Before we headed to Northminister last Sunday for our joint service, we spent time in John 6. In John 6 we heard Jesus offer himself as the bread of life. This morning we heard a word of wisdom from Proverbs 22: “Those who are generous are blessed, for they share their bread with the poor” (Prov. 22:9). Bread also figures in our Gospel reading from Mark 7. So, what’s with all this talk of bread? Could this talk of bread have spiritual implications?
Mark 7 opens with Jesus having a conversation with a group of religious leaders about the religious importance of washing one’s hands before eating. This topic came up because Jesus’ disciples had neglected this religious rite. The issue isn’t hygiene but what tradition says about what it means to be clean or unclean in the eyes of God. According to Jesus, what makes us clean or unclean aren’t external things but what goes on in the heart (Mk. 7:1-23).
After Jesus had that discussion with the religious leaders, he headed to the predominantly Gentile region of Tyre. According to Mark, Jesus didn’t want anyone to know he was there, which tells me he was tired and he wanted to get away from the crowds. A Gentile city like Tyre might just be the right spot!
Things didn’t work out quite the way he hoped because no sooner did he arrive in Tyre than a Syrophoenician woman entered the house looking for Jesus. I assume this house belonged to a Jewish family because Jews considered Gentiles to be unclean and didn’t enter their houses nor did they invite Gentiles into their homes. So, this Gentile woman acted rather boldly when she transgressed these social, cultural, and religious boundaries so she could talk to Jesus.
Although she would have been an unwelcome guest, she was on a mission. After she entered the home she headed directly to Jesus, bowed at his feet, and pleaded with him to free her young daughter from the unclean spirit that afflicted her. If Jesus could heal her daughter, then no one was going to keep her from getting his assistance.
So, how does Jesus respond to this Gentile woman who disrupted his rest? This woman was so desperate to get help for her daughter, she transgressed every boundary. But what about Jesus? How would he respond? Would he welcome her with open arms or push her aside because she was an unclean Gentile?
It might surprise us that Jesus responded rather rudely to her request. He told her that the “children should eat first.” By children, he meant Jews. Not only that, but Jesus told her it wasn’t fair to give the children’s food to the dogs. When Jesus spoke here of dogs, he didn’t have “Man’s Best Friend” in mind. These dogs Jesus spoke of, weren’t cuddly pets, they were scavengers who hung around under the tables eating whatever fell to the ground.
In John 6 Jesus offered himself to the people as the Bread of Life that brings eternal life. In Mark 7 Jesus seems to withhold the bread of life from this woman’s daughter because Jesus’ community considered them unclean Gentiles. While Jesus told the religious leaders not to judge the book by its cover, it looked like Jesus is doing exactly the same thing when it came to responding to the woman’s request. It seems as if Jesus isn’t looking at the woman’s heart, only her external realities.
The Syrophoenician woman could have gone home at that point feeling rejected and abused by Jesus, but “she persisted.” She pushed right back at Jesus because she knew he was her last hope. He could insult her all he wanted, but she wasn’t going to go away empty-handed. She’d already transgressed religious boundaries by entering this house, so she told Jesus in no uncertain terms that “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” He might think of her and her daughter as dogs, but she was willing to gather up the crumbs if Jesus would free her daughter from her affliction. Her persistence won the day because Jesus told her to go home where she found her daughter alive and well and free from the demon’s control.
While the Syrophoenician woman got what she needed from Jesus, the question is whether something changed for Jesus because of this exchange? Were the eyes of his heart opened to a form of ethnocentrism that often afflicts us when it comes to our relationships with people who don’t share our religion, culture, or ethnicity? Did this woman teach Jesus something important about himself and about his neighbors, some of whom were Gentiles?
The encounter with the Syrophoenician woman in Tyre leads to a second healing story in Mark 7. After Jesus healed the woman’s daughter, he left Tyre and headed to another predominantly Gentile region. The region of the Decapolis, a collection of ten cities, that lay to the east of the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River. While we’ve already seen Jesus spend time in this region, I wonder if Jesus returned to this region with newly opened eyes after his encounter with the Syrophoenician woman. I ask this question because sometimes we think that Jesus knew everything he needed to know from the time he was born, though Luke does suggest that as he grew up, he “increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor” (Lk. 2:52).
So, when Jesus arrived in the Decapolis, perhaps with newly opened eyes, a group of people brought a man to Jesus who was deaf and mute. They wanted Jesus to heal the man. It’s possible that both the man and his friends were Gentiles. So, how would Jesus respond this time? Would he look on the externals or would he look at the man’s heart? This time, Jesus didn’t hesitate. When the friends asked Jesus to lay hands on their friend, Jesus was ready to act. However, Jesus did take the man off to a more private spot before he put his fingers in the man’s ears, spat, and touched the man’s tongue. After he did this, Jesus looked to the heavens, prayed, and then said to the man: “Be Opened.” When Jesus said this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he began to speak plainly. You can imagine how excited everyone was when they heard the man speak, but while their excitement was understandable, Jesus wanted them to keep this healing event a secret.
In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus often told people to keep quiet about things like this. Scholars call this Mark’s “Messianic Secret.” Of course, it’s difficult to stay quiet about something like this. So, the more he told them to keep quiet, the more zealously they shared the good news that Jesus did everything well, including making the deaf hear and the mute speak.
While Jesus did everything well, even healing people, there’s something unsettling about this passage. I struggle with Jesus’ response to the Syrophoenician woman because it doesn’t fit with my picture of Jesus. I don’t see the inclusive spirit here that I’ve come to expect from him. What I see is a man who appears to be locked into his own religious and ethnic realities. When the Syrophoenician woman persisted in transgressing those boundaries that divided Jew and Gentile from each other, it appears that her response opened the eyes of his heart so he could see this woman and her daughter as beloved children of God.
As we ponder the meaning of this story for our own lives, we might want to ask how the woman’s response to Jesus can open the eyes of our own hearts to the blind spots that keep us from recognizing others as beloved children of God? Elsewhere in the Gospels, Jesus calls on us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Sometimes we define what it means to be a neighbor in very narrow terms, but maybe we need to have our hearts opened to a more inclusive vision of what it means to be a neighbor, even as we may need to have a broader sense of what it means to be part of God’s family?
Humans tend to divide into tribal groups, creating rules and regulations and boundaries designed to keep us apart. We create markers that define us by nationality, race, gender, economic status, sexual orientation, and religion. In other words, we create rules that make some people clean and others unclean. However, St. Paul tells us that if we clothe ourselves in Christ through baptism, “there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). As we read in the Ephesian letter, Christ has “broken down the dividing wall, that is the hostility between us” (Eph. 2:14).
So, with the eyes of our hearts opened, may we join with Jesus in bringing healing in all its forms to the world around us. As Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5, God reconciled us to Godself in Christ, making us ambassadors of reconciliation. In other words, we are called to serve as agents of God’s healing grace, joining with Jesus in tearing down the dividing walls of hostility (2 Cor. 5:16-20). This is what it means to have the eyes of our hearts opened so we can see the world as God sees it and then act accordingly in pursuit of the common good of all.
Preached by:
Dr. Robert D. Cornwall
Acting Supply Pastor
First Presbyterian Church (PCUSA)
Troy, Michigan
September 8
Pentecost 16B
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