Let Us Be Open

 Mark 7:24-37

September 8, 2024

 

We’re in chapter 7 in Mark, and I always think it’s important

at this time to know a little bible geography.

In the book of Mark, Jesus goes travelling a lot.

He goes from town to town healing people and preaching.

You can see here a track of where he goes in every chapter.

It’s easier to see the towns on this map though.

 

So Jesus ministry happens mostly on the west

side of the sea of Galilee with lots of stuff happening

in  Capernaum, Nazareth, and on the sea of Galilee itself

This is the place that Jesus and the disciples are from

so they’re familiar with it.

They’re more comfortable with.

These are their people.

 

Only occasionally did he and the disciples

go over to the east side of the sea,

where there are more gentile or non-Jewish people.

People that they may not be as comfortable or familiar with.

 

Back in Chapter 5 Jesus and the

disciples went to the East Side and they went to

a gentile territory named Geragenes, or Geraseen or Garasa

(no one agrees how to pronounce it or spell it now)

When Mark refers to it, he calls it the “Other Side”

In this chapter, Jesus meets a man who’s filled with evil spirits,

and Jesus put them out of the man and into the herd of pigs,

and they jumped off a cliff.

And then everyone in Garagenes or Geraseen

ran Jesus and his disciples out of town.

So they didn’t seem to have very much success on the East side.

 

After that, they leave there and go back to the west coast

spending the next two chapters with people that they

know and are at least a little familiar with .

And they are much more successful.

But now today in this story Jesus is in Tyre.

It’s way up at the top.

Although it’s on the west side,

it’s out of their normal territory,

It’s the area that’s now Lebanon.

About 35 miles away from where they’ve normally been

which is a lot when walking is the only transportation.

and it’s a primarily a Gentile area a non-Jewish area

 

Jesus goes there and stays at someone’s house there

It doesn’t seem like he’s even trying to do ministry up

in Tyre, because it says

“he doesn’t want anyone to know he’s there.”

Maybe he’s just visiting friends, taking a break.

 

But people do find out that Jesus is there

A woman comes to find him to and she wants

Jesus to heal her daughter,

and, as might be suspected,

She’s Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin.

She’s not Jewish, she’s not from the group that Jesus

has had success with.

The story wants us specifically to know that.

  

And to be honest,

Jesus doesn’t really seem eager to help her.

And the reason that he gives, in a nutshell, is

because he believes he has been sent to

help and minister and save Jewish people only.

Basically, he says, “It wouldn’t be fair to

give help to you when there’s a lot of my own people

who haven’t been helped yet.”

Which is frankly what we hear sometimes

when people talk about helping

immigrants and refugees from wars, or when we talk

about giving aid to other countries.

People say, “Well, it’s not fair to help them when

we’re not helping our own homeless, or veterans, or

unemployed. We need to help out our own first.”

We’re used to other people saying this,

but we’re not used to hearing this kind of stuff from Jesus.

It’s kind of unsettling.

 

Now some people have tried to make this sound better

by saying that Jesus is testing her,

or testing his disciples, or trying to make a point.

But there is nothing actually in this

text that leads us to that conclusion.

Jesus just generally seems to be refusing

to help this woman on the basis of her religion or lack of it.

And he’s not particularly nice about it either.

 

It seems that Jesus actually believes, at this point, that

he’s been sent only to help Jewish people.

Those are the people he knows,

those are the people he’s comfortable with,

And those are the people who he’s had the most success with.

 

And maybe with that whole episode with

the guy in Gerasenes, or Gargenes, and the pigs

jumping off the cliff, maybe Jesus thought that was an

indicator that he should not venture out to non-Jewish people.

Maybe he thought it was a sign from God.

That may be why he was turning this woman

away at the beginning of the story.

 

Just a break from the story now:

I know that this makes some people uncomfortable.

I know this, because I was uncomfortable when I first read

this possibility, and in the past when I’ve talked about it,

other people have told me they weren’t comfortable about it.

 

People are not always comfortable when we talk

about Jesus being human and not always having the right

answers from the beginning.  Christians love Jesus’ divine side.

We feel most comfortable with Jesus when he knows

everything and has everything all figured out from the beginning.

We feel uncomfortable when Jesus is human,

when we think he might be confused, or conflicted,

or – oh my- maybe if he changes his mind about something.

 

But in Mark’s gospel, which was the first Gospel written down,

Jesus is very human. 

In Mark, Jesus has no miraculous birth story, no angelic mother

(she only mentioned twice and it’s not in very favorable ways.)

Jesus is more curt in this story, more annoyed.

He barks at his disciples a lot, and

he prays that he wouldn’t have to face the cross.

 

Jesus is truly human. And I think that’s good.

I find that comforting.

  

I think it’s actually helpful to have stories of a savior

that doesn’t always have all the answers handed to him on a platter 

and doesn’t have his story mapped out for him beforehand.

 

I find it comforting that Jesus is  trying to hear God’s voice and call 

and doesn’t always get it right instantly,

I find it comforting that Jesus is suffering

with that same thing we all suffer with

that is such a big part of our lives:

not knowing what the right answer is

and where is God leading us next.

 

I find it comforting that Jesus is stuck with us, asking that question:

What are we supposed to do ?

Where is God calling us to, who are we called to help, to engage with?

These are questions that the church is asking,

or should be asking, all the time.

And they’re also questions we ask as individuals.

What are we called to?

Is our comfort or discomfort with a person or situation

a sign of God’s direction? Or are they just our

own feelings of self-preservation or prejudice?

I like that Jesus can be in that place with us at times.

I know Jesus humanity can be uncomfortable, but it’s comforting too.

 

Back to the story:

So Jesus is telling this woman that he’s

meant to serve his own people and not others,

he does this by saying,

“Let the children be fed first, it’s not fair to take

the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” 

Which is pretty harsh and cranky of Jesus.

 

And  the woman doesn’t miss a beat. She says:

“Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

 

And here is where Jesus gets all divine on us again.

With a snappy comeback like that, from a woman none the less,

Jesus doesn’t get defensive or annoyed.

He hears her, he listens, and he changes.

 

Somewhere in the space of her comeback and Jesus response,

Jesus reassessed his whole presumption about his ministry.

His whole call, and his whole future.

Was it the woman’s persistence or tenacity?

Was it his compassion for her?

Was it the injustice that some would get food

and others would just get crumbs?

Whatever it was, within this moment,

Jesus realized his call was not just to

people of his own religion, but to others too.

Not just to the West Side that he was familiar with,

but to the “other side” to the East, and to the North and South.

And he acts on it. That is pretty divine in my book.

 

The human side of him would have stuck to his position

and not want to be coaxed or changed by anyone,

especially not a woman, especially not a gentile woman.

 

So he heals the woman’s daughter,

And the barrier that was there between them has been taken down

and the mission of Jesus and of everyone that followed

him would be changed forever.

 

After Jesus leaves this area, he goes back to that

“Other side” of the sea of Gailiee to that

strange and foreign east coast, that he had failed in before

into Bethsaida and then even further up into Ceserea Philippi,

which we’ll hear about next Sunday,

and then from there, finally on down to Jerusalem to die.

So my point in brining all this up is this:

I think God is always stretching our comfort zones

out beyond what is familiar to us and safe for us.

To cross boundaries and divisions that the world has made.

I think the Spirit of God is always driving us out

of our home territories and taking us somewhere new.

Sometimes physically to another city or region,

or sometimes towards new people and challenges.

And I think that those experiences are often scary and unclear.

 

And, if Jesus can change his mind about things, why can’t we?

Some people, especially today, think that the way

to be Christian is to be unchangeable.

To be stubbornly set in our ways.

To not let people or their stories change us.

There’s an article by a Christian writer that’s actually called:

“The Enticing Sin of Empathy: How Satan Corrupts Through Compassion”

and I think that title really encapsulates the hard-hearted picture

of where a lot of Christianity is these days.

Never listen, never change, never bend.

Changing your mind is sinful.

 

But that is not the example we get from Jesus, is it?

Even though he was the son of God,

Jesus let his heart be changed.

Jesus let his ministry be changed.

He listened to this strange, persistent,

foreign, gentile woman and heard God talking to him through her.

Jesus compassion moved him to different places

and understandings.

So why do we think we’re better than him ?

or we know more than him, or things should be clearer for us?

The question for us is, can we be Christ-like?

Can we hear God talking to us through others?

Can we be open enough to the Spirit to hear the

call to us to do something different,

either as church or in our own individual lives?

Not every person, and not every church

has the courage or will to do that.

But the gospel of Mark shows us that is the way of Jesus.

 

Immediately after Jesus leaves the woman in Tyre,

he goes on to Sidon,

another gentile area, and he meets a man whose

deaf and has a speech impediment.

Maybe he’s gentile and maybe he’s not,

the story doesn’t mention it, because now it doesn’t matter.

 

The man is a man in need, and Jesus and his disciples

aren’t held back by religion, or history, or creed,

or west side, or east side, or North or south.

 

Clear on his mission to the world now,

Jesus heals him without question or hesitation,

And when he puts his hands in his ears,

Jesus says, “Ephpatha” which means “be opened”.

 

That is a message for this man’s ears, and for our ears too.

For everyone who reads Mark’s gospel.

Be open. Be open to the call of God.

Be open to the word of God coming through others.

Be open to things that seem contrary to all you’ve known.

Be open to the movement of the Spirit to take you

to places uncomfortable and unknown.

If God calls us there, let’s go back to that strange

“other side” of what we’re familiar with.

 

Ephpatha, Let us be open.