September 9, 2012 – Mark 7:24-27
Mark 7:24-27
Growing in Wisdom and Compassion
15th Sunday after Pentecost [Lectionary 23] – September 9, 2012
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
By the time we get to the middle of the 7th chapter of Mark’s Gospel,
Jesus has been going at it pretty hard: he’s tired! He wants a break!
It seems like he can feel God driving him, pushing him, working through him.
Like God’s reign of healing and mercy and compassion is flowing through him:
and he needs a rest.
Well: who can’t relate to that?
So he goes to the beach, way out here in Tyre on the Mediterranean coast.
I don’t know what he’s expecting.
I don’t know if he’s packed along his favourite beach reading.
But he is going to a place where he figures he can take it easy.
See: he’s gone to foreign, non-Jewish territory.
And since at this point in his ministry he figures that he’s only being called to
minister to the Jewish people, the people of his own tribe, he figures he’ll have it made.
So he goes to Tyre, throws down his beach blanket, and prepares to catch a few rays.
Only, it doesn’t quite work out like that: God has other plans.
A woman immediately confronts him, a foreign woman.
A Greek woman, says Mark, of Syrophoenecian origin.
Today we would say she’s from Syria. Interesting, right? In any case, she’s the enemy.
And this woman has heard about Jesus and she asks him to heal her sick daughter.
And Jesus – whom we like to think of as all nice and friendly all the time – speaks to her in
shocking way.
He tells her No! That his ministry is not for such “dogs” as Syrians.
The children of Israel are to be fed first,
and that it’s not fair to take bread away from the children in order to feed the dogs.
But the woman is not to be deterred:
she’s a mother who loves her child and she’s not going to give up.
And seemingly she’s just as clever as Jesus, because she takes his metaphor and says:
okay, but even the dogs eat the bread crumbs that that children drop for them!
I think at this point, something happens to Jesus.
I think he appreciates and admires her wit, being a person of quick wit himself.
But something else happens: he learns something from the foreign woman.
He recognizes that she’s right: he recognizes that there’s no way even he can put a limit on
the love of God that is at work in him.
That God’s love is bigger, is more unconditional than even Jesus conceives.
That it is bigger than any tribe or nation.
That there is nowhere it cannot be at work.
So he says okay! Fine! Your child is healed! Now go. I’ve got some stuff to think about.
I like to think that when he gets back to his beach blanket,
his Jeffrey Archer is sitting unread on the sand.
He’s not reading anymore: he’s thinking.
This woman is the only person in the Gospels who gets Jesus to change his mind.
We like to think that Jesus, like Athena, springs fully armed from the forehead of God.
We like to think that Jesus knows everything.
Because, after all, isn’t Jesus God?
But while it’s true that Jesus is the fullness of God’s compassion embodied in a person,
Jesus is also fully human.
Apparently being fully divine doesn’t exclude you from being able to learn new things.
For what it means to be human is to be constantly growing and learning and gaining in wisdom.
And that is something that never stops, even if you’re Jesus.
The ways of God’s love are always, always deeper than we imagine.
There is always room for growth. There is always something to learn.
Many years ago now my boy Peter and I went to a
New Music Festival concert at Centennial Concert Hall.
It was a cold night at the end of January, we had no tickets yet, and we were running late.
We anxiously got into a long line at the box office,
worried that we were going to miss the opening piece.
As we were standing there, we were approached by a shabby looking elderly man.
He had on a dingy overcoat, he had unwashed straggly hair and hadn’t shaved in a while.
And you know what I’m thinking, right?
I’m thinking, “Ah, man! I’m just wanting a nice evening with my kid!
I don’t want to deal with this. What does this guy want from me?”
You know what I’m saying? Of all the people in line, he spots us and targets us.
And I’m thinking, “Oh, man, just leave me alone. Find someone else to hit up.”
So he comes over and holds out a couple of tickets to me and says, “Here you can have these.”
And immediately I’m thinking, “Oh yeah, right. What does he want from me for these?
They probably aren’t even any good. Probably from last night.”
And I’m trying be all “Lutheran polite” and I’m saying “Oh, no thank you, it’s fine, we’re good,
we’re just going to stay in line and purchase our tickets from the box office.
Thanks anyway.”
But he’s persistent and refuses to take no for an answer.
So more just to get rid of him than anything I just accept them and then . . .
and then he just wanders away.
Which surprises me. So I look at the tickets, and what do they say?
“New Music Festival. January 27th. 8:00 PM.” The tickets are good. They get us in.
And we manage to catch the opening piece.
I thought a lot about that, let me tell you.
For one thing, my attitudes had been judged by Jesus, but judged in a beautiful way:
by nothing but sheer grace, the way that Jesus judges our human sinfulness on the cross.
For another thing, I realized that I hadn’t been doing this old guy a favour: he’d done me one.
I realized that God is at work all over the place and through all kinds of people, and that
sometimes – maybe often – I don’t help that work, I hinder it.
I also realized that through his persistence, I came to change my attitude to the poor.
I realized that we all have something to give one another.
That none of us has the fullness of what God intends for us, but that together maybe we do.
Ultimately it led me to commit to working at the Food Bank, not just to give,
but to receive, to develop relationships with all kinds of people, to meet Jesus in them.
To be changed by them. To grow more.
This guy ultimately led me into doing new things, things I wouldn’t have thought of before.
Just as, through her persistence,
the Syrophonecian woman persuades Jesus to new things in ministry:
oh yeah, she receives something from Jesus.
But maybe Jesus receives something just as significant from her, something he really needs.
See, what happens after his encounter with her, is that Jesus puts away his beach reading,
folds up his beach blanket, and decides to head home back to Galilee.
But apparently Jesus missed school on the day they studied the geography of Palestine.
This is how he gets from Tyre on the beach back to Galilee: he goes waaaaaaay up here to Sidon!
What the heck is he doing up here? He goes even further into Gentile territory.
Even further away from his people!
You know what I think? I think he’s putting his new learning to the test.
I think he’s wanting to see if God’s loving healing care is operative through him
even way out here in Sidon.
And it is: he heals a deaf man!
The Syrophoenecian woman is responsible for Jesus – Jesus! – taking a new direction and
venturing into new ventures.
And then, after that – after our reading today – you know what he does?
He goes home by way of the Decapolis – way over here, still hasn’t studied geography yet – and
puts what he’s learned to the ultimate test.
You know how earlier in Mark’s Gospel Jesus fed 5000 Jewish people?
Well, here in the Decapolis he finds himself with 4000 hungry foreigners who’ve been with him
For 3 days: and he has compassion on them, and he tries out something he may not have
tried out if it weren’t for that Syrophoenecian woman.
He takes 7 loaves and a few fish, blesses them, breaks them,
and gives them to the disciples to distribute: and there’s enough for everyone.
Truly, even the crumbs are superabundant and are more than we can imagine.
Just as his encounter with the woman leads to his feeding large crowds,
so my encounter with the man led to a commitment to food bank, where,
incidentally, we feed about 4000 people every year.
The thing is, if Jesus is the fully human person we are called to be the very image of,
then each of us is called, like him, to continually grow in wisdom and service.
None of us is ever done: is there a limit you can put on the love of God at work in you?
I’ve been reminded of this lately by some people who are either
retired or contemplating retirement.
I met a couple at Luther Village this summer who, in retirement, through their church,
take several months a year to travel to the Ukraine and volunteer fitting people with
donated eyewear.
At food bank I work with retired people from our congregation who have never done
anything quite like food bank before.
And just this week I was talking with one of you who is so looking forward to retirement so that
she can volunteer to visit the shut-ins and the sick and the new members among us.
These people are growing in wisdom and into Christ: Where is God calling you to grow?
Is God calling you this fall to learn more about God’s biblical story and about the faith we share?
If so, I’ll be holding twice monthly classes in my home for new members, for those who’ve
never been confirmed, and for those wanting a confirmation “refresher.”
Is God calling you to discover how God is at work for justice in the world?
If so, our Social Justice Working Group will be holding learning events on the last Sunday of
every month after worship.
Is God calling you to a new venture in ministry by putting your faith into action?
If so, this fall we will together attempt to rise to the challenge of providing twice-monthly
community meals in conjunction with food bank, a venture that will take many of us
to make a success.
The thing is, when we venture into these things, Jesus is venturing with us.
Every week, Jesus ventures into our territory.
Comes to this table. Ventures to leave glory behind and enter this bread and this wine.
Deigns to come to us at this table and share a few crumbs of godly life with us,
in bread broken and wine poured out.
Ventures to enter you and the territory of your body.
Jesus ventures to fill you with grace in these crumbs: but what crumbs!
Jesus does this every week not knowing where it will lead.
But trusting that it will lead you to grow in wisdom and compassion.
Trusting that it will take you somewhere where that wisdom and compassion is needed.
So together let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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