowing abundant love was sufficient – it wasn’t rationed, and in trust she was able to go home and find that her daughter had been healed. Her loving heart and the loving heart of God were in tune.
The second story tells of a deaf man being healed, again in Gentile territory, this itme further south in the Decapolis (the ten cities) and draws our attention to another theme that runs through Mark – that of hearing.
In Mark 4:9, Jesus said, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." The disciples struggled to really hear, to understand what was happening. And here we have a story of a deaf man being healed. Jesus healed his hearing, and enabling him to speak. Here we have a story of God teaching the Gentiles to hear, through the healing work of Jesus. That is what God does for all of us when we are prepared to listen. Do we then go on to speak clearly – to share what we have heard?
The Syrophoenician woman heard that Jesus was nearby and responded quickly – in contrast to those at the centre of Judaism, she was able to listen and to hear, and then to act on what she had heard.There are echoes of the reading today in our prayer of humble access, when we say, “we are not worthy even to eat the crumbs from under your table”. This is a simple statement of fact. In our own right we are not worthy; nothing we have gained is because we are intrinsically good enough, but because of the overflowing love that God has for us, the salvation that Jesus achieved for us, the resurrection that we are a part of through our faith.
It is our faith that ensures we, Gentiles, have a place at the table; it is our faith that has made us a part of the family. And it is our faith that encourages us to go and tell other people about this wonderful love, and offer them the chance to sit at the table and eat, because God’s love is not limited to us, any more than it was limited to the Jews; it is abundant and overflowing, and there is plenty to go round. All we have to do is have faith, then come and eat.
Sunday 6 September 2009
Sermon: 30th August - Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23
"The law and the heart - are they really opposites?"
We are celebrating a communion service today, so you will be relieved to know that I have washed my hands, and will apply an alcohol gel rub before touching the bread.
I am doing this for two reasons; one is that I have been recommended to behave like this by the Bishop of St Albans, and I have taken a canonical oath to obey all lawful commands that he gives me. This isn’t actually a command as such, but the principle will do for the purposes of this sermon. The other reason is that I don’t want to pass on any germs to you, and you might be interested to know that I used alcohol gel before the recommendation was made.
So today’s reading, which appears to be about hand-washing, is quite apt, isn’t it? Or is it?
On the surface this seems to be a debate about tradition versus the law of God, and which one is being treated as most important by the Pharisees and teachers of the law. It seems to be about hand-washing.
However, below the surface is a broader debate about the place of Gentiles in the new order that our Lord is inaugurating. One church, one faith, one Lord.
I think this is a question about why Gentiles are eating with the Jews, and what it means for Jews and for the followers of Jesus. The passage clearly states that all Jews, not just Pharisees, washed their hands. Yet there are people present who have not washed. This suggests that there are Gentiles present and it is this ritual uncleanness created by association with the ‘unclean’ that is being challenged – Jesus is eating with Gentiles.
Why does that matter? We know from other gospel accounts that Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners so we are not surprised. But to the teachers (and upholder remember) of the law, those who are fulfilling the commands in Deuteronomy 4 to teach the laws and decrees to their children, this was cause for concern.
It must have seemed as if Jesus was breaking the laws that God had given. We know from Matthew 5:17 that Jesus was sent, not to abolish the law, but to fulfil it, but they didn’t know that.
So here we find Jesus, expanding his ministry from the Jews alone to include Gentiles – something that the Jewish leaders would only have expected at the last times when all the nations were expected to flock to Jerusalem. The clues are there, but they do not see who they are talking to.
We look back with 20/20 hindsight so must avoid the temptation to look down on those teachers and preachers who were so tied up with their own task that they didn’t recognise that Jesus had a greater task; that he was the very person they had been praying for.
Mark’s gospel is written in the context of an expanding church, one in which Gentiles were welcomed, as we are now. The fact that Mark has included a comment to explain the Jewish custom of washing suggests that the original audience for this gospel included people who were not familiar with Jewish customs, i.e. Gentile – people like you and me in fact, although I hope we do wash our hands!
I think Mark was trying to say to his Gentile readers – “see, Jesus intended you to be part of his plan, part of his kingdom. All that anyone has to do is repent and believe in Jesus as the Son of God.” Jesus fulfilled the law, and we are the beneficiaries of that. We can be and are a part of it. One church, one faith, one Lord.
But the time that is being written about this hasn’t yet happened. So we have some 20/20 hindsight being applied to this story. That inclusion now of Gentiles is, I think, what Jesus is talking about when he appears to be challenging the purity laws of Leviticus 11 (which is about what kind of living creatures Jews may eat). In this part of the story I think Jesus is using a picture to make a point. He says “Nothing outside a man can make him unclean by going into him… it is what comes out of a man that makes him unclean” – in other words, returning to a point we make frequently, action not feeling is what matters.
We know we are saved by faith, but the epistle from James tells us that faith without deeds is dead. Our behaviour, our actions tell who we are.
As I read this I was reminded forcefully of Mark 12:30-31 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these.", and of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians where he speaks of the need for love.
Paul says, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal… Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
Compare that list to the list of unclean outpourings that Jesus lists, every one of which is some kind of perversion of love, “evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly”. Most of those are actions too, and they demonstrate how far we fall short of selfless love of God and our neighbour.
I think that Jesus is telling us once again that love, selfless love as he modelled it, is a verb not an intention or a feeling; it is the spirit of love living in us, outworking in our lives that identifies us with God, it is the outpouring of that love in caring action for others that shows us to be one with him in the kingdom.
So what does this have to do with hand-washing?
The Jews had a tradition of washing, which was sensible hygiene practise for people who lived in a hot country where water was scarce, in the days before refrigerators and antibiotics. Jesus isn’t criticising them for holding on to their traditions; he effectively says, as Morna Hooker puts it, “you are so concerned with keeping the letter of the law that you have forgotten the other side of it, the spirit of the law.” I believe the first flows from the second, that the action flows from the change in heart.
For the ignorant, uneducated, or just plain ‘ornery among us the letter of the law is all we have, and whether we agree with individual laws or not, blind obedience is better for our society in many cases than blind disobedience. We too had better wash our hands and wear aprons because the kitchen regulations say we must.
Most dangerous though is the person who may not bother to wash their hands unless someone else is watching – who rejects the spirit and the letter of the law - after all it is simply legalistic nonsense, the nanny state in action…
For those of us who love and care for our fellow humans, and who want to serve them in our shared newness of life through Christ, we want to wash our hands because, understanding the way that disease is spread, we don’t want to make another person ill. One is done from ignorance, the other from a heart of love.
As Gentile inheritors of Christ’s love for all humanity, let us all remember that the heart and the law of God work together to show us how to live in loving, active relationship with each other as one church, one faith, one Lord.
We are celebrating a communion service today, so you will be relieved to know that I have washed my hands, and will apply an alcohol gel rub before touching the bread.
I am doing this for two reasons; one is that I have been recommended to behave like this by the Bishop of St Albans, and I have taken a canonical oath to obey all lawful commands that he gives me. This isn’t actually a command as such, but the principle will do for the purposes of this sermon. The other reason is that I don’t want to pass on any germs to you, and you might be interested to know that I used alcohol gel before the recommendation was made.
So today’s reading, which appears to be about hand-washing, is quite apt, isn’t it? Or is it?
On the surface this seems to be a debate about tradition versus the law of God, and which one is being treated as most important by the Pharisees and teachers of the law. It seems to be about hand-washing.
However, below the surface is a broader debate about the place of Gentiles in the new order that our Lord is inaugurating. One church, one faith, one Lord.
I think this is a question about why Gentiles are eating with the Jews, and what it means for Jews and for the followers of Jesus. The passage clearly states that all Jews, not just Pharisees, washed their hands. Yet there are people present who have not washed. This suggests that there are Gentiles present and it is this ritual uncleanness created by association with the ‘unclean’ that is being challenged – Jesus is eating with Gentiles.
Why does that matter? We know from other gospel accounts that Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners so we are not surprised. But to the teachers (and upholder remember) of the law, those who are fulfilling the commands in Deuteronomy 4 to teach the laws and decrees to their children, this was cause for concern.
It must have seemed as if Jesus was breaking the laws that God had given. We know from Matthew 5:17 that Jesus was sent, not to abolish the law, but to fulfil it, but they didn’t know that.
So here we find Jesus, expanding his ministry from the Jews alone to include Gentiles – something that the Jewish leaders would only have expected at the last times when all the nations were expected to flock to Jerusalem. The clues are there, but they do not see who they are talking to.
We look back with 20/20 hindsight so must avoid the temptation to look down on those teachers and preachers who were so tied up with their own task that they didn’t recognise that Jesus had a greater task; that he was the very person they had been praying for.
Mark’s gospel is written in the context of an expanding church, one in which Gentiles were welcomed, as we are now. The fact that Mark has included a comment to explain the Jewish custom of washing suggests that the original audience for this gospel included people who were not familiar with Jewish customs, i.e. Gentile – people like you and me in fact, although I hope we do wash our hands!
I think Mark was trying to say to his Gentile readers – “see, Jesus intended you to be part of his plan, part of his kingdom. All that anyone has to do is repent and believe in Jesus as the Son of God.” Jesus fulfilled the law, and we are the beneficiaries of that. We can be and are a part of it. One church, one faith, one Lord.
But the time that is being written about this hasn’t yet happened. So we have some 20/20 hindsight being applied to this story. That inclusion now of Gentiles is, I think, what Jesus is talking about when he appears to be challenging the purity laws of Leviticus 11 (which is about what kind of living creatures Jews may eat). In this part of the story I think Jesus is using a picture to make a point. He says “Nothing outside a man can make him unclean by going into him… it is what comes out of a man that makes him unclean” – in other words, returning to a point we make frequently, action not feeling is what matters.
We know we are saved by faith, but the epistle from James tells us that faith without deeds is dead. Our behaviour, our actions tell who we are.
As I read this I was reminded forcefully of Mark 12:30-31 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these.", and of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians where he speaks of the need for love.
Paul says, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal… Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
Compare that list to the list of unclean outpourings that Jesus lists, every one of which is some kind of perversion of love, “evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly”. Most of those are actions too, and they demonstrate how far we fall short of selfless love of God and our neighbour.
I think that Jesus is telling us once again that love, selfless love as he modelled it, is a verb not an intention or a feeling; it is the spirit of love living in us, outworking in our lives that identifies us with God, it is the outpouring of that love in caring action for others that shows us to be one with him in the kingdom.
So what does this have to do with hand-washing?
The Jews had a tradition of washing, which was sensible hygiene practise for people who lived in a hot country where water was scarce, in the days before refrigerators and antibiotics. Jesus isn’t criticising them for holding on to their traditions; he effectively says, as Morna Hooker puts it, “you are so concerned with keeping the letter of the law that you have forgotten the other side of it, the spirit of the law.” I believe the first flows from the second, that the action flows from the change in heart.
For the ignorant, uneducated, or just plain ‘ornery among us the letter of the law is all we have, and whether we agree with individual laws or not, blind obedience is better for our society in many cases than blind disobedience. We too had better wash our hands and wear aprons because the kitchen regulations say we must.
Most dangerous though is the person who may not bother to wash their hands unless someone else is watching – who rejects the spirit and the letter of the law - after all it is simply legalistic nonsense, the nanny state in action…
For those of us who love and care for our fellow humans, and who want to serve them in our shared newness of life through Christ, we want to wash our hands because, understanding the way that disease is spread, we don’t want to make another person ill. One is done from ignorance, the other from a heart of love.
As Gentile inheritors of Christ’s love for all humanity, let us all remember that the heart and the law of God work together to show us how to live in loving, active relationship with each other as one church, one faith, one Lord.
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