Overlooked and Underestimated 9-8-24

Overlooked & Underconsidered

Is 35:4-7a; Mark 7:24-37

Is 35:4-7a

“Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.” Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water;

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.”

Prayer – God of grace, this morning we hear a story of healing and perhaps our focus is on those that Jesus heals. But this morning help us to focus on Jesus’ own healing, where he grows in compassion and grace while on his own journey of faith. Help us, like Jesus, to not overlook others we may tend to ignore. Help us to see those who we would never consider as worthy. Help us on our own faith journey’s – amen.

What do we do when Jesus seems to be as bad as everyone else…when the words he speaks cause us great discomfort and seem to be at odds with the God that we know and love? This passage in Mark is not the first time that someone—or even an entire group of people—gets bothered by the one we expect to do and be better. But, this is Jesus doing that work, and his language seems particularly harsh. Readers and listeners surely ask the question, “Did Jesus just call that woman and her child and the people in their community…dogs?” Even after reading, studying, and even preaching this passage, I am still asking. It’s that jarring, surprising, uncomfortable.

Our natural tendency is to gravitate toward the positive act of the story. The woman becomes the lead, sympathetic, and commendable character. Her persistence, faith, and boldness in demanding to be seen and heard presents a story worth telling. Jesus’ words do not dampen her advocacy for her child. Her determination matches his dismissal, and we can root for her as she deftly counters his pathetic argument. How can the Creator of abundance make a claim based on a scarcity mindset?

At the heart of “othering,” whether manifested as racism, misogyny, pick the phobia, ageism, ableism, or classism, lies misplaced fear of scarcity and misplaced entitlement. That is not the only dynamic involved, but it should not be discounted. When one believes there is not enough for everyone to be satisfied, it becomes easier to attach blame toward the other and consider them undeserving of what one wants to hoard for themselves. When we fear there are not enough jobs, we accuse another group of taking them. When we fear there’s not enough time to reach our accomplishments, we insist that an older generation prematurely step aside.

In the text, Jesus is asked to do something that he routinely does—an act of compassionate deliverance, an act of healing a broken body. The gospel narrative teems with instances of encounters with Jesus leading to healing, liberation, and restoration. At times, it occurs without his expressed permission or active participation. His presence serves as a sufficient agent. What makes this encounter different? The one needing help is from outside the faith community and as we know Jesus has healed those outside of his community before. So why is this story different, significant, uncomfortable?

Jesus again journeys into gentile territory. This trip reveals the receptivity of the gentiles to Jesus’ ministry and proves that there is room for them to be included. Mark, then, uses the receptivity of the gentiles to highlight the growing lack of perceptivity of the Jews whom Jesus encounters throughout this section. Jesus’ first stop is in the region of Tyre where it seems that Jesus is exhausted and is seeking some ‘down time,’ as he entered a house and didn’t want anyone to know he was there.  Yet, word of his presence quickly spread, even in this gentile region.  It appears that the Son of Man can’t escape the demands for his healing power. 

There, he meets a gentile woman who begs him to cast a demon out of her daughter. The woman who approaches Jesus breaks through every traditional barrier that should have prevented her from getting anywhere close to Jesus.  She is a ‘gentile of Syrophoenician origin; in other words, she is implicitly impure, one who lives outside the land of Israel and outside the law of Moses, a descendant of the ancient enemies of Israel.  She is also a woman, unaccompanied by a husband or male relative, who initiates a conversation with a strange man – another taboo transgressed.

Initially, Jesus seems surprisingly disinclined to help her. He dismisses her by insisting that “the children” (Israel) are to be fed first. To do otherwise is tantamount to giving their food to dogs. How could God’s very own Son say such a thing?  He appears to be quoting a bit of Jewish folk wisdom, but that doesn’t lessen the sting.  This behavior of Jesus jars against our modern sensibilities but for a first century Jewish rabbi, Jesus’ words are totally coherent and in context.  Jesus didn’t need to deal with this person because not only was she a woman but she was not even a Jewish woman.  While we can’t know exactly what was going through Jesus’ mind, it is clear that when approached by this outsider, Jesus’ immediate response is to appeal to the limits of his mission, his call to serve his own people.

Although Jesus calls her a dog, the woman is not dissuaded. She insists that even the dogs get crumbs. Jesus validates her statement by casting the demon out of her daughter. However, the veracity of her statement has farther-reaching implications than the fulfillment of an individual request.

Too many Christian communities follow the example found in the first part of this story. The resulting gatekeeping manifests in exclusionary rather than inclusive practices. When access to the food pantry requires attendance at church activities, when the Ten Commandments are prominently displayed in public spaces that would never allow the tenets of other faith traditions to be highlighted, when Christians are considered more valuable or to have better character than others, followers of Jesus call non-followers dogs.

The Markan text reminds us that Jesus was born into a particular culture and impacted by the norms associated with cross-cultural relationships. Jesus’s use of the epithet “dogs” to describe the woman and her daughter is insulting; in biblical terms, dogs are regarded as unclean scavengers. Since Jesus has already healed non-Jews, it is surprising that he initially rejects the woman’s request because of her ethnicity: she and her daughter are gentile “dogs,” in contrast with the “children”, referring to Israel, who merit the “bread” of salvation.

Faced with the pleading woman at his feet, Jesus asserts his ethnic and religious privilege as a Jew, whose fellow Israelites have priority in salvation history. The woman’s reply acknowledges Jesus’s dominant status as a reputed exorcist; she is the only character in the Gospel who unequivocally addresses him as Kyrie (“sir,” “master,” or “lord”). At the same time, she undermines his rather unsympathetic, theologically loaded refusal with an observation from everyday life: children drop crumbs at mealtime, and the household pets under the table snap them up. This retort causes Jesus to change his mind: “For this saying, go, the demon has gone out of your daughter”. The woman is thus the only Gospel character who wins an argument with Jesus.

         And yet, this is not the end of the passage. Jesus continues on the journey into Gentile territory. Presumably, the miracles that follow involve those from the margins and outside of his native culture. He heals, redeems, delivers, and restores. In the second miracle of the pericope, Jesus heals privately where before he shamed publicly. Yet, the recipient of the gift and those who hear about it will not be kept silent. In their own way, they demonstrate their boldness in response to Jesus’ words just as the Syrophoenician before them.

In our passage this morning, Jesus struggled with inclusion. Yet, when confronted with his cultural and religious bias, Jesus took one on the ‘chin’, if you will, and changed his attitude. Jesus given his embedded context and culture, where it was relatively easy to overlook or under-consider someone of a difference race, or faith, or nationality, Jesus paused. Rather than staying caught in that particular aspect of evil, that is colorblind, Jesus chose not to ignore or deny these realities of oppression, he chose not to brush them aside. He did the most difficult thing for those born into privilege or prejudice, he listened and was fundamentally changed. He grew in faith while on his own faith journey.

Learning something of himself, something new, Jesus immediately puts it into action. He is no hard core racist. He is not reluctant to abandon his preconceived notions, his embedded cultural and religious ideas. Jesus quickly learns not to overlook anyone or to under-consider a single, solitary soul. Called to account by God, he responds immediately.

Jesus is a model for us. His is not a perfection we cannot reach. Jesus is someone who is humble enough to grow. Perhaps the good news from this story is that once again, Jesus empathizes with our struggles and demonstrates a new and better path for the future where all are well, whole, and included. When confronted with his privilege as a Jewish man, when confrontee with his preconceived notions of who is worthy and who is not, when he learns not to overlook or under-consider any of God’s beloved children, Jesus learned and grew. We can do the same and may we do so – thanks be to God – amen.