Mark 7:24-37
2nd Sunday of Creation - September 8 , 2024
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
Mark 7:24-37
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, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 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.” But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
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. They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”
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When, exactly, did you become you? Was it when the sperm and egg came together? Or did it happen when you took your first breath? Or was it when you learned to speak and express yourself? Or when you had your first real crisis and survived? Or do you think of yourself as still being in process; still becoming you?
That’s how I think of it. I’m still becoming James Campbell. I’m not yet fully cooked. I’m still on my way to being all that God created me to be. And if that is true of me and perhaps you, then it begs the question: when did Jesus become Jesus? In other words, did he too continue to learn and grow and change as the years passed?
I remember the first time I ever seriously considered that question. It was in a college chapel service and when the speaker introduced the idea, it really upset me. Wasn’t Jesus always Jesus? Didn’t he emerge from Mary’s womb fully and completely formed – not so much the Son of Man as the Son of God?
I suppose I had never seriously considered a Jesus who grew up in a working-class home, and played in the streets with his brothers and sisters, and scraped his knees, and had stomach aches, and sometimes confounded his parents, and fell in love, and overslept. I had never seriously considered that Jesus too was in process.
Today’s lesson has Jesus traveling to the region of Tyre, in modern day Lebanon. And he appears to have traveled alone because there is no mention of the disciples. And Mark says that when he entered the house where he was staying, he didn’t want anyone to know that he was there. The Lord needed a vacation.
But word spread that the great healer and teacher from Galilee was holed up in a local house. And soon enough, there was a pounding on the door. It was a Syrophoenician woman who pushed her way in and immediately fell down at Jesus’s feet and told him that her daughter was possessed by a demon.
Now, scholars tell us that it’s not completely clear what Mark meant when he called her a Syrophoenician. But what is clear is that he meant to emphasize her Gentile otherness; her outsider status. And at this point in Jesus’s life, he understood his mission to be exclusively to the Jewish people.
Jesus almost always met human need with compassion. But not this time. This time, a tired, perhaps close-to-burned-out Jesus, looked at this brave woman seeking help for her child and said: “Lady, let the children be fed first because it’s not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
At that point, I would have just slinked away in humiliation and anger. But not her. She was a desperate mother. And so, she replied: “That might be true, sir. But even the dogs get the table scraps.”
This is one of the most jarring interactions ever recorded in the Gospels. And because it is so seemingly out of character for our Lord, the church has done theological backflips to try to explain it in ways that protect our static views of a Jesus who was always fully formed.
And so, we say things like this: Well, Jesus ignored this woman and then verbally rebuffed her because he was testing her faith. If she could only exhibit enough faith, the reasoning goes, then her daughter would be set free. But that kind of logic sets us humans up for some very cruel “tests of faith.” And, it implies that when bad things happen to us, somehow, it’s our fault. If only we had more faith, then we wouldn’t suffer. What a load of toxic theology.
Another explanation goes like this: when Jesus called her a dog, he was really calling her a puppy, sort of like a term of endearment. The Greek word here for dog is “kunarios” which actually means little dogs or puppies. And this used to be my favorite explanation of this passage, until the day I realized that no one really wants to be called a young female dog, if you know what I mean.
Or people say this: Jesus rebuffed her because she needed to submit to Jesus. She needed to kneel at his feet, to beg his mercy, to humble herself. And it was this humbling, this groveling that got her prayer answered. But I was raised on a steady diet of pious humiliation and frankly, all it ever did for me was to mess with my self-esteem and give me a very twisted view of the love of God.
But what happens to this story if we don’t shove it through our preconceived theological notions? What happens if we just let it speak for itself?
Well, what happens is that we see a clear picture of the mystery of the Incarnation: God with us, God as one of us. Really, one of us. Perhaps what we see is Jesus having a bad day or being really, really tired. But then he meets this woman who will not take no for an answer. And then we see a Jesus still in the process of change and growth; “on his way,” as one blogger has put it, “to becoming the Savior of the World.” The great theologian Barbara Brown Taylor has written, that in this encounter with the woman, “you can almost hear the huge wheel of history turning as Jesus comes to a new understanding of who he is and what he has been called to do.”[1] And what he was called to do in that moment was to change his mind.
Immediately afterwards, Jesus set off to the region of the Decapolis in Galilee – another Gentile stronghold. The people there brought him a deaf man who had a speech impediment. And this, too, is a jarring story because of what Jesus does. He took this man aside, put his fingers in his ears, and took some of his own saliva and placed it on the man’s tongue. And then Jesus looked up into heaven, and sighed, and said: “Be opened.” And the man was healed.
Because this story is so odd, it’s easy to miss the sigh. But I think the sigh is everything. Jesus sighed. Was he still tired? Was he still frustrated? Or is it possible that this was simply a sigh of recognition for what the woman had taught him? When he said to the deaf man: “Be opened!” maybe he sighed and thought: “Oh. Right. I get it. Be opened. Me. Be opened. I get it.”
Now some people won’t like my interpretation because it makes Jesus just too human. OK. But for me, it is his blessed humanity that makes me love him all the more. And it is his willingness to change that gives me hope for my own wayward life.
How sad that the concept of changing your mind has become equated with weakness. How sad that we think of rigidity as strength. How sad that we have been taught to believe that being sure means being saved. And so we miss the grace of God in the faces of all those Syrophoenician outsiders and strangers who have something to teach us about God and ourselves and the world that we do not yet know.
I am still very much becoming James Campbell. And trust me when I tell you that I don’t always get it right. I make plenty of mistakes. I can be plenty rigid. I’m rather good at being judgmental. But every now and again, there is a Syrophoenician – sometimes in this congregation - who helps me see things in a new light. And grace of God gets in the cracks. And I change. And I am renewed. And I take the next step in following the One who walked this way before me.
Thomas, Debie. www.journeywithjesus.net, “Be Opened” accessed September 3, 2018
2nd Sunday of Creation - September 8 , 2024
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
Mark 7:24-37
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, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 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.” But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
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. They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”
+++
When, exactly, did you become you? Was it when the sperm and egg came together? Or did it happen when you took your first breath? Or was it when you learned to speak and express yourself? Or when you had your first real crisis and survived? Or do you think of yourself as still being in process; still becoming you?
That’s how I think of it. I’m still becoming James Campbell. I’m not yet fully cooked. I’m still on my way to being all that God created me to be. And if that is true of me and perhaps you, then it begs the question: when did Jesus become Jesus? In other words, did he too continue to learn and grow and change as the years passed?
I remember the first time I ever seriously considered that question. It was in a college chapel service and when the speaker introduced the idea, it really upset me. Wasn’t Jesus always Jesus? Didn’t he emerge from Mary’s womb fully and completely formed – not so much the Son of Man as the Son of God?
I suppose I had never seriously considered a Jesus who grew up in a working-class home, and played in the streets with his brothers and sisters, and scraped his knees, and had stomach aches, and sometimes confounded his parents, and fell in love, and overslept. I had never seriously considered that Jesus too was in process.
Today’s lesson has Jesus traveling to the region of Tyre, in modern day Lebanon. And he appears to have traveled alone because there is no mention of the disciples. And Mark says that when he entered the house where he was staying, he didn’t want anyone to know that he was there. The Lord needed a vacation.
But word spread that the great healer and teacher from Galilee was holed up in a local house. And soon enough, there was a pounding on the door. It was a Syrophoenician woman who pushed her way in and immediately fell down at Jesus’s feet and told him that her daughter was possessed by a demon.
Now, scholars tell us that it’s not completely clear what Mark meant when he called her a Syrophoenician. But what is clear is that he meant to emphasize her Gentile otherness; her outsider status. And at this point in Jesus’s life, he understood his mission to be exclusively to the Jewish people.
Jesus almost always met human need with compassion. But not this time. This time, a tired, perhaps close-to-burned-out Jesus, looked at this brave woman seeking help for her child and said: “Lady, let the children be fed first because it’s not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
At that point, I would have just slinked away in humiliation and anger. But not her. She was a desperate mother. And so, she replied: “That might be true, sir. But even the dogs get the table scraps.”
This is one of the most jarring interactions ever recorded in the Gospels. And because it is so seemingly out of character for our Lord, the church has done theological backflips to try to explain it in ways that protect our static views of a Jesus who was always fully formed.
And so, we say things like this: Well, Jesus ignored this woman and then verbally rebuffed her because he was testing her faith. If she could only exhibit enough faith, the reasoning goes, then her daughter would be set free. But that kind of logic sets us humans up for some very cruel “tests of faith.” And, it implies that when bad things happen to us, somehow, it’s our fault. If only we had more faith, then we wouldn’t suffer. What a load of toxic theology.
Another explanation goes like this: when Jesus called her a dog, he was really calling her a puppy, sort of like a term of endearment. The Greek word here for dog is “kunarios” which actually means little dogs or puppies. And this used to be my favorite explanation of this passage, until the day I realized that no one really wants to be called a young female dog, if you know what I mean.
Or people say this: Jesus rebuffed her because she needed to submit to Jesus. She needed to kneel at his feet, to beg his mercy, to humble herself. And it was this humbling, this groveling that got her prayer answered. But I was raised on a steady diet of pious humiliation and frankly, all it ever did for me was to mess with my self-esteem and give me a very twisted view of the love of God.
But what happens to this story if we don’t shove it through our preconceived theological notions? What happens if we just let it speak for itself?
Well, what happens is that we see a clear picture of the mystery of the Incarnation: God with us, God as one of us. Really, one of us. Perhaps what we see is Jesus having a bad day or being really, really tired. But then he meets this woman who will not take no for an answer. And then we see a Jesus still in the process of change and growth; “on his way,” as one blogger has put it, “to becoming the Savior of the World.” The great theologian Barbara Brown Taylor has written, that in this encounter with the woman, “you can almost hear the huge wheel of history turning as Jesus comes to a new understanding of who he is and what he has been called to do.”[1] And what he was called to do in that moment was to change his mind.
Immediately afterwards, Jesus set off to the region of the Decapolis in Galilee – another Gentile stronghold. The people there brought him a deaf man who had a speech impediment. And this, too, is a jarring story because of what Jesus does. He took this man aside, put his fingers in his ears, and took some of his own saliva and placed it on the man’s tongue. And then Jesus looked up into heaven, and sighed, and said: “Be opened.” And the man was healed.
Because this story is so odd, it’s easy to miss the sigh. But I think the sigh is everything. Jesus sighed. Was he still tired? Was he still frustrated? Or is it possible that this was simply a sigh of recognition for what the woman had taught him? When he said to the deaf man: “Be opened!” maybe he sighed and thought: “Oh. Right. I get it. Be opened. Me. Be opened. I get it.”
Now some people won’t like my interpretation because it makes Jesus just too human. OK. But for me, it is his blessed humanity that makes me love him all the more. And it is his willingness to change that gives me hope for my own wayward life.
How sad that the concept of changing your mind has become equated with weakness. How sad that we think of rigidity as strength. How sad that we have been taught to believe that being sure means being saved. And so we miss the grace of God in the faces of all those Syrophoenician outsiders and strangers who have something to teach us about God and ourselves and the world that we do not yet know.
I am still very much becoming James Campbell. And trust me when I tell you that I don’t always get it right. I make plenty of mistakes. I can be plenty rigid. I’m rather good at being judgmental. But every now and again, there is a Syrophoenician – sometimes in this congregation - who helps me see things in a new light. And grace of God gets in the cracks. And I change. And I am renewed. And I take the next step in following the One who walked this way before me.
Thomas, Debie. www.journeywithjesus.net, “Be Opened” accessed September 3, 2018
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