Another week with a powerful story to preach. Not sure I quite understand the exchange between Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman, but the story felt pertinent to our current context. I am grateful for the insights of Prof. Young on the Isaiah passage - her thoughts really helped shape my approach to the sermon.
“Facing Reality” August 5, 2020, SAPC, Denton; Mark 7: 27-30; Isaiah 35; Richard B. Culp
From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, 25 but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. 26 Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27 He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” 28 But she answered him, “Sir,[h] even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” 29 Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” 30 So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
Introduction: We continue in our preaching series, “People Like Us,” this week reflecting on the story of the Syrophoenician woman.
We do not know her name, but we know her story.
Move 1: Before getting to the Syrophoenician woman, however, listen again to the words of the prophet Isaiah:
a. Strengthen the weak hands,
and make firm the feeble knees.
4
Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
“Be strong, do not fear!
b. “those who are of fearful heart” in Hebrew is literally But a more literal rendering of the Hebrew phrase "ones whose hearts are racing." (Anathea Portier-Young Associate Professor of Old Testament
Duke University Divinity School
1. I don’t now about you, but some days that sounds like a pretty good description of how I feel.
2. The heart is racing as we contemplate the world before us:
3. In addition to all the usual stuff: parenting; or being spouse; or dealing with other relationships; or work issues; or medical issues; or political division; or political unrest
4. On top of all that, we live in a time of pandemic.
5. A time of isolation and perhaps too much time to think and ponder the world around us.
6. when I hear Isaiah speak of those whose hearts are racing, I recognize I am one of those people.
7. When I hear him says, “Be strong. Do not fear.” I need to know how.
For that answer, we turn to the Syrophoenician woman.
Move 2: A woman with a racing heart might describe the Syrophoenician woman.
a. Her reality creates anxiety for her.
1. Her reality puts her outside looking in at Jesus.
2. She is “a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin” (Mark 7:26).
2. In other words, she is implicitly impure, one who lives outside of the land of Israel and outside of the law of Moses, a descendant of the ancient enemies of Israel.
She is also a woman, unaccompanied by a husband or male relative, who initiates a conversation with a strange man -- another taboo transgressed. Elisabeth Johnson
Professor Lutheran Institute of Theology
Meiganga, Cameroon; http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3761)
3. Add to the mix, she also has a daughter filled with a demon. We do not have a description of how the affliction showed itself in her particular case, but we know from other biblical stories that she probably acted out and had bizarre responses to those around her.
b. The Syrophoenician woman may be able to accept the reality of her social status in the world, but surely her heart races as she desperately seeks healing for her daughter.
1. As she looks for help, she turns looks to this man Jesus who has a reputation for healing.
2. she knows that she is not in the target audience for his ministry.
2. she knows she is outside his reach.
3. But she turns to Jesus anyway.
c. a mother with a racing heart turns to Jesus.
1. We stop here at this point in the story to be reminded where we are invited to turn when our hearts are racing.
2. When the complaining and whining have not changed things.
3. when our best plans do not seem to lead us out of our predicament.
4. When it feels like we are mired in quicksand, and the more we try and do, the more we seem to sink.
5. when the world’s circumstances seem to be closing in, we follow the Syrophoenician woman and turn to Jesus.
6. The text tells us she bowed down before Christ - as I imagine that scene, it reminds me as a child spending time in the summer at my grandparents and watching each night as my grandfather, in his pajamas, slowly get down on his knees and pray before going to bed each night.
5. As we hear the prophet Isaiah calls us to “Be strong,” we find our strength in Jesus Christ.
Move 2: Admittedly, when the Syrophoenician woman comes to Jesus in this story, her desperation is not immediately met in the way we might expect or want.
a. Maybe Jesus is having a bad day.
1. Some people point to his presence in Tyre, away from his home turf, hiding out in a house as a sign Jesus is trying to get away from things.
2. Take a break.
b. But the woman with the sick daughter and racing heart finds him.
1. She arrives unannounced and falls at the feet of Jesus.
2. She asks for him to heal, and he answers with a sharp remark that seems to suggest she is no more than a dog, and as such unworthy of anything Jesus can offer her.
3. She responds, well she responds like a desperate mother willing to accept anything from Jesus if he will heal his daughter.
4. “Don’t I even get the crumbs?”
5. As I have shared with you before, biblical scholars do not know what to do with this exchange.
6. Some suggest Jesus’ sharp response reveals Jesus’ humanity, his human side that is tired and cranky and does not want to deal with anyone, including this mother.
7. Some biblical scholars suggest Jesus knows what she is going to say, so he is setting her up to make a point about his willingness to engage outsiders.
d. I do not know if either theory is correct, but I do know that the mother with the racing heart turns to Jesus, he hears her and heals her daughter, without even going to see her little daughter.
1. I know that Jesus hears us when we turn to him.
2. I know that when God hears our desperate cries, God is acting as God has done for generation after generation.
3. I know that our only and final hope is found in God.
move 4: A final reminder from the prophet Isaiah
a. Underlying Isaiah 35’s dramatic imagery of divine action, similarly, hope proceeds not simply from God’s expected reversals, but from those the prophet seeks to inspire, from a small band of Judeans who recultivate the burned land and push back the chaos, and thus strengthen their own weak hands, feeble knees, and fearful hearts. (Patricia Tull, A.B. Rhodes Professor Emerita of Old Testament; Louisville Presbyterian Seminary; http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2627)
b. God’s people not only find their hope in God but their calling in being part of God’s transforming work.
1. the God who hears the cries of those with racing hearts, the God who hears our cries, sends us back into the world.
2. Back into the world to proclaim that God is still at work.
3. Back into the world to join with others whose hearts are racing.
4. Back into the world to be part of God’s work among the sick, the oppressed, the disillusioned.
5. Back into the world to serve as peacemakers, to hold ourselves and others accountable to the vision of God’s love we know to be true.
Conclusion: With racing hearts, we turn to God; in the hope and promise of God we are sent to share God’s saving grace in a world of racing hearts.
No comments:
Post a Comment