Trinity thirteen

Mark 7: 24-37

The sad truth is what we see happening in the Middle East today, the continuing violence, especially between Arab and Jew is nothing new. And it encompasses the whole of that region bringing other Arab countries into the hostility that exists between the two factions.  The region of Tyre we hear about in the Gospel reading is in modern day Lebanon. In Jesus’ time It was a Gentile area, with much hostility towards the Jewish nation, and the historic home of the Phoenicians who had lived in that area for centuries and had fought against Israel taking over their country Josephus, the Jewish historian who lived just after Jesus, and who wrote about Jesus, said that the people who lived in Tyre were the Jews’ bitterest enemies. Tyre was part of the land the Jews believed God had given them as part of the promised land, and yet they had never been able to conquer it, the people of Tyre had hated and resisted the Jewish nation for centuries and still do. That was the lions den that Jesus chose to enter.  To normal, sensible people it was the wrong place geographically, ethnically and religiously for a Jew to be, and yet Jesus chose to go there, and by His grace and love conquered hearts.  The loving power of Christ achieved what centuries of aggression, civil war and oppression could not.

Jesus came to bring light to the Gentiles, the people that lived in darkness now saw a great light, and we see it most vividly in Mark’s Gospel. And yet we hear Jesus didn’t want anyone to know He was there. Jesus clearly needed time to himself, He had been faced with arguments from the Pharisees who seemed to be appearing when Jesus was teaching the crowds. Arguments about eating with unclean hands and other nonsensical issues, which were so far removed from God’s teaching that Jesus rounded on them and told them, “You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition”. Now what He needed was time to recover and be with God, and the Pharisees wouldn’t dare to follow Him to Tyre, but people of Tyre couldn’t keep away from Him.  To them he was a breath of fresh air, totally different to other Jewish religious teachers.  Perhaps these enemies of Judaism realised better than anyone who Jesus really was.

By His presence in this place Jesus is making a very powerful statement about the Kingdom of God and who is acceptable in the sight of God.  Last week we heard the Pharisees challenging Jesus because His disciples didn’t wash their hands before they ate food according to the Jewish traditions, and Jesus rounding on them and telling them that it is what comes out of the human heart that defiles.  In other words our thoughts, our intentions, our attitude towards others, how we live our lives, how we react to others that defiles us in the sight of God, not washing our hands as hygienic as that may be, no matter how often we wash our hands it doesn’t make our souls pure. And now here in Tyre, there is a great spiritual awakening in the presence of this pagan woman, this Gentile woman.  All the Greek philosophers and doctors couldn’t heal her daughter, and so she abandons them to come before Jesus the Messiah.  We are told the daughter had an unclean spirit, which to us could mean anything, a physical illness or a psychological one.  Its always difficult for us to try and compare illnesses then with our understanding today, but whatever the problem, this woman, who had every reason to hate Jesus because He is a Jew, recognised Him as the only person who could help her daughter, and bows down at His feet. That’s a really powerful image for us.  This woman acknowledging Jesus in this way. The last person to bow at Jesus’ feet was Jairus, the Synagogue leader, who begged Jesus to heal his dying daughter.

Just look at these contrasts for a moment.  One a woman, one a man. One a Gentile, the other a Jew.  In Jewish tradition Jesus should only deal with the man Jairus because he is a man and a Jew.  A woman had no place in Jewish life.  There were some Pharisees who would not even look at a woman outside their home, they turned their away, and would certainly not speak to a woman in the street.  A gentile had no place in Jewish life either as we have heard. But they both, at different times, come to Jesus for help, and Jesus treats them both the same. He doesn’t put the status of one over the other. He respects them both as children of God and recognises them as in need of the love of God. But having said that Jesus treats everyone the same, we may be shocked at Jesus’ answer, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs”. What sort of answer is that to someone who is begging Jesus to heal her daughter?

Be in no doubt about what Jesus was saying, the term dogs in those days meant a shameless and audacious woman, we would express it today as bitch.  It was also a Jewish term of contempt for the gentiles. Either way it was extremely derogatory. What did He mean, the Gospel of Matthew puts it into a better context for us to understand, here we have Jesus saying “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” before He talks about feeding the children first. In other words Jesus knew that His original mission was to the Jewish people who had turned their back on God, the chosen people who had this special Covenant with God and had abandoned it for more important things in their eyes, like washing their hands before they ate food.

The Jewish people had lost their way with silly nonsensical traditions and religious laws which now meant more to them than the teaching of God.  They had forgotten to Love God with all their Hearts and Love their neighbours as themselves. Jesus’ personal vocation was to proclaim to the Jewish people that their Messiah had come and their long awaited deliverance was at hand. And this was still the mission of the early Church as we know from the Acts of the Apostles.  The leaders of the early Church took a lot of convincing that the message was for everyone everywhere, Jew and gentile alike.

So Jesus is telling this Gentile woman that His original mission is to the Jews, but the woman reminds Jesus that “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs”, in other words everyone can feed on the word of God. And Jesus acknowledged she was right and healed her daughter.  Yes the original message was for the Jewish nation, but God’s gift of Love and Grace is plentiful and available to everyone, even if sometimes it comes to us as crumbs from under the table. All are welcome at God’s table, all are freely able to receive God’s uncompromising love and grace, and the freedom that flows from it. But sadly too many people feel they are excluded.

How often do we hear people say, “I don’t come to Church because I’m not religious enough, Church is only for very religious people, very pious people”, or another one is “Well I wouldn’t know what to do, you have to kneel and pray, and stand in the right places, I’d look a fool”. And sadly too often, ‘I was treated as an outsider, its only for a small group and they excluded me, didn’t make me feel welcome’. You may have had similar responses from people yourself when they know you go to Church regularly. We have to remember that a lot of people have had a bad experience of church or felt they weren’t welcome, and they still bear the scars of it. For non church folk walking into a building like this to come to a service is a very big thing indeed, and we shouldn’t underestimate that, no matter how welcoming we think we are.

When you think about those sort of responses from people, it is very much like the responses the Pharisees gave to Jesus ministry, questions about unclean hands, eating on the Sabbath, healing people on the Sabbath, the unnecessary religious laws that controlled their lives. That’s how we Christians can appear to those outside the Church, too engrossed in unnecessary things and ignoring the true purpose of Jesus’ ministry and mission on earth.  Perhaps we too forget to Love God with all our Hearts and Love our neighbours as ourselves.

We have a golden opportunity to show how welcoming we really can be with ‘Back to Church Sunday’, on 27^th September. We all know people who used to come to church and don’t anymore, take the cards from the back of church and invite them to come and join us here on that day, and let them experience the real love of God which is alive here in us and our church. One of those being confirmed next week was encouraged to come back to church and look at what that has meant.

So many people hunger for God and don’t think that the Church is the place to find God anymore. They think the Church is irrelevant in this new age, and yet we know from this Gentile woman, even the crumbs from under the table can satisfy our longing for God, and we the body of Christ on earth can help them find him here with us. Amen.