A Sermon for the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Today the Gospel According to Mark (7:24-37) pairs two stories: an exorcism and a healing. These two stories suggest answers to two questions: What’s faith really about? What’s our purpose as a church? Two big questions to kick off this new season for discipleship and ministry.

Together the two constitute a pivot point in the mission of Jesus. In today’s gospel, Jesus journeys from Jewish territory in Galilee into Gentile turf, to non-Jewish neighborhoods. He goes from place to place, driving out demons and healing the sick.

Jesus seeks a place to rest away from the crowds and buzz. But a Gentile woman of Syrophoenician origin hears about him—the news of Jesus has travelled far, crossing cultural and linguistic and political and religious boundaries to reach her ears.

She begs him to help her daughter, who is possessed by a demon. In that moment she shares her heart—and his response is heartbreaking, harsh. Jesus rebuffs her request, calling her a “dog,” a common cultural platitude for labelling outsiders and foreigners.

But she is not undone. She persists!

She says even a dog deserves compassion and mercy.

Because of the woman’s audacity and wit, Jesus grants her request: “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.”

This encounter is the only instance in Mark’s gospel of someone besting Jesus in a verbal exchange. In all his encounters with the religious establishment and political authorities and his disciples, Jesus always prevails—but not here!

(Let me pause to say that one of the reasons I find the Bible to be a trustworthy witness to God and guide to faith is that it shows its heroes at their highest and their lowest, their weaknesses, stumbling, foot-in-the mouth moments, when they have messed up; it’s a warts-and-all-portrait, which tells the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. No sweeping of dirt under the rug in the holy scriptures!)

The Syrophoenician woman’s besting Jesus turns out to be the answer of what faith is really about.

Mark gives us the answer to our faith question without even mentioning the word “faith.” It turns out that we are to approach God, we are to pray to God, boldly, bravely opening our hearts, and showing God who is in our hearts and what is in our hearts. And saying to God: do something!

Here we see that faith is courage—the opposite of timidity, cowardice, complacency, apathy. Genuine faith is bold, daring, insistent. It puts first things first (a loved one’s health), and it marshals every resource available: our wit, wisdom, insight, impertinence. Like the Gentile woman in the gospel story, faith seeks God out and is unafraid to wrestle with God.

This gospel story also turns out to be a pivot point in the gospel: As Jesus’ mission turns to the Gentile world, the mission broadens in its scope, erasing any boundaries to God’s compassion and mercy and extending God’s grace to the nations, yea, to the whole of creation. Her story turns out to be part of our story, of how we Gentiles got to be part of the Jesus movement.

This exorcism story is paired with a healing story, also set in Gentile territory, which serves as a commentary on it and prompts us to reflect on our purpose as a church.

In the next gospel story, there is a man who is deaf and mute (maybe he never developed the capacity of speech because he could not hear). The man could not have heard the good news about Jesus—delivering people from demons and curing their diseases and all the rest—because, well, he cannot hear.

But his friends had heard the good news about Jesus, and so they brought him to Jesus and interceded for him with Jesus (just as the woman had for her demon-possessed daughter).

Jesus takes the man aside, away from the crowd. He looks up to heaven and sighs—a very human thing to do (but what did he mean by that?). Jesus then gets right in the man’s face (sort of like the woman got in his face), even using his own saliva medicinally or ritually. He gets in close and lays his hands upon him—a healing touch. Then Jesus spoke a word of command: “Be opened!”

And immediately, his ears were opened, and his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.

Strangely, Jesus orders everyone to keep quiet … Such a strange thing to ask of people who have experienced a miracle, a sign from God. Jesus doesn’t seem to want any premature proclamations of his messiahship … not until the cross, not until he hangs there broken, defeated, shamed.

So, the healing story is an answer to our question of purpose. It shows who Jesus is—Jesus is the one who opens us, who frees us, makes us whole and gives us hope.

And by showing us who he is we see who are as the church, living members of the Body of Christ. We have joined Jesus on his mission, which leads us to cross every boundary: geographical, cultural, political, and yes, religious and theological.

To be sure, church teaching (doctrine) is life-giving life guidance—but Jesus will always be in our faces, sometimes to comfort and heal, and other times to challenge our religious beliefs and motivate us to widen the boundaries of God’s mercy and compassion, to push beyond received piety, to push past prejudice and complacency and apathy and timidity.

Jesus opens us in order to fill us: to fill us with his grace and truth and light. To make ordinary people to be holy and wholeheartedly agents of God’s love and justice for the healing of the nations and the peace of the earth.

Today we are in a sweet spot for joining in Jesus’ mission! St. Mary’s is abundant with resources and possibilities: opportunities for Christian formation and fellowship and service.

We are growing as a church, because, like the Syrophoenician woman, people are finding us of their own accord and out of their own need. But like the man who was deaf, we also are growing because our members are bringing others to the Lord; they are extending the hand of friendship, offering a ride or their companionship in the pew.

(Today I see families with school-age children who have brought children to worship and Sunday school and youth group—they are living and loving like Jesus and helping others to do the same.)

God’s great gift to all is the gift of faith. God’s great gift to the world is the church, a people who put faith to work, joining Jesus’ mission and widening the reach of God’s mercy and compassion. May God give us always eyes to see, ears to hear, hearts to love and hands to serve. Amen!

The Rev. Gregory Bezilla