Mark 7:24-37
September 8, 2024
I have been blessed and lucky to
love more than a few dogs in my life. Brandy was my dog growing up. He used to
sleep at the end of my bed and growl at my dad when he came down the hall to
check on me at night. Brandy was a small dog, but he was spunky and protective.
Meg was the family dog of the people I lived with for a while in Richmond. She
was a sweet girl. When Gonzo, the dog from next door, would come over to play,
Meg would get a treat for her buddy and herself. She’d give the treat to the
other dog, then off they’d go. When my kids were little, we had Boris and
Belinda. I loved them both, but Boris was my first baby before I actually had
my first baby. Let me put it this way, I skipped a meeting at church so I could
finish up a birthday cake I was making for the party being thrown for Boris’
first birthday. Yes, Boris – the dog – had a first birthday
party.
Boris was a good dog. He was gentle.
He was patient, even when two little kids fell all over him. Once when Phoebe
had friends sleeping over, he let them paint his toenails. I checked on the
kids at night and so did he. I loved Boris with all my heart and my heart was
broken when we finally had to make the painful decision to put him down. I hope
he’ll be waiting for me at the Rainbow Bridge.
But as much as I love dogs, I don’t
want to be called a dog. Loving dogs and being compared to dogs are two very
different things. Being called a dog has harsh connotations. These connotations
are part of what we wrestle with in this first story from our passage in Mark’s
gospel.
Jesus has been on the move. He has
fed five thousand people. He has walked on water. He has been rushed by
countless people begging for healing – for themselves or someone else. He has
been confronted by the Pharisees and scribes. He has upended their objections,
taught more crowds, and given deeper instructions to his disciples. And now he
has come to the region of Tyre. There he went into a house not wanting anyone
to know his whereabouts, hoping, as the text says, to escape notice.
But escaping notice was not to be. A
Syrophoenician woman heard that Jesus was in town, and she immediately went to
find him. Her little daughter was sick with an unclean spirit, and she was
desperate for help.
She went into the house where Jesus
was and bowed down at his feet. This woman, this mother, begged Jesus to cast
the demon out of her daughter, to make her well. But Jesus gave her an answer
that she probably hadn’t expected. It’s certainly an answer that we don’t
expect.
“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.’”
Throw it to the dogs?! Jesus, what
are you saying?! It’s bad enough that anyone would say this to a woman seeking
help for her daughter, but the fact that Jesus said it is so much worse. So.
Much. Worse.
There have been many attempts at
explaining Jesus’ words over the centuries, or should I say attempts to explain
them away. Some interpreters have reasoned that Jesus didn’t mean this, but
that he was trying to teach the others around him an important lesson. Others
have said that he wasn’t really insulting the woman, that the word for dog
here could also be translated as puppy. Because when your child is
suffering terribly, it is infinitely better to be called a puppy than it is to
be called a dog.
But the more I’ve read and preached
on this passage, the more I’ve learned from others about this passage, these
verses, the more I think that Jesus said these words exactly as we hear them.
His words to this woman were insulting and unkind and harsh. I imagine that the
woman heard them this way as well, but she refused to let Jesus’ harsh words
stop her. She counters his words with this.
“Sir, even the dogs under the table
eat the children’s crumbs.”
Essayist and theologian, Debie
Thomas writes that as a child she was taught to believe in Perfect Jesus. And
Perfect Jesus could do no wrong. Perfect Jesus was shiny and bright and …
perfect. But in this story we must wrestle with Real Jesus. Human Jesus. And
that’s what we believe, or at least that is what we say believe. That Jesus was
both fully human and fully divine. He wasn’t just divinity wrapped in human
clothing. He was human. And as a human he got tired. As a human, he needed
downtime. He needed time alone to be quiet, to be untouched. When my kids were
tiny, there were times when I just didn’t want to be touched by anyone. I had
hands and feet all over me all the time. That was from being with two little
kids. Think about how many people gathered around Jesus. Think about how many
folks clamored for his attention, for his help. Just think about how many hands
were constantly touching him, pulling at him. Real Jesus, human Jesus is the
Jesus we meet in this story. And this Real, Human Jesus clearly needed a break.
And this Real, Human Jesus was also
a man of his time and his context. This woman was a Gentile woman. Real Jesus,
Human Jesus might have had unconscious biases, learned prejudices the same as
the rest of us. I know people don’t like to hear that, but if we acknowledge
his fully human nature, than we must also acknowledge that as a human being Jesus
had to learn as well as teach. Jesus had to grow, not only physically, but into
his calling, into the fullness of his nature.
Maybe Real Jesus did believe at
first that his call was only to Israel. But this woman came, this desperate,
frightened, angry mother came to him and demanded that the good news he brought
be her good news too.
And how did Jesus respond? He
listened. He heard her. He changed his mind. He didn’t double down into his
original statement and refuse to help this woman. He realized that he was
wrong. He was not too proud to change his mind. Can we stop for a moment and
think about how incredible that is. Jesus changed his mind. His heart was
changed. His mind and his heart were opened that day. Maybe in that moment
Jesus understood that the table he spoke of was big enough for everyone. It was
big enough and wide enough for that woman and her daughter and other Gentiles
and the children of Israel and for friends and enemies, for rich and poor, for
weak and strong, for powerful and powerless. The table of God’s kingdom was big
enough and wide enough and open enough for all to sit.
Jesus’ heart and mind was opened and
in the last part of the story those are the words he uses to heal the deaf man.
“Ephphatha!” Be opened. Jesus opened this man’s physical ears to hear and his
mouth to speak clearly, but Jesus also had his ears and mind and heart opened
in a new way as well.
What would it mean if we could be as
open as Jesus? We’ve had another school shooting after years and years of
school shootings and shootings in grocery stores and malls and churches and on
the interstate. Maybe it’s too simplistic of me to say that we have an epidemic
of hearts that remain stubbornly unopened, but I think that’s part of it, part
of the problem. On Wednesday we will remember the 23rd anniversary
of September 11th. Wasn’t that terrible day an extreme and horrible
outcome of hearts that refuse to be opened to people and ideas and beliefs that
are different?
With every act of violence that I
hear about or read about, I feel my heart trying to close, trying to shrink
down, because I’m scared and angry and frustrated and tired. I don’t want to
hear other sides. I don’t want to be opened to the humanity of people,
especially those with whom I disagree with so completely. But when I do that, I
am part of the problem. Because the good news that Jesus brought was not just
good news for some, but for all. It was the good news that the table is big
enough and wide enough and long enough and open enough that all of us, every
one of us, all of God’s children and that means all of us, are invited to take
our place. Are we willing to do the hard work, and it is hard work, of opening
our hearts and our minds to make room?
Let all of God’s children say,
“Alleluia.”
Amen.
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