September 8, 2024
Pentecost 16 B
Mark 7:24-37
Rev. Karl-John N. Stone
Jesus goes away to the region of Tyre. If you’ll remember, up until this point in the gospel of Mark, Jesus has mostly stayed around Galilee—not the center of the Jewish world, which was in Jerusalem, but still a place firmly in the Jewish world. Tyre, on the other hand, is 35 miles to the northwest—so a couple days walk away—in the Gentile world (meaning the non-Jewish world). Tyre also happened to be right on the Mediterranean Sea (must have been beautiful). Just like many of us, it seems Jesus liked to visit the beach when he went on vacation, or at least on a little get-away. But he didn’t want anyone to know he was there. He wanted to lay low for a while because he had recently been doing and saying some risky things to the Pharisees and needed things to cool down a bit.
Jesus had been talking about how God’s ancient promises to the people of Israel were now being fulfilled in him, that the rules people lived by which divided Jews from Gentiles were being redrawn in him, and that his life and ministry would be the turning point in salvation history. These were some mighty big claims! Someone saying things like that would have to be delusional, a liar, or actually the Messiah (as C.S. Lewis once observed). With the claims Jesus was making about himself, of course he generated controversy and opposition—as well as enthusiasm and hopefulness.
He was gaining so much attention. Everywhere he went, people wanted a piece of him. It’s entirely understandable, therefore, why Jesus would want to take a break, leave the crowds behind, go somewhere where nobody knew him—and get recharged so he could focus on his main objective: showing his fellow Jewish people that the Kingdom of God was at hand, that their redemption would be accomplished, and therefore God would finally bring the rest of the world under God’s saving rule, too.
But keeping his focus on this mission was becoming harder and harder. People kept looking to him for miracles. Not that there’s anything wrong with miracles, but they weren’t his main reason for being. The miracles were meant to be signs pointing to the greater reality of God’s presence, not ends in themselves. But the more he became known as a miracle worker, the more the demand for miracles would increase and never end. He could easily have spent every day doing miracles, and never getting around to fulfilling his greater mission. So he needed to get away, go to Tyre, lay low for a whole. Yet when he got there, “he could not escape notice.”
Even in Gentile territory, where he thought no one would know him, where no one was looking for or expecting a Messiah—even there “he could not escape notice”. A Gentile woman of Syrophoenician origin—she was a local person, whose daughter was in bad shape—had already heard about him, and she figured it was worth a shot. She found him and begged him to cast the unclean spirit out of her daughter.
What unfolds next shows the human side of Jesus. Yes, he is fully God, part of the Holy Trinity, but he is also fully a human being, and in his human nature he was just as capable as any one of us at getting caught up in the frustrations, and short-sightedness, and even prejudices that plague us as human beings, especially when we are most under stress. But these things do not have to define us, just as they do not have to define Jesus. With God’s help we can always grow and get a new start.
You can almost hear him saying under his breath when the woman bows down at his feet, “can’t I get a moments’ peace?” as he tries to dismiss this woman, saying “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” In saying this, he wasn’t leveling a personal insult at her, so much as he was indulging in the commonly held view among Jews of the time that Gentiles were as low as “dogs”. Now, to be fair, the Gentiles of that time would have felt the same way about Jews. But still, nobody would want to be treated that way.
And to look at the big picture, Jesus is still operating here with an urgency to fulfill his first mission, to the Jewish people. I can almost see the wheels turning in his head, thinking “if I start doing miracles for the Gentiles like her, then I’ll never finish my main job, and I’m running out of time.”
What happens next is rather remarkable. First, because it is so often women whom God worked through to reveal to Jesus the turning points in his ministry. And second, because she doesn’t give up. She knows her daughter needs help and she still has faith that Jesus can help her. Rather than walking away feeling rejected or insulted, she answers back, with chutzpah: “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
As a Gentile woman who, according to “the rules”, isn’t even supposed to be talking to Jesus (because he was a Jewish man), she demonstrates a defining characteristic of Jewish culture—that argument is a form of prayer. Like Jacob who once wrestled the angel until God gave a blessing, she is verbally wrestling with Jesus, until he gives a blessing. This is her form of prayer, and it is kind of brilliant because she simply reminds Jesus of what he already knows: Even “the dogs” are fully beloved children of God. With Jesus, even “the crumbs” are enough for a feast. God’s love and healing power have no ethnic, or political, or social boundaries. God’s grace and mercy are equally available to all, Jews and Gentiles alike.
“For saying this, you may go,” Jesus answers, “the demon has left your daughter.” It goes to show that God is at work when we speak according to our faith in Jesus. And through his answer, Jesus is affirming in the woman what Martin Luther called “the priesthood of believers”—that anyone can stand in faith before the presence of God and intercede in prayer on behalf of someone else. God wants us to do this—God wants us to bring to him in prayer whatever is burdening us in body, mind, or spirit. And like the Syrophoenician woman shows us, even arguing with God is a form of prayer. However it is you pray is the right way to pray; God wants to hear from you and God wants to help you, because even the crumbs from his table are more than enough for a feast.
And Jesus has given us so much more than crumbs. He’s given himself on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins. He has defeated the power of death and given us an open door to eternal life and salvation. And he’s given each of us a seat at the table in the great feast of heaven, where he has claimed us as God’s beloved children—along with our fellow children of God from every tribe and language and nation. Amen.