The Power of Perseverance
In today’s scripture from the Gospel of Mark, Jesus is leaving home where people share his nationality and religious tradition. His latest attempts among them have been greeted by opposition from leaders and misunderstanding from the disciples. He has to be a little frustrated. Perhaps it isn’t too surprising that Jesus decides to get out of town and he heads northwest from Galilee leaving his predominantly Jewish homeland for the region of Tyre, named for the large port city located on the Mediterranean coast in what today is Lebanon. (Tyre was originally an island. It became a peninsula when Alexander the Great constructed a half mile ramp from the mainland 322 years before Christ was born) So basically Jesus did what a lot of people are doing on the Cape this weekend, he left home and went to the sea shore to “get away from it all.”
July 7, 2013
Mark 7:24-30, The Power of Perseverance
Doug Scalise, Brewster Baptist Church
[vimeo 69899109 w=500&h=375]
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Listen to the Gospel:
“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, 25 but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. 26 Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27 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.” 28 But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” 29 Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” 30 So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.”
The scripture begins, “From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre.” He set out from the place where people from his own faith community sought to test and trap him, and he went away. I don’t blame him. Jesus heads to the border (and I don’t mean to Taco Bell) of Tyre and Sidon, where the people are of a different nationality and a different religion than he is. Jesus is leaving the place where we would think people would be the most receptive to his mission and going where we wouldn’t expect people to care about what Jesus has to offer. And Jesus walked toward the border.
Jill and I walk together a lot. You experience the world in a different way when you’re walking than if you’re traveling much faster on a bike or a motorcycle or if you’re shut in a speeding car. Walking allows you to hear the birds to feel the lay of the land with your feet. You can stop and have conversations with people that don’t happen if you’re moving quickly. If all we knew about Jesus were his walking habits, it would be significant. Jesus is a border walker. If you want to find Jesus, you will find him walking along the borders. Borders are places where people either come together or split apart, join or divide. The Apostle Paul, who knew – as we’re trying to know – the spirit of Jesus, thought Jesus walked at least three borders. Paul says in Galatians 3:28, “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.” Paul mentions several of the most significant borders that divide and separate people – ethnicity, power, economic status, and gender. These are borders where often there is division, fear, and even violence. Spiritually speaking, however, if we have eyes to see and ears to hear, these dividing places can become meeting places. Communion, communication, and even friendship can replace separation, suspicion, and fear.
Jesus walks to the north, toward Tyre and Sidon and a Syrophoenician woman appears seemingly out of nowhere – she is the catalyst for what happens. The woman came out and she’s also crying out as she is coming forward. She is assertive and insightful. She knows who Jesus is. You may wonder how this woman had heard of Jesus in the first place. Mark 3:8-10 says that people “came from all Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond the Jordan, and the region around Tyre and Sidon. He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him; for he had cured many, so that all who had diseases pressed upon him to touch him.” The woman in today’s story had probably heard someone from her neighborhood or region talking about what they heard and saw Jesus do.
The urgency and intensity of the woman’s situation is evident in that she falls at Jesus’ feet and begs him to help her daughter. There are a lot of parents and grandparents who can relate to this woman’s situation. There is nothing harder for a parent or grandparent than a child who’s in trouble, who’s in need, and feeling powerless to change the situation. Falling at the feet of Jesus and begging is both a last resort and a source of hope. We literally had someone knock on our front door yesterday whose child is facing a serious health situation and Jill and I prayed with her.
As is often the case in reading the Gospels, it can be helpful to read about encounters such as this one in any of the Gospels where it appears because we often learn more about what is going on from the details that each writer provides. In Matthew’s description of this encounter (Matthew 15:21-28) the woman confronts Jesus with this combination of titles, “Lord, Son of David.” This is a complete and accurate designation for Jesus. He is the Lord and therefore meant for everyone. He is also the Son of David, a Jew, a particular man from a particular people with a distinctive heritage and traditions. Jesus is universal and yet particular.
In the same way, there is a universal quality to each of us. We’re connected to God and all human beings and to all that God sustains. We’re also particular. We’re a gender, a unique personality, a member of specific ethnic group or groups. It’s this universal-particular paradox of each person that the Syrophoenician woman sees in Jesus. She also sees that Jesus’ mission is to let the mercy of God flow freely and widely. She comes to Jesus begging for mercy, but not for herself. She grasps that the target of this mercy is wherever demons threaten God’s children. And she wants this mercy to flow not for herself, but for the daughter she loves. Without doubt this is Jesus’ type of woman.
But as Matthew describes the scene, it seems like Jesus is having a problem because he did not answer her at all. However we might respond to this passionate and legitimate appeal, it evokes no response at all from Jesus. He doesn’t even speak with the woman or acknowledge her presence. This is hard for many of us to understand. This doesn’t fit with our picture of a loving Savior, of a kind and gentle Jesus who always wants to help. What is going on here? Why doesn’t Jesus respond to this pleading woman who displays so many of the qualities he values?
The way Matthew presents the disciples, their function is almost always to miss the point so that we may get it. The disciples think the woman is the problem. They think the fact that she is making a scene is what’s bothering Jesus. They think this is simply the latest episode in the centuries old dilemma: crying women and awkward, uncomfortable men who don’t know how to respond. However, the problem is not with the woman. Jesus’ lack of response has nothing to do with her crying, shouting, and pleading. There is nothing wrong with this woman. The problem lies elsewhere.
The Gospel of Matthew presents Jesus, at first, as perceiving his mission to be not on the border, but within the boundaries. He belongs to Israel and came to gather the members of that house who had strayed from God. Jesus in this story in Matthew’s Gospel is refusing to speak to this woman because she is not a Jew. In Matthew 10:5-6, Jesus sends out the disciples “with the following instructions: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, 6 but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Matthew presents Jesus as coming from and within Judaism to the Jewish people, however, because of the resistance he meets from some within his own tradition and the faith he is greeted with from many outside, his vision grows to include all people. This encounter with the Syrophoenician woman is a key part of opening up Jesus’ mission to non-Jews. This woman is not going to be easily put off, she has perseverance. Jesus says, (Matthew 15:24), “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Even Jesus’ declaration of his exclusive Jewish identity and mission didn’t keep her from coming forward. She addresses him plainly with a clear need. There is no flattery, no bargaining, no argument. Only pure vulnerability. She kneels at his feet and says simply, “Lord, help me!”
In Matthew she drops the title “Son of David.” She is a smart woman and she instantly understands that there is no advantage in reminding Jesus that he is a Jew when she is not. It’s precisely because he is a Jew and she is not that he is ignoring her. Jesus has been stressing his Jewishness at the expense of his wider humanity. Jesus answers, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Dogs were not allowed in a Jewish home. In order to feed dogs with “the bread of the children,” a Jewish person would have to take the bread off the table, walk to the door, open it, and throw it outside. The dogs were always outside the house. But in Gentile houses the dogs were allowed inside. If they wanted to feed the dogs with the “bread of the children,” Gentiles didn’t have to go outside the house. All they had to do was reach down with the leftovers to where the dogs were anxiously waiting.
Jesus told the Syrophoenician woman that in order to feed her he had to take the bread that was inside the house and throw it outside the house. She was an outsider and what he has belongs to insiders. She says, “Yes, Lord.” She agrees that the food belongs to the children, or in more theological language, that salvation comes from the Jews. But she continues her emphasis on Jesus’ universal mission by calling him, “Lord,” the one meant for everyone. When Jesus lives within that identity, she is not outside the house. She is inside the house and eager for any “food” that Jesus has to offer. She basically is saying, “Lord, I’m already in the house, just notice me.”
Think about your own experience: about times like when you started a new grade or at a new school or a new job or a new church. How did it feel to be welcomed even though you were an outsider? Have there ever been times in your life when you’ve been able to welcome and feed people who you perceived at an earlier time in your life were not part of your house? Often our perception of other people or ourselves determines whether we respond with compassion and mercy or apathy and indifference, with forgiveness or judgment and condemnation.
Once a man couldn’t find his ax and he suspected his neighbor’s son had taken it. The boy walked like a thief, looked like a thief, and spoke like a thief. Then one day the man found his ax while he was digging on his property, and the next time he saw his neighbor’s son, the boy walked, looked, and spoke like any other child.
Each of us has many identities. Some are very broad – I am a Christian – that includes over a billion people. Some are narrower. We may be glad we are whatever we are, but we have to be careful we don’t end up sounding like the Pharisee in Luke 18:11 who prays, “‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.” When we cling to and define ourselves by our narrower identities we end up setting up boundaries that divide us from others and exclude other people.
This encounter between Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman is trying to teach us we have a deeper identity. This identity is the image of God in us that makes us brother and sister to all others who share this image. When we focus on this aspect of ourselves, we overcome the boundaries that other identities create. We become border walkers who cross boundaries and recognize the image of God in others that we share, rather than focusing on the particularities that make us different. Borders define people and accentuate differences. We need passports and visas that clearly define who we are and where we’re from to cross physical borders. Traveling we have to go through “customs” – an interesting word because it is our national “customs” that make one people different and distinct from another. Barriers of language, communication, and culture lead to separation. As followers of Jesus we’re called to find points of connection, to build bridges, not walls; to practice radical hospitality and to welcome the newcomer and the border walker. This takes creativity and effort and a willingness to be unselfish and uncomfortable.
Finally, this story lifts up the power of perseverance and the importance of having a persistent faith that is not easily discouraged. What would have happened if the woman just sulked away when Jesus refused to speak with her? When it comes to spiritual growth or the ways of God there is little that comes easily. Spiritual growth comes through effort, discipline, initiative and perseverance. The powers of compassion and the flow of the Lord’s mercy are released by great faith that is not easily defeated.
During his life Jesus marveled at two things faith and unbelief (Luke 7:9). Even Jesus is often surprised that he finds faith where he wouldn’t necessarily expect to find it – in a persistent Syrophoenician woman or a Roman centurion, and not in some members of his own synagogue, town, or faith tradition.
As followers of Jesus we are to be border walkers like the Syrophoenician woman and Jesus, we’re to be open to having encounters that enlarge our faith and understanding. The mission of Christ is carried out by border walkers. Don’t be afraid to walk the borders. You never know who you may meet.