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Pentecost 15B
Sept. 5, 2021
Mark 7:24-37
INTRODUCTION
As I mentioned last week, we are back in the Gospel of Mark, after several weeks in John. Now, Mark and John have very different depictions of Jesus – both acknowledge that he is both fully human and fully divine, but they have different, shall we say, emphases. I had a Bible professor in college who made this observation about the difference: in Mark, she said, Jesus wears the cloak of humanity – meaning his divinity is well-hidden by his humanity – where in John, Jesus wears the bikini of humanity, not at all hiding his divinity. This trait of Mark, in which Jesus is portrayed as very human, is obvious today. First, in his exchange with a Gentile woman, he is, uh, less than respectful and compassionate, calling her a racial slur and then saying she must wait her turn to have her daughter healed. In the second story, Jesus groans and sighs and uses his own spit to heal a man. In today’s story, we can really identify with Jesus’ humanness.
But emphases in today’s readings also include healing (from a demon, and from other various physical impairments), as well as mercy for those in need, whoever they are. You will see those themes echoed strongly in all of the readings today. So, notice the ways that God heals and shows mercy, even if it is not as we would have expected. Let’s listen.
[READ]
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
“Be opened.” These words Jesus utters in Aramaic with a sigh toward heaven in the second half of our Gospel reading today have been echoing through my head all week. Be opened. Maybe they are just words, a command offered to a deaf man’s ears and to that man’s mute tongue. Maybe they have no further, significant meaning, and no relationship to anything other than what is right before him.
But this week, I am experiencing them far more deeply.
First of all, there is the encounter that precedes those words, with the Syrophoenician woman – a troubling encounter, if we’re honest, because in it, Jesus does not come out looking as loving and compassionate as we are accustomed to seeing him. A woman in need comes to him, desperate for her daughter to be healed. She is very much an “other,” as Mark makes clear by saying both that she is Greek and of Syrophoenician origin. She is a Gentile, not one of the children of Israel to whom Jesus says he was sent. Plus, she is a woman. Plus, she has just barged into this house where Jesus has gone in an effort to escape for a while – Mark tells us Jesus didn’t want anyone to know he was there. It’s a perfect storm, really, and Jesus responds to her request not with compassion, but with an insult, indirectly calling her a dog, and saying he will not yet grant her request. “It is not fair,” he says, “to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
Ouch. It’s a cringeworthy reply. The woman, though, is undeterred, and like a Judo master she turns the power of Jesus’s own words against him: “A dog, am I? Sure, I’ll accept that. But even dogs get to eat the children’s crumbs from the table.” Bam – mic drop! Jesus is convinced by her savvy, and he heals her daughter. Even more, this encounter marks a turning point in Jesus’ ministry – from this point on, his ministry does include those outside the Jewish community. Immediately after today’s reading, he will even feed 4000 people in this Gentile territory, with far more than crumbs from the table. In other words, after this encounter, Jesus’ mission truly does broaden to include more than the children of Israel; it comes to include Gentiles as well (which is really good news for us!).
Be opened. Be opened to strangers and others having something to say that you need to hear. Be opened to heading down a different path than you originally planned. Be opened to the insights of others.
When Jesus then goes on to say these words, “be opened,” to the man who is deaf and mute, it seems obvious that he is directing them toward the man’s ears and tongue, right? But reading them right after this story of the Syrophoenician woman, I read those words differently. Mark often shares wonderful details about the life of Jesus, and in this healing story, we get a couple of juicy ones. First, Jesus spits, then he looks up to heaven, and then he sighs. This man, too, is likely a Gentile whom Jesus is healing, as he tries his hand at this expanded mission of his. And I wonder if, as Jesus is looking up to his Father in heaven, he is sighing and saying, “Okay, Dad, I get it. Be opened. I’m up for the task.” And he puts his own blood and spit into the effort. And the man is immediately healed.
Be opened. Be opened to seeing a new way. Be opened to redirection. Be opened to hearing the voice of God. Be opened.
So yes, I’ve been thinking about all of this: about Jesus’ own openness, about his willingness to hear God’s word through the voice of a woman he had little interest in seeing, about the possibility of going a way that had not yet been considered.
But more specifically, I have been trying to hear those words, “be opened,” spoken into my own life. I am someone who, especially when I have a big decision to make, looks for God’s voice and gentle guidance anywhere I can find it. I obviously seek it in scripture (I’m literally doing that aloud with you right now!), but I also often seek it in the words of dear friends, or in whatever song randomly pops up when I get in the car, or even in something I just keep noticing in a way I hadn’t before. For example, once, in the midst of making some important decisions, and I found myself noticing how frequently the image of a bird kept presenting itself. Birds flying across my path or sitting on my house, friends using bird analogies, songs about birds getting stuck in my head. Each time, I noticed how free and unbound these birds were. Was God trying to open my ears, my heart, my eyes, to learn something from all these birds, from their freedom and unbound-ness? What was God saying – to what was I being opened? All these birds may have seemed inconsequential, if I hadn’t been actively seeking God’s guidance. I may not have even noticed all the birds at all. But with ears, eyes, and tongue opened, I was drawn into wondering what new thing God was nudging me toward.
Be opened. Be opened to seeing God where you didn’t expect. Be opened to God’s direction for you. Be opened to trusting God in a way you haven’t before, believing only that if you jump, God will catch you. Be opened.
And this brings me back to the story of this Syrophoenician woman, which I find so captivating. She is gutsy and bold, this one. She is persistent. Today is my daughter Grace’s 6th birthday. One of her favorite books is called She Persisted: 13 American Women Who Changed the World. Grace wants so badly to persist at something, to trailblaze, to be the first woman to do something important. (Her most recent idea is to be the first woman on the moon.) She also wants to meet what she calls “a persist-y woman,” a woman who beats the odds, aspires, and inspires. Well, the woman in this story is indeed a “persist-y” woman, who advocates for herself and her daughter at the very feet of Jesus. What trust! What openness to God’s power! Her very persistence seems to speak to us as much as anything else in this story, for in Jesus’ initial no, she finds the hidden yes. She finds in him the yes beneath the no, trusting as she does in God’s mercy, in God’s openness to her and to her needs, leaving space enough for mercy to fall even on one of the dogs under the table. She is open to, and persists in finding, God’s yes.
“Be opened,” she seems to say in her pleas – says it perhaps to Jesus, but all the more to us. Be opened to God’s redemptive work even when all you hear is “no.” Be opened to the possibility that what is on the surface isn’t all there is, that with more persistence you can get to God’s yes. Be opened to a new and abundant life you had, until now, only hoped for, but which can indeed be yours by grace through faith in the One who always hears our pleas, who grants us mercy, and to whom we absolutely matter.
Be opened.
Let us pray… Merciful God, you command our hearts, minds, ears and eyes to be opened. Help us to hear the command, and to do it, so that we would see the abundant life you want for us, and to which you are bringing us. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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