The Faith of Foreigners
In the previous section of Mark 7 Jesus is confronted by the Pharisees over the issue of washing hands. He responds by pointing out that their reliance on their traditions has blinded them to the much more central issue of purity of heart.
He points out to them that washing your hands won't make you clean. You first need to be clean on the inside. The Pharisees were too concerned with outward appearances and not enough with inward reality.
Well in today's reading Jesus leaves the region of Galilee and travels to the region of Tyre, over on the Mediterranean Sea in what's now modern Lebanon. Now I don't think he's just going off for a few days at the beach to rest and recuperate as you or I might. Rather he seems to be getting away from the places where the Pharisees can come and speak against him; perhaps even try to kill him.
He goes there incognito, obviously trying to avoid the attention of the locals. Perhaps he wanted to escape all the attention, hoping to have a break from the constant demands for healing that he'd experienced back in Galilee. But when he gets there he encounters someone who reflects exactly what he's just been saying to the Pharisees: a woman who would have been considered unclean by the Jews and yet who shows that on the inside she has a pure heart of faith in Jesus.
Jesus' desire for secrecy is thrown out the window almost immediately. It appears that even in Tyre he was too well known. The stories about him must have been going around the whole countryside and I guess in a small town the word would get around fairly fast that the teacher had just arrived. And so one of the women of the town hears that he's there and she immediately comes to him to ask him to heal her daughter who's possessed by an evil spirit.
Well, what would you do? Here's this woman. She's described as a Gentile, born in Syrian Phoenicia. So she's a pagan. Not even a Jewish proselyte. She's a foreigner, of a race that are ancient enemies of the Jews. And worst of all, she's a woman. No self respecting Jewish man, especially a Jewish rabbi, would speak to a woman without her husband present. So here was a great dilemma for Jesus. What was he going to do? In Matthew's gospel we're told that he simply ignores her at first, until her crying and begging become too much for his disciples who ask him to send her away. Up to this point it seems that the barriers of sex and race and religious tradition are holding him back. But then Matthew tells us what may be the real reason for his hesitation. There Jesus says "I was sent to the lost sheep of Israel."
He seems to be saying that his calling is very clear. He's been called to go to the people of Israel. First he has to minister the gospel to them. It will only be later that the gospel spreads to the ends of the earth. When he later sends out his disciples just before his ascension he tells them to go to Jerusalem and Judea and then to Samaria and the ends of the earth. There's a primacy to the nation of Israel that he isn't yet ready to take away. And so this woman's request is refused in a fairly harsh manner: "Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs."
Yet it seems that in his reply he leaves an opening. It's in that little word "first". "Let the children be fed first." That allows a gap for the woman to get through. And she takes it up. She isn't deterred by his initial refusal. She isn't even put off by the insult of being referred to as a dog. Mind you the word he uses is the word for a pet dog, so it's not as bad as it could be, but it's still an insult. But she's a mother with a sick child. So she ignores the insult, takes his words and turns them around. This isn't a win-lose situation. It isn't black and white. Jesus' calling won't be affected by him healing her daughter. The children can have the main meal, but there are always crumbs that fall to the floor for the dogs to pick up. She's not asking him to do anything outrageous. This won't take anything away from the people he's come to serve. All he has to do is heal her daughter, to free her from the evil spirits that are binding her and he can go home again.
In fact there's a great irony in what she says here, not that she'd realise it. Remember that the reason Jesus is here in the first place is because of opposition from the Jews. Far from crumbs falling from the table, the children have in fact thrown the whole meal on the floor in a tantrum. As we find later in the New Testament, when Paul begins his ministry, he begins with the Jews in every city he visits but they quickly reject him and he then tells them that because they've rejected the gospel he'll take it to the Gentiles, who in turn receive it gladly. It's not just a matter of the crumbs falling from the table, but of the table being upended by the children of the family, allowing the food that was on it to be distributed to all people.
There's such an understanding and such a faith in the woman's response that Jesus simply says "For such a reply you may go, the demon has left your daughter." Jesus is so amazed by her faith that he doesn't need any more time to decide. The barriers have been broken down. His primary calling is to elicit faith and here is a prime example of it. Perhaps Jesus was simply wanting to ensure that the woman wasn't just looking for cheap grace, for the sort of quick fix that's forgotten as soon as it's received. Instead he wanted her to come to him with faith that'd last a lifetime. You see it wasn't just that her daughter was ill. Like Jairus a few weeks ago her real need was a much deeper one. She needed to believe that Jesus was the saviour of the world, the one who could bring her to God, despite her pagan background. Of course that understanding would have to wait for some time, until his death and resurrection; until the apostles started to proclaim his salvation to the rest of the world. But here in this incident we find the beginning of just such a faith; a faith that sees that Jesus has come not just for the Jews but for all people.
There's something of a warning for us here I think. We live in a country where the public narrative says that we've got rid of nationalism and racial prejudice through our multicultural community, but the reality is that racial prejudice is still present and quite strong in certain quarters. Think about the politics of fear around the influx of boat people over the past 10 or so years. Around here there's often an unspoken but nevertheless a strong underlying current of concern about the change in population to a more Asian flavour. I've know of people who've left St Thomas' because they don't like the fact that we have a Chinese congregation. They can't see that Jesus has come to break down those sorts of barriers. But it should be the other way around shouldn't it? The wonderful thing about St Thomas' is that we keep on seeing people from other cultures coming to faith. And why do they come to faith here? Because they feel a warmth of welcome in our midst. They see that Christianity is working in our lives; that Jesus is alive and making a difference to us.
If we want to break down the barriers of cultural and religious difference the best way to do it is through faithful Christian living that's welcoming to all people and that's transparent to those we come into contact with. If we do still feel a certain prejudice about people of other cultures, then it would be good to meditate on the way Jesus responded to this woman. Her faith was real and that was all that mattered. The fact that she was a woman and a foreigner in the end made no difference at all.
But let's move on, because that's what Jesus did next. Perhaps he wanted to get away before more people came looking for him. So he leaves and goes through Sidon to the north, then by a circuitous route to the region east of Galilee, the region known as the Decapolis. Again this is a predominantly Gentile area, and again he's recognised. This time a man is brought to him who's deaf and can hardly speak.
In this case Jesus doesn't challenge the man the way he had the woman. Perhaps it's because he's brought by someone else. We're not told. But what he does do is to take him aside, away from the crowds. He still doesn't want people to focus on his miracles. He hasn't come to be a public spectacle. As he's done before, he tells the man to tell no-one. The miracles are signs of the coming Kingdom, they're not the essence of the Kingdom. In a sense they're simply a by-product, a spin-off, of the kingdom appearing on earth. The true nature of the Kingdom won't be known until Jesus has died and has risen. The truth for his followers still lies in the future.
So Jesus takes him aside, puts his fingers in his ears, spits and touches the man's tongue. Then he looks up to heaven and with a deep sigh says "Ephphatha", "Be Opened". The great sigh perhaps indicates that there's a spiritual battle going on. Perhaps it's meant as a sign of the Holy Spirit being poured out on the man to defeat the forces of evil at work in his life. Jesus is working hard to oppose the forces of evil in the world as he heals this man. We'll see a similar thing next time with the healing of the blind man at Bethsaida where Jesus has to lay hands on him twice to heal him. But at the same time the word is a word of authority, and it carries with it a hint of not just the man's eyes and mouth being opened, but perhaps of his whole self being opened to the Kingdom of God. Of him being set free to follow Jesus.
And so the man is healed. Jesus tells him to say nothing about it, though with little effect. We're told the more he told them to keep quiet, the more they talked about it. As at the beginning of Jesus ministry, the people are amazed at Jesus. "He has done everything well," they say. "He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak." But that's as far as it goes. Again there's an irony in what they say, or at least in the way Mark relates it. The words they use for 'mute' is only used in one other place in the Bible and that's in Isaiah 35, where it's part of a prophecy of the coming Messiah. Yet they don't seem to recognise who he is. They're no better off than the Jews who were amazed at his authority and power and yet in the end rejected him. Mark appears to be using this as a signal for us his readers though. In Isaiah 35 we find a hymn of praise to God as the redeemed of the Lord return with singing to Zion and in the middle of the hymn we find these words: "5Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; 6then the lame shall leap like a deer, the tongue of the speechless sing for joy." (Isaiah 35:5-6).
We who read it now have the advantage of knowing the whole story. But all that means is that our response is all the more important. We're to read this and be reminded that Jesus came as the Lord's Messiah to save people from their sins.
We're also to be warned that when the gospel is preached it doesn't always meet with belief. Faith in God is a gift of God. There's a spiritual element to it. So when we share the good news with others we need to pray that God will give them the faith they need to hear and respond to it.
The Syro-Phoenician woman was rebuffed by Jesus, yet responded with a deep faith in God's love and provision for all people independent of sex or race. The people of the Decapolis were presented with an overwhelming demonstration of Jesus' Messianic power and yet their response didn't go beyond amazement. What that shows, I think, is that the result of gospel proclamation isn't ever going to be clear cut. Some will believe against the odds. Others will deny the truth even if it's staring them in the face. All we can do is to faithfully proclaim Jesus as Lord and at the same time pray that those who hear will be given the faith to truly believe the gospel.