Sermon: 6th September 2009 - Mark 7:24-37

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.