Choose Your Own Adventure: Be Healed (MTKA)

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.”

Not long ago, my mom and dad came to town for a birthday party. It was their first overnight trip in the last 18 months. The party was going to be outside, and it was for a relative they don’t often get to see. So they took a deep breath and they said, “We can do this.” It took a bit of coordination to get themselves packed up and ready to go. A storm was coming, and the garden was ripe for harvest. They scurried around the house and yard, closing windows and sheltering equipment. They picked corn and gathered melons. They packed their suitcases and filled the car with produce, then delivered fruit to friends along the way. When they finally settled in at my house and unpacked their suitcase for the night, my dad discovered that he had left behind the charger for his hearing aids. On his very best days, his hearing aids work like a dream, but on plenty of other days, their effectiveness is compromised. So as Dad crawled into bed that night, he resigned himself to a day in which he would not be able to use them at all. 

The next day, as mom and dad got ready to go to the party, dad said to mom with a twinkle in his eye, “You will have to be my guide:  When someone says something funny, look at me and smile so I’ll know that I should laugh. If someone says something surprising, raise your eyebrows, and I’ll shake my head. Or better yet, maybe I should hold a sign that says, ‘That’s very interesting, but you don’t need to tell me anymore.’”

Over the years, I have watched my dad drift from the circle of community as his hearing loss has made it difficult for him to participate. Without full strength and health, his role gets diminished. It’s easy to forget that he’s not fully there. And so my mom is his advocate. She reminds people to speak up. “Look at him when you talk,” she’ll say. “Say that again so he can hear you.” She remembers again and again that it would be easy for him to slip out of the circle. So she watches out for him. 

My parents’ story is not unique, of course. Some of you know it well, having experienced it yourselves. So maybe you recognize yourselves in the reading that Beth just read. Family or friends of a man who’s deaf and unable to speak bring him to Jesus for healing. They beg him to lay a hand of healing on him. And before that, a woman whose little girl has an unclean spirit that torments her comes to Jesus and implores him to cast the demon out of her daughter. They long for health and wellness for their loved ones, for full strength and the ability to participate in community, to find purpose and meaning in belonging. 

When Jesus began his public ministry, it didn’t take long before people were attracted to his teaching or enticed by his healing. He spoke with authority, and his healing brought people from isolation into community. A leper was cleansed, and a paralytic picked up his mat and began to walk. An old woman and a little girl on the brink of death were restored to life, and another woman who’d been bleeding for 12 years was healed. One man’s withered hand was brought back to use, and another man who was tormented by demons found peace. Everyone knew someone, it seemed, who would benefit from Jesus’ healing, so they followed him everywhere and brought their loved ones to him, hoping for health and well-being. 

One day, Jesus and his disciples got in a boat and planned to go to a secluded place to pray and catch a little rest, but people saw them and went ahead on foot to the place where they were headed. When Jesus got out of the boat, he had compassion on them so he sat them down and taught them. When it got late, the disciples said, “It’s time to send the people away so they can go buy food.” But Jesus said, “No, you feed them.” Among the crowd they found five loaves of bread and two small fish. So Jesus took the bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to his disciples to give to them. When all had eaten their fill, he sent the disciples out to gather the broken pieces of bread, and there were twelve baskets full of leftovers. Twelve baskets, like the 12 tribes of Israel. Twelve baskets for the people who ate manna in the wilderness. Twelve baskets representing God’s continuing care for God’s chosen people who were blessed to be a blessing. 

All this work is exhausting for Jesus. He’s been trying to honor Sabbath. He goes off to pray when he can, but the work follows him. So Jesus leaves his home turf and goes to Tyre, a town on the Mediterranean, near the region of Syria and Phoenicia. For a brief moment, Jesus is an outsider, a stranger in a place where customs are not like his. He slips quietly into a house and hopes to stay incognito, but even here, he can’t escape notice. A woman in desperate need of his help finds him. She enters the house, bows down at his feet, and begs him to help her little girl who has an unclean spirit. 

Now I’d like to think that what happened next was a teaching moment that Jesus planned and that he knew what she would say and orchestrated a dramatic moment for the audience standing by to witness. But it’s hard to know who learned most from the encounter. 

Looking down at the woman, with her hands and knees on the ground, her face looking up at him with eyes of longing, he said a most unkind thing – an insult I hardly dare repeat. “Don’t you know,” he said, “children eat first, and your family is a dog. It wouldn’t be fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” Ouch!

“Maybe so,” she says, “but our customs are not like yours. Our dogs sleep inside, and they’re part of the household. We feed them. Surely there’s enough bread for the dogs to eat under the table.” “Fair enough,” he says, and he tells her that her daughter has been healed. 

Whether wittingly or not, Jesus has given his platform to the woman and amplifies her voice to expand the notion of what he has been saying and demonstrating all along: “You belong. You matter. You are not forgotten or excluded. You have a place right here in the embrace of community and the kingdom of God.” 

Jesus takes the long route back, and when he returns to the Sea of Galilee, he goes to the region of the Decapolis where Gentiles live, and in a scene that feels like déjà vu all over again, a crowd gathers around – 4,000 people this time – and once again, there’s no food. He asks the disciples, “How many loaves of bread do you have?” “Seven,” they reply. So he takes the bread, gives thanks, breaks it, and gives it to the disciples to share with the people, and when all are satisfied, they gather the crumbs, the broken pieces, and there are seven baskets full. Seven. Not 12 this time, but seven, a number that’s expansive, a number that means completion. There’s been a shift.

Tucked in the middle of these two stories of abundant grace and Jesus’ ability to satisfy their need, is a story of a woman who cries out loudly on behalf of her little girl and asks that her daughter’s need might be satisfied, too. “Surely there’s enough,” she says. “Surely there’s enough of your healing power, enough of God’s abundant mercy for my child to be healed and brought into the circle of community, too.” She calls him to a larger vision of mission that aims to embrace the stranger, the outsider. 

This scene is scandalous in so many ways: Jesus has crossed a border, and he’s an outsider. She is a Gentile woman, and it’s taboo for him to have contact with her. Not to mention, his response to her heartfelt anguish is cruel and offensive. 

Theologian Ben Sanders notes that we prefer to believe “that Jesus represents the best of who we are and the best of what we might be.” We’d rather encounter the fully developed Jesus who knows what he’s doing. But, Sanders asks, “(H)ow does Jesus of Nazareth lose his exemplary status by learning a lesson or making a mistake?… Our ability to see the best of ourselves in Jesus as learner is…powerful and goes a…long way in teaching us about how to cross social boundaries. When Jesus is our example as a learner as opposed to a dominating know-it-all, the divine example that Jesus sets becomes one of learning from others as life goes on.” ^[1]

I know I’m still learning. I’m still learning a lot about how to follow Jesus and how to welcome people and their gifts, how to hear and amplify voices of the ones who are vulnerable. If Jesus came as one of us and experienced all that it means to be human, that means, he has changed and grown, too. Maybe we don’t have to have it all together as followers of Jesus. Maybe God’s grace allows us to fall down and begin again. 

The Syrophonecian woman reminds us that everyone and everything needs nourishment to survive, and the substance on which we depend to survive connects us all. All of God’s creation is connected. ^[2] 

The reign of God brings into the circle those who have been left out. It casts out demons and brings healing to the sick and wholeness to the broken. It neither doubts nor denigrates the story of another person’s origin. It challenges those of us who are at home in the world the way it is. The kingdom of God is present and yet hidden. It’s among us and beyond. It’s now and not yet. Jesus came to show us the kingdom and invite us to go out and share the dream that all are welcome, all are loved, all bear the image of God. It comes not through might or conquest but sacrifice and unconditional love. It is both near and far. So God gives us eyes to see it, courage to pursue it, and a voice to proclaim it. 

Amen. 

1 – Ben Sanders III, “Diversity Sunday Cultural Resources,” Sunday, April 11, 2010. http://www.theafricanamericanlectionary.org/PopupCulturalAid.asp?LRID=143. Retrieved, 9/3/2021.

2 – Ibid.