Sermon for September 8, 2024

September 8, 2024

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott


Mark 7: 24-30


Today’s Gospel comes at an interesting point in the lectionary, if we consider ongoing themes. Last week we heard Jesus talk about ideas of ritual purity: what is unclean, what we can touch, and how we behave. These ideas of purity have larger implications, and this week’s Gospel shows us the problem of rigidity. It leads to whole groups of people who are in and who are out.

We’ve seen Jesus cast his lot with outcast groups in his earlier ministry. We’ve heard his mother Mary declare that God is on the side of outcasts when she says yes to God’s invitation. But in today’s Gospel we see Jesus behaving as, dare I say it, like the very Pharisees he criticized last week. What is going on here?

A woman approaches him and asks for healing for her daughter. We might wonder what the big deal is—we’ve seen Jesus do this kind of healing already. The daughter has a demon; he’s cast out demons. A family member asks on behalf of the sick loved one—Jesus has been happy to respond to these kinds of requests in the past.

Not in today’s Gospel. He calls the woman a dog and tries to send her on her way.

If you do much reading about this passage, you’ll find people trying to find a way to let Jesus off the hook. There’s been much discussion about what that dog language means. Is he being affectionate? Is the word “dog” more like a puppy or more like a mongrel or perhaps worse. Is he calling the woman a bitch? If we try to excuse Jesus’ behavior here, we might say that Jesus says the children should be fed first, which means the woman should wait her turn. He’s not sending her away so much as reminding her of her place.

But once again, I return to the behavior of Jesus. Why would he respond in this way? Is it because she’s female? Is it because she’s not Jewish? He’s healed Jewish people before, and he hasn’t seemed to be a sexist in the past. What on earth is going on?

Today’s text is where I see Jesus at his most human. He behaves in a way that is familiar to us; we’ve likely been on either the receiving end or the giving end of this behavior, the “Go away, you’re bothering me” response. It’s kind of depressing to think that our Savior is not immune from this response.

If the woman went away, we’d have a very different Gospel, but what happens next shows us the human capacity for change. The woman makes a counterargument; she’s a human fighting on behalf of a helpless loved one, and her bravery inspires, even today, thousands of years later. Let’s remind ourselves of who she is: a woman, a mother with a demon possessed child, a Syrophoenician—she had no standing, not with Jesus, not with the Jews, not with the Romans. She couldn’t be much lower on the social ladder.

She offers Jesus a different vision of his ministry, a more expansive vision—and here’s what’s important: inspired by her, Jesus changes his mind and in the process, changes his ministry. In the Gospel of Mark, we’re not told exactly what makes Jesus change his approach to her. Is it her faith? Is it her courage? Is it her quick thinking?

Whatever it is, they both go away changed. The daughter is healed, which means the family is restored to community. And Jesus goes on to heal a deaf man who can’t speak. As Jesus says, “Ephphatha,” --“Be opened”-- we might reflect on how Jesus, too, is opened up in this Gospel.

The Syrophoenician woman teaches us an important lesson about our relationship with God. I am guessing that most of us have been taught to be deferential to God. We have been taught that God knows best, that God has a plan, that the plan is absolute, that we should defer to this plan, that we should be patient, that we should be worshipful, that we must show respect. We might have been taught an even more troubling theology—that if we’re not showing the proper amount of respect that God will teach us a lesson, or worse, that God will smite us.

The Syrophoenician woman shows us a different way to respond to God. She talks back, she demands justice, she is confrontational—and she changes not only her life, not only her daughter’s life, but Jesus himself. Through her demands, she restores her daughter, her family, herself to health. We can do the same. Martin Luther says that this woman teaches us how to pray. It’s not a way that I was ever taught to pray, but it’s an important part of our prayer life. We must pray with the expectation, with the demand, that God uphold the vision for creation that God has told us about time and time again.

Our readings today from Isaiah and the Psalms tell us that the Lord will act in ways that so many of us hope and pray that the Lord will act: feeding the hungry, setting the captives free, frustrating the wicked, and giving justice to the oppressed. Our Gospel reading suggests that these actions don’t just happen in a vacuum. We have a part to play. We can raise our voices, and not just in lament. We can demand justice.

We can raise our voices and demand that God act. Most of us don’t come from traditions where we’ve been taught that we can do that. We can raise our voices and demand that God act. We can do that, and we will survive. And then we can act in the ways that God demands, the ways we hear about in today’s reading from the book of James.

Our sacred texts tell us that God will reward the righteous. Our sacred texts tell us of the ways to be righteous. Last week, Jesus assured us that what comes out of our mouths and our hearts—that’s what’s important. This week, the Syrophoenician woman reminds us that it’s not enough to pray for ourselves. In her quick response, she’s not just asking for healing for her daughter. By her demand for just treatment, she is reminding Jesus that his ministry can offer a much wider restoration than he has envisioned.

I am not always sure of what motivates God to act in the world, but I do believe that God is more likely to act if we take advantage of the free will that God gives us, if we cry out and if we demand that God move the world towards the vision of justice that we have been promised. If the idea of this makes us fearful, listen to the words of the Psalmist: “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God.”

Here is our God—not to punish us for crying out, but to move us all to a creation where we all flourish. That’s a vision worth crying out for. Cry out with confidence.