Monday 10 September 2018

September 9 sermon - The Unnamed Woman Who Changed The World

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.
(Mark 7:24-30)

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     Labour Day is over, school is back and Sunday School starts today! So it’s time to ask the age old question: how did your summer go? I can remember that was often one of the first assignments I’d be given in school – I had to write some sort of story about what I did over the last couple of months. I don’t have to write those stories anymore but it’s always interesting to look back. Some of us probably had nice vacations; some went to the cottage; some just stayed home; some probably worked the summer away. And for some – for a variety of reasons – the summer probably didn’t turn out the way you expected. That’s life, as they say. I don’t know what time of year it was when the incident recounted in today’s Gospel reading occurred – but it might have been summer, because it seems that Jesus was looking for some time off; a bit of time away. “He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there,” we’re told. It might well have been summer – a time when a lot of us are looking forward to taking life at a slower pace and just getting away from it all for a little while. Jesus needed to get away. He had been experiencing a very busy time in his ministry. He had been surrounded by crowds of people in different parts of Galilee, and he had spent time teaching them. In the synagogues and in the countryside, on top of mountains and at the seashore he had been busy teaching. He was in need of a break. And so he found a spot on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea (and doesn’t that sound nice!) and he set himself up in a little house to rest and relax; to do away with his weariness and stress. And then – the most irritating thing happened! This woman, who undoubtedly had heard about him from stories that were circulating, found him there and invaded his privacy and interrupted his rest, in order to make a request of him.

     This was a woman who – at least as far as Mark was concerned – had no name. It sounds a bit like today to be honest. How often do we neglect to learn the names of the desperate and the hurting people around us? Instead of learning their names we ignore them, we pity them or we make them statistics – but how often do we learn their names? This was a Greek woman, apparently from the region of Syrophoenicia, which was basically what we would call Syria today. Mark doesn’t tell us why she had traveled to where she encountered Jesus, but while there she had heard stories about this miracle healer who had come to stay in the area, and the stories interested her, because she was in need of healing – not for herself but for her daughter. We don’t know really what was wrong with her daughter. Mark says that she “had an unclean spirit,” but exactly what that meant we don’t know. There are a lot of diseases we understand today that were once thought to be demonic. Perhaps she had a mental illness; perhaps she was an epileptic and suffered seizures. Mark doesn’t explain, but something was definitely wrong with the little girl and her mother was determined to get her help. So if there was a worker of miracles around – a healer who had demonstrated power over even demons – then she was determined to find him and get his help, even if he was tired and in need of rest. And so she found out where Jesus was staying – and she showed up. She explained her story to Jesus and told him that she needed him to work a miracle; to heal her daughter.

     Jesus’ response is very un-Jesus-like. Actually, this passage is one that reminds us that as much as we talk about Jesus as the Son of God, he was also very much the Son of Man – and his humanity sometimes shows forth so clearly that it can make us uncomfortable. We see it in the grief that he sometimes expresses and in the anger he sometimes explodes with. In this passage what we see is an irritated Jesus who not only dismisses this woman – but who insults her in the process. He actually compared this woman to a dog: “… it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs,” were Jesus’ actual words. In a 1960 book the biblical scholar Floyd Filson wrote in reflecting on this passage that he believed Jesus must have winked at the woman when he said that, suggesting that Jesus was being playful and friendly rather than rude and condescending. But I don’t see any evidence of that. First, it sounds a bit whiny. The words “it’s not fair” always get under my skin to be honest. Who ever said everything was going to be fair? But basically, this was a somewhat rude way of saying what Jesus said at another time as “I only came for the lost sheep of Israel.” His point was that then – at that time – his ministry was directed to a specific group of people. And we should understand the meaning of the word “dog” in this context. He wasn’t using it in the way it would be used today – to refer to a woman’s appearance; basically he was comparing her to an animal that at the time was seen as no better than a detested scavenger; a pest to be eradicated. In that context, Jesus was basically trying to shoo the woman away. It’s not what we expect from Jesus – but it’s perhaps moments like that that make Jesus a little more approachable. Who among us hasn’t at times been irritable and perhaps even a little bit insulting when someone interrupts our down time? So Jesus really isn’t that much different than we are. But while I actually appreciate this very human portrayal of Jesus, I’m even more interested in the woman with no name.

     You have to recognize and admire this woman’s love for her daughter and for her commitment and persistence. She was a very clever woman, and she understood what Jesus’ answer meant; she knew he was trying to shoo her away. But she didn’t give up. Jesus could help her daughter and that was all that mattered, so – no matter what – he was going to help her daughter! No ifs, ands or buts about it! “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” It seems that her words softened Jesus up. Maybe he took a deep breath; maybe he counted to 10. Maybe he just thought regretfully, “I shouldn’t have said that.” What said was, “For saying that, you may go - the demon has left your daughter.” And the woman went home, and found her daughter lying on the bed, and the little girl was healed. The demon was gone. All was well.

     So – it’s a really good story, but does it justify the extravagant title I’ve given to today’s message? Did this unnamed woman really change the world? Did this one little event that takes up seven verses of Mark’s Gospel (and seven more in Matthew’s) really make such a difference? I think so. We need to look at the bigger picture of how this fits into the story. Let’s go backward for a moment. A few weeks ago I preached from a passage in Mark 6 just before this one: the feeding of the five thousand. That’s a mind-boggling story. Then comes this story in Mark 7, and then we get another feeding miracle in Mark 8, as Jesus feeds four thousand with very little food to start. The first feeding story takes place in Galilee – in Jewish territory. The second takes place in an area called the Decapolis – which was Gentile territory. The point is that between the first and second feeding miracles Jesus has shifted from a ministry that was directed only to Jews to a ministry directed to all. And, for Mark at least, the hinge between those two events – where the world turned, you might say – was this encounter Jesus had with an unnamed Gentile woman, whose plea leads him to broaden his horizons, so to speak, and expand his ministry. In a way, you might say that this was Jesus’ “AHA!” moment. Luke’s Gospel tells us that Jesus had to grow in wisdom, and this might have been the point at which he suddenly realized “this is bigger than I ever thought!” That woman’s persistence might, in fact, have changed the world. If she hadn’t interrupted Jesus’ Mediterranean vacation when would Jesus have encountered Gentiles, since most of his life was spent in Galilee? And if he had never encountered Gentiles that it’s quite possible that the whole history of the Christian faith (and, therefore, the whole history of the world) would have been different! It’s at least possible to think that maybe Jesus would have been remembered by a few people simply as a rejected Jewish Messiah rather than being celebrated by billions of people as the Saviour of the world!

     Perhaps not surprisingly, this unnamed woman is not one of the better known women of the Bible. Without a name, she fades away into a bit of obscurity. And yet, you could argue that she’s one of the giants of the Christian faith. This unnamed woman reminds all of us who follow Jesus to display open doors of welcome, open arms of compassion and open hearts of love to all; to set aside our differences and to celebrate that we are all God’s children. She exemplifies love for her daughter, persistence in caring for her daughter and faith through her belief that Jesus could help. And Jesus responded to this woman. Maybe her qualities reminded him just a bit of God – God’s love for all people and God’s persistence in caring for us. Maybe this woman shows us that by acts of sincere and deep love – by God and by God’s people - the world is changed – even just a little bit at a time, person by person. John McAfee wrote that “the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the ones who do.” This unnamed woman is just a bit player in the Bible – probably because she has no name for us to remember her by. But she was crazy enough to believe that she could convince Jesus to help her daughter, and by her faith in Jesus’ healing power and her love for her daughter she really did change the world, and her example – if it’s followed – continues to do so, if those of us who follow her today are crazy enough to believe that each one of us can make a difference.

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