I am catching up on posting sermons. I preached this text one week after teaching it in the Pastors' Class. Consequently, I had a lot of material to use, which meant the main challenge was narrowing the focus. I enjoyed this sermon.
“Even the Dogs” Mark 7: 24-37; Isaiah 35: 5-6; SAPC, Denton; September 5, 2021
24 From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre.[a] 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,[b] 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.
31 Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. 32 They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. 33 He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. 34 Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” 35 And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. 36 Then Jesus[c] ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. 37 They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”
Introduction: The lectionary gives us two powerful stories of healing from the Gospel of Mark this morning. The Pastors’ class studied these just last week, so if you have any questions, ask one of them!
As we look at these stories, we note that the story of the Syrophoenician woman immediately follows Jesus discussing, arguing, debating with the religious authorities the issue of hat and who is clean and unclean.
Jesus has made the point that it is not what you eat, or what purity rules you follow that matters, but what does from the heart.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at these two stories.
Move 1: The woman would not let barriers stop her from reaching out to the person who can save her daughter.
a. The story opens with the Syrophoenician woman on her knees bowing down before Jesus.
1. Remember, the last person to bow down before Jesus and experience a healing of a daughter in the Gospel of Mark is Jairus just a few chapters earlier.
2. Jairus was a leader of the synagogue. It would be expected that Jesus would receive him and that Jairus would have an expectation that Jesus would see him as worthy of his attention and healing powers.
2. The Syrophoenician woman, on the other hand, should have no standing wiht Jesus.
3. She is, after all, a woman; a Greek Gentile; and she lives the land of pagans.
4. We may be surprised when Jesus lumps the woman in with the dogs, but those hearing the story in jesus’ time would have immediately recognized the truth of that characterization.
5. She is an outsider with no reasonable claim on Jesus’ time or his healing powers.
b. But, she will not let her status, or the world’s pecking order, or the expectation of who she is stand in the way of her seeking out the one who she believes can heal her daughter.
1. She takes on Jesus’ and his comment about dogs.
2. “Even the dogs” eat the children’s crumbs.
3. An interesting thing takes place in this dialogue.
4. When Jesus says, “let the children be fed first,” he uses the Greek word for children that means “biological children.”
5. Jesus is talking about what he can do for the Israelites, for the family, for the insiders.
6. when the woman responds, she uses the Greek word for “children” that is expansive, that can mean the children of the household, and the servant children, and maybe even the neighborhood children who they might think of as family.
7. It is as if the woman is boldly challenging Jesus - you say you have come for those beyond the tribes of Israel - do you really mean it?
8. In her pursuit of God’s grace and healing powers, she will even challenge Jesus.
c. God’s grace for the pushy!
1. The Reformer Martin Luther preached a sermon on this text and said that the woman got the best of Jesus in the discussion.
1. Luther lifts up the woman’s faith and suggests that when God’s grace is hidden, the woman still believes in God’s grace.
2. She will not stop until God’s grace appear and heals her daughter.
3. Over the last eighteen months we have again and again proclaimed that God is in our midst, despite the challenges in our world.
4. The Syrophoenician woman reminds us that it is not enough to proclaim God’s presence, but we must work and push and challenge until God’s unseen presence becomes God’s grace seen among us.
5. But do not forget that the woman’s persistence, her pushy ways, end up with her on her knees bowed down before Jesus.
6. We are not called to triumphalism that leads to or pushing what we want and our agenda.
7. We are called to persistently and humbly push as we follow Jesus in bringing to the world God’s grace that transforms lives and leads us to new places.
Move 2: The healing of the deaf man with the speech impediment amplifies the point the Syrophoenician woman made.
a. Notice the path Jesus travels to be where he meets the deaf man.
1. he goes from Tyre, by way of Sidon, toward the Sea of Galilee and ends up in the Decapolis area.
2. Google maps, or Waze, or even apple maps would never make the trip that way. it would be like going from Denton to Austin by way of Texarkana. You could do it, but it would make no sense.
3. Perhaps Mark is telling us that Jesus is hitting up all the places where Gentiles are in this region.
4. The way Jesus’ travels are reported suggest that he is taking his message, taking the life-saving, life-changing power of God to the Israelites and the Gentiles.
5. In other words, he is living out the truth that God’s relationship is no longer limited to the tribes of Israel.
6. All people are invited to follow Jesus.
b. We also notice that the deaf man has friends who have so strong a desire for him to be healed that they bring him to Jesus.
1. Like the Syrophoenician woman, people who would have been considered outside Jesus’ circle still seeking him and his powers.
2. Like the Syrophoenician woman, they beg Jesus to extend his healing powers to include their friend.
c. So Jesus does.
1. No argument this time, just a touch on his ears and his tongue and the man is healed.
2. the actual Greek for “tongue released” is literally “the chain of his tongue was broken.”
3. The man is released literally from that which binds him and holds him by the one who comes to release all of us from that which binds us and holds us back.
4. Surely, as the Israelites hear this story of the healing fo the deaf man, they will remember the words of the prophet Isaiah who proclaims that when God arrives:
“then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped,
then the lame shall leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.” (Isaiah 35: 5-6)
d. God has arrived in the person of Jesus Christ who heals without concern for whether the person is on the inside or the outside of circle drawn by the religious authorities.
Move 3: A final comment - Jesus is not kidding!
a. At the beginning of the passage we read, we are told that Jesus “set out” and “went away…”
1. Jesus “went” uses the Greek word that emphasizes the departure, instead of the normal Greek word for going somewhere.
2. It indicates that this is a decisive move by Jesus.
3. he is serious about where he is going and what he is going to do there.
b. as the stories unfold, we see how serious Jesus is.
1. he is expanding their understanding of whoa e God’s people.
2. he is sharing God’s healing powers with the Gentiles.
3. Jesus cannot be stopped from sharing God’s grace with anyone and everyone….even the dogs.
Conclusion: Jesus offers us the same; Jesus sends us into the world to settle for nothing less than to be part of God’s transforming grace in the world.
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