Crumbs of Abundance Sermon on Mark 7:24-37, Rev. Berry French September 6, BMPC

Transcription

1 1 Crumbs of Abundance Sermon on Mark 7:24-37, Rev. Berry French September 6, BMPC Introduction to the text Today s Gospel Reading is from the seventh chapter of the Gospel of Mark. It directly follows the passage Mary Katherine preached on last week when Jesus puts the Jewish Pharisees in their place on the ridiculousness of their emphasis on ritual or religious cleanliness. Today, we encounter a rare story where we are forced to come to terms with the fully human aspect of Jesus and the always expanding embrace of God s love. In order to catch some of the powerful nuances of Mark s gospel, we need to remember that there are 6 previous chapters of action that come to play in today s interaction. In today s passage we re going to hear about crumbs falling from the table but that might mean something deeper when we realized that Mark chapter 6 contains the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 Jewish folks with 12 baskets of crumbs left over. 12 being the number of Israelite tribes there were way back in Old Testament times. And right after today s story about Gentiles and crumbs, Mark chapter 8 tells the story of Jesus feeding 4,000 Gentile (non-jewish) people and after everyone was full, there were 7 baskets full of leftovers 7 being the number of wholeness from a biblical and Jewish perspective the whole world was created in a 7 day cycle. Sandwiched right in between these feeding miracles of Jews in Chapter 6, and Gentiles in Chapter 8, we get today s story of Jesus interaction or argument with the Syrophoenician woman and crumbs of abundance and the healing of the deaf and mute man. Text: Mark 7:24-37 Let us listen to God s word from Mark chapter 7, beginning at verse 24. From there Jesus 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 Jesus feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.

2 Jesus 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 Jesus 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. Jesus took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and Jesus spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, Jesus 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." Sermon If you were to picture Jesus in your own mind, what might he look like? Actually, let s try it. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and get an image of Jesus in your mind. Got it? OK, you can open your eyes. My guess is that most of us have an image of Jesus that is welcoming and calm he s smiling maybe with outstretched arms or he s in some kind of inviting posture. My friend Charlene Han Powell says that's because no matter how many famous artists have re-imagined and reinterpreted our Savior, we all get our image of Jesus from the same place: the cover of a children s bible! Jesus always looks calm, inviting, and happy on the cover of Children s bibles. i But friends, the Jesus we encounter in today s Scripture reading, the Jesus as known in the biblical story, is not always a kind, gentle, tuck-your-shirt-in, please and thank you kind-of-a-guy. 2

3 Jesus is often kind. Jesus is compassionate. But Jesus doesn t play by the rules when the religious rules or religious establishment forget to care for the marginalized the poor and the sick and the desperate. Don t forget he flipped over tables in the Temple when money changers were making a buck off the backs of the faithful. Jesus lets the religious establishment have it over the ways they turned religion into a set of rules. All throughout the Gospels, Jesus makes the powerful folks mad, and he heals and pays attention to the powerless. Jesus hung out with the wrong crowd and didn t play by the rules when societal rules neglected the down and out. But we are often guilty of domesticating Jesus; probably so that we feel less guilty about how we have so domesticated following Jesus who was and is a radical! He hung out with fisherman and prostitutes and tax collectors and sick people and blind people and folks too desperate to care about purity codes around who touches who and who was invited to this party. Today s desperate mom has a demon-possessed daughter, and she doesn t care that Jesus is Jewish and she s not. Nor does she care that Jesus is trying to rest and go unnoticed on the quiet side of the Sea of Galilee. As my friend Charlene puts it: An unclean spirit, a demon, is residing in the innocent body of her beloved daughter. Desperate is probably a euphemism for what she is feeling. Yet in the depths of her helplessness, this woman hears a story about a healer from Galilee who not only makes the lame to walk and the blind to see, but he casts out demons. It didn t take long for the woman s curiosity to turn to hope, and her hope to turn to expectation, and her expectation to turn into belief. She began to believe the Jesus was more than just a healer. She began to believe in Jesus! ii So she finds Jesus, bows at his feet and begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. And Jesus responds: Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children s food and throw it to the dogs. Ouch! Come on Jesus! This is not the Jesus on the front of Children s bible. Jesus is less than kind and compassionate: he s downright rude. He insults this desperate mother and calls her and her sick daughter dogs. It s haunting. And while it certainly doesn t fit with our children s bible Jesus image it also doesn t fit our thoughtful biblical images of Jesus. 3

4 So what do we make of Jesus dismissive response? Interpreters over the years have wrestled with how to handle this uncomfortable text. Some have interpreted the original word to be more like little puppy, with a hint of compassion but the original Greek language doesn t support that. Others have tried to say that somehow this is a test of the woman s faith kind of like the story of Job in the Old Testament. But that s twisted for lots of reasons and the text itself gives no hint of testing. And, for crying out loud, this woman has already shown incredible faith for finding out where Jesus was, traveling there, calling in every favor she has just to get into the house, bowing at his feet, and begging on behalf of her daughter. What Jesus is saying, in a less-than-compassionate way is that he has been sent to the Jews first. Let the children the Jews be fed first, for it is not fair to take the Jews food and throw it to the dogs to the Gentiles. She acknowledges that, and then she boldly calls Jesus to remember his larger vision of God s Kingdom that extends past the Jews and to all people: Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children s crumbs to use your image! Sure, you came for the Jews first, but there are always LEFTOVERS in God s economy. There is no table big enough to contain God s grace, and surely the is so much BREAD and so much GRACE and so much MERCY that even now it s spilling onto the floor! There is enough food to go around enough grace for everyone in the abundant Kingdom of God. Preach it sister! Jesus commends her faith or her argument, casts out the demon, and then remembers or reclaims his mission first to the Jews but then proclaiming God s abundant love to the Gentiles to all people. And directly following this interaction, Jesus goes to another gentile land and heals a man who is deaf and mute; and then he feeds the 4000 Gentiles who have come out to hear him preach and this time there are 7 baskets of crumbs left over a complete, and whole 7 baskets overflowing with broken pieces, with abundant crumbs even spilling out onto the ground. Maybe this outsider, this stranger, pushes Jesus to stretch his vision of God s grace and makes clear to him in an unexpected and initially unwelcomed way that there is room in God s kingdom for all iii Jew and Gentile, well and sick, 4

5 insider and outsider, those who are healthy, those who are disabled, and those who have to fight their demons every day. It s hard for us to think of Jesus needing a reminder to see God s kingdom is all-inclusive. It could be that at that moment of exhaustion, we see Jesus in his most pure fully human form. He tried to come across the Sea alone in order to have some down time to reflect and regain his strength. But instead of slipping away to a beach town where he is not known, he s tracked down and he s interrupted. Jesus is both fully human and fully divine: 100% human and 100% God. It s one of tensions and complexities of the Christian faith that none of us understand completely, and the Bible and Christian faith looks at from a variety of angles. But we mostly like to think of Jesus as fully God and little bit human. Perhaps God worked through this bold and desperate stranger in this strange and unknown land to remind God s own son of the abundance and fierce inclusion of God s love. God often works that way through the stranger, through interactions that we might not be prepared for. You know that whole growth and transformation happens outside our comfort zones apparently it may have been true even for Jesus. The question is: what strangers, what outsiders do we need to be paying attention to as individuals and as a church community? And as a church full of gentiles non-jewish folks who have been grafted into the faith Thank God for this tenacious, persistent Gentile that urges Jesus to remember God s abundant love crosses every boundary. She pushes Jesus to a mission of infinite compassion and mercy for Jew and Gentile, insider and outsider, poor and wealthy, educated and less-educated, immigrant and refugee and less-recent immigrant, prisoner and addict, those who are healthy, and those who wrestle with demons. Friends, we know nothing about this demon that has possessed this girl. I am not sure that any of us have an image in mind for a little girl that had an unclean spirit; or for the scene when mom went home, and found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone iv. Unfortunately, I am not able to give you an accurate image. The details are sparse at best. But I have been wondering all week about the demon that had a hold of this little girl. 5

6 Was it the demon of mental illness? Was she possessed by depression? Or did the demon of addiction have a hold of her life? Could it have been a generational cycle of domestic violence that had seized her? I ve been wondering all week long about the demon that had a hold of this little girl s life. And I have been wondering what her life, and her mom s life, and her community s life was like after Jesus CAST OUT her demon. Can you IMAGINE the FREEDOM that she experienced the rest of her life! And friends, I got to tell you, have also been wondering all week about the demons that have a hold of us. Have we been seized by depression or mental illness or addiction? Do the demons of materialism and consumerism possess our lives. Does the demon of FEAR paralyze us? In our modern society of fierce individualism and over-indulgence has the demon of GREED entangled our souls? Is it racism, or a lack of concern for those who experience racism. Many of us, I think, are possessed by apathy. What about you? What demons do you wrestle with? What is it you need desperately to fall down at Jesus feet and beg to be healed of? Because friends, I m here to tell you the God we know in Jesus Christ is in the business of casting out all kinds of demons. Jesus never flinched in the face of demons v and God knows all too well the power demons can demonstrate over us in this life, and God and the Church stand ready to face your demons with you. And friends, the other side of these healing stories are CELEBRATIONS celebrations of what Jesus has done, and overflowing proclamations of the good news of Jesus the Christ and our Abundant God. Scripture says that the mother leaves, full of faith that Jesus has done what he said, and she goes and finds it so, and I just wonder about the story of the rest her life, and her daughter s new life after Jesus cast out her demon. 6

7 Can you imagine the way that family experienced freedom and then TALKED ABOUT Jesus to everyone they knew? After Jesus healed the deaf and mute man, Scripture tells us that Jesus ordered them to tell no one, but the more he ordered them, the more zealously the proclaimed it! They knew they had encountered and been healed by Jesus the Christ, they experienced God s abundance breaking into the world, and they couldn t shut up about it. I have been wondering and praying all week about the demons that have a hold of us. And I have been wondering and praying about what would happen if we like the man who now hears and speaks shouted out the good news of our healing and redemption that God has so abundantly showered upon us. Just what would happen if we stopped and recognized God s abundance in our lives and then let that spill over into our daily lives and we proclaimed it with zeal to the whole world? May it be so. May it be so for each of us. Amen Charge & Benediction Sisters and brothers, remember that Jesus never flinched in the face of demons and that God is in the business of casting out demons, what-ever form they take. And when you experience healing or redemption or God s abundance don t hid it under a bushel shout it out with zeal! Shout it out so the whole world or at least your whole world knows it and is drawn to it and is amazed by God s abundance. And may the Grace of our radical Lord Jesus Christ; The Love of our Abundant God; And the Fellowship of the HS be with you this day and always. Alleluia! Amen! i The opening of this sermon is inspired by my friend Charlene Han Powell s sermon Desperate Believe preached at her church: Fifth Ave Presbyterian in NYC, NY. Specifically no matter how many famous artists have re-imagined and reinterpreted our Savior, we all get our image of Jesus from the same place: the cover of a children s bible line is almost a direct quote. ii Beginning at An unclean spirit, a demon, is residing in the innocent body through this footnote, is almost a direct quote from my friend Charlene Han Powell s sermon Desperate Believe. iii This sentence is edited from one originally written by David Lose in his commentary on this text titled Dogs and the Kingdom of God workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=1625 iv Direct quote from Mark 7:30. v Jesus never flinched in the face of demons was a repeated line in a sermon I heard in Mark Ramsey s sermon at Rebecca Gurney s ordination and installation service at Grace Covenant on August 30, Mark s sermon helped me connect this girl s demon with our many modern-day demons. 7