This Week: Proper 18B
Gospel: Mark 7:24-37
After all of the bigness of Mark 6, and the confrontation in the first half of chapter 7, we have two smaller stories to end the sequence. Two stories with Jesus encountering one person at a time. It feels so much more intimate than what we’ve just gone through.
That feeling, of smallness, intimacy, personal contact, is tantelizing, isn’t it? This feels like Jesus to us—at least in the North American Christian context where we speak to individual faith and taking Jesus into our hearts. It is all personal relationships, too. With Jesus and the people around us. We want person, singular, individual experiences to be epic. Almost like we don’t want to share him/it.
There’s another thing going on here, too. These encounters are kind of bonkers—especially given the first six chapters.
The Dog Thing
The first encounter is…strange. And perhaps the first time in Mark’s gospel that we think Jesus comes off like a jerk. Or maybe you give him the rhetorical benefit of the doubt—that he isn’t so much calling the Syrophoenician woman a dog as he is trying to enforce the boundaries…wait, that’s not good … he’s trying to say no … shoot, that’s no better.
Hmmm.
This encounter is significant specifically for what came before it. That Jesus was just trying to expand the tradition. And now he’s the one enforcing it—and getting called out for that.
You may not want to focus on that part—there is a whole part of the preaching tradition about not wanting to sabotage the power of Jesus to move people—but there is no question that the sequence of events is intentional. That we really are supposed to be thinking about how Jesus just knocked the critics for this same thing. And here, he catches himself and fixes it.
Another side
Another side to this story about the woman is her persistence. That’s what we most often focus on when discussing this passage. And I do think it is probably the most fruitful for many sermons. Especially when people are hoping to hear about something they can do about the stuff in their lives and in the world.
But it isn’t “the flip side” or an alternative view. It is precisely that it is part of the story that makes it valuable to the reader. We have her persistence. And we have Jesus’s initial arrogance butting heads.
Then what do we have? Jesus changing his mind. And that right there is the golden ticket.
Remember how much people don’t like to sabotage the power of Jesus to move people? Part of that deal is making Jesus perfect. Always. And forever. But that fails to honor what can be gained by the humanity of Jesus. By the beauty of change. And by the grace of learning something new.
Jesus learns to expand the tradition in a new way. And that makes it all the more possible for each of us to follow suit.
The Earthly Healing
The other encounter is easily overlooked for its less obvious moral to preach about. But it is no less problematic to the perfection-seeking part of tradition. And I suspect it would serve just as well for reinforcing the overarching message of Jesus’s increasing power and revelation and the expansion of tradition.
Unlike the strange encounter with the Syrophoenician woman, this seems like a snippet, an easy to overlook encounter that may be a “slice of life” moment. This is how Jesus heals?
I suspect that assumption is far less grounded in reality than it seems. Particularly given the escalating urgency of the narrative. Why would Mark offer that now rather than at the beginning if that were the case? Why seemingly backtrack from the escalation and urgency to offer a pastoral moment about sticking fingers in ears and rubbing spit in eyes—only to proclaim this healing moment is more incredible than any previous miracle?
Obviously it is about who is getting healed—a gentile—and where—the Decapolis. And there is surprise from within the Hebrew tradition and without.
Transcending Boundaries Astounds
The evangelist paints this as the greatest revelation so far, and it would be wise for us to treat it as such. Both in understanding why they think so and in considering it really ought to be the same for us, too.
We live at a time when eccumenical conversations are typical and expected. Episcopalians meet regularly with Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, and Baptists. It isn’t weird. Nor is it weird to have gatherings with Jewish, Muslim, or Atheist siblings in faith.
We also recognize Christianity as a global religion, so we don’t see national boundaries as a problem for the faith (in that way, at least).
But this is kind of a literalistic reading of the text, isn’t it? Jesus isn’t speaking to groups that refuse to consider the humanity of others—but struggle with traditions that certainly do diminish the humanity of others. And our sense of tradition, with its tribal identities, lines of inclusion and exclusion, and general refusal to participate in a bigger project than the one we’re pledged to is very much real.
How often do we start a conversation, not with what we can all do together, but with what we each can get out of it? How often are our conversations with potential partners scaled back because they aren’t enough “like us” or that there isn’t an obvious direct benefit to our institution?
This, my friends, is a way we presently enforce boundaries. It doesn’t look nearly like it did two thousand years ago, when some people aren’t allowed to talk to each other. But then again, we certainly do that with class, race, and gender don’t we? So maybe we aren’t that different after all.
The Departure Teaching
Jesus offers a departure from “traditional” teaching. What he’s doing, of course, is expanding the scope. And there’s a whole conversation about doctrine and discipline we could have here that would needlessly complicate the situation, so let’s not bother. But it is quite clear that there is political benefit to cast this as a rejection of tradition by taking a small view of tradition—just as there is political benefit to see this as within tradition by taking a generous view of tradition.
What isn’t debatable is that it is a departure from the inherited interpretation. And that departure expands the possibilities for them and for us. Possibilities to love and support more people.
And even more important is that we get it through a moment of change. That is what learning is. Learning is systemic change in our thinking, behaving, and communicating. It builds up our skills, strengthens our understanding, and develops our curiosities.
Jesus learns something in the gospel passage this week. And because of it, he changes his mind about boundaries and changes his trajectory among the faithful.
And because Jesus changes his mind about the Good News—to expand it and grow—so can we.