Know Who You Don't Know

Sermon for Sunday, Sept. 5, 2021
James 2:1-10, 14-17; Mark 7:24-37

In recent weeks, we’ve heard news reports about preliminary results from the 2020 census.  In the words of the Census Bureau, “The U.S. population is much more multiracial and more diverse than what we measured in the past.”¹  Now, as the Bureau says, the 2020 census gave people more options for indicating their racial and ethnic status; so, a direct, apples-to-apples comparison with past data isn’t really possible.  But still, the results do indicate what we probably knew anyway, just by experience – that our nation and the Kansas City area continue growing more diverse racially and ethnically.²

Of course, that’s only one way diversity expresses itself among us.  Even in a community like St. Andrew’s, where diversity isn’t so apparent at a glance, we differ greatly on many things – how we understand the role of government, whether the rights of the individual or the good of the community carries the greatest weight.  There are all kinds of ways we can see ourselves in contrast to “those other people,” whoever they may be.

And that takes us on the road with Jesus in today’s Gospel reading, as he goes to areas outside his usual stomping grounds and, apparently, outside his comfort zone, too.  He heads off to “the region of Tyre,” a city on the Mediterranean coast northwest of Galilee (Mark 7:24).  This location implies distance not just of geography but of culture.  The region of Tyre was not a Jewish area but was in Phoenicia, an area influenced for centuries by travelers and traders from around the Mediterranean.  We’re not told why Jesus is in Phoenicia.  He doesn’t seem to have proclamation on his mind because, the reading says, “he did not want anyone to know he was there” (7:24).  But word gets out, as it always does; and a woman from that foreign area comes to him, begging him to cast out an unclean spirit from her daughter.

This is where things get interesting.  This Syrophoenician woman not only humbles herself before Jesus; she bows down at his feet in “a posture of worship.”³  She’s heard what this powerful healer can do, and she’s assuming there’s divinity involved in his power somehow.  So, this woman has done nothing to dishonor Jesus – just the opposite, in fact.

But Jesus responds in a way we wouldn’t expect – a response that seems to run counter to what we know of him from his other interactions with people.  Whatever else might be going on in the stories of Jesus healing or talking with individuals, Jesus treats them as just that – as individuals.  He listens to them; he engages them.  He takes them seriously, meeting them who they are, where they are.  But in today’s story, for whatever reason, Jesus sees this woman not as an individual but as a category, a Syrophoenician – a member of a group that isn’t “us,” the Jewish people.  So, when she bows down to him and begs him to heal her daughter, Jesus says, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs” (7:27).  Yes, that’s just as insulting as it sounds.  He’s basically saying, I’ve come to save the Jewish people first (which makes you wonder why he’s gone off to Phoenicia).  And, Jesus says, compared with us, God’s chosen people, you non-Jewish folks are like … dogs.⁴  It just sounds completely out of character.

But the woman’s response is amazing.  Having been categorized, labeled, dismissed, and insulted, she retains her faith in Jesus’ healing power, and she puts her own injury aside for the sake of her daughter’s well-being.  She says, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs” (7:28).  This non-Jew recognizes that even if Jesus considers her “the other,” lesser than his people, God still provides for her and all the “others” like her.  As one scholar notes, she’s the “only character in Mark who wins an argument against Jesus and, in the process, teaches him something important about the scope of his ministry.”⁵  In fact, from this conversation, Jesus has a change of heart.  He acknowledges the woman’s deep faith, even in a God she doesn’t know deeply; and he heals her daughter.

Now, the story doesn’t tell us how Jesus processed this interaction.  We don’t know whether he felt badly or whether he critiqued his human assumptions about God’s special relationship with the Jewish people.  But we do know what he did next.

Jesus makes his way to another Gentile area, the Decapolis, on the east side of the Jordan River.  This was a collection of 10 autonomous cities under Roman rule featuring Greek culture and religion.⁶  In that, the Decapolis was similar to Tyre – certainly not a Jewish area. Jesus’ journey to the Decapolis is also similar to his stop in Tyre in that people there seek him out, having heard about his divine healing powers.  Like the Syrophoenician woman, the crowd there shows great faith, bringing Jesus a man who can’t hear and can’t speak clearly and begging Jesus to heal him. 

But what’s very different here is Jesus’ response.  Even though he’s among Gentiles, he doesn’t write off the afflicted man as an outsider, someone of lower priority in God’s eyes.  Instead, Jesus takes him away so he can focus all his loving power on him.  He touches this outsider in very direct, intimate ways, putting his fingers in the man’s ears, then spitting and touching the man’s tongue with his saliva.  Jesus looks up to heaven, sighs deeply, and says in Aramaic, “‘Ephphatha’ – that is, ‘Be opened’” (Mark 7:34).  So, the man is made whole.  

And maybe Jesus is, too.  Of course, he heals the man – but he could have done that at a distance, with a snap of his fingers or a quick word.  Instead, this time, Jesus chooses to see and care for this man as the individual he is.  Jesus was fully human, after all.  I imagine sometimes he might have gotten a little too wrapped up in the macro side of his ministry – working the big picture, fulfilling God’s covenant with the people of Israel before using those redeemed people as apostles to show the rest of the nations the depth of God’s love.  And in the process of focusing on the big picture, even Jesus apparently risked forgetting the irony of salvation: that nations are saved one heart at a time.  And the person in front of you is the most important person in the world, regardless of what group they fall into.

As Jesus’ apostles in the here and now, we always have to work to remember that truth.  No one is more important than the person God places in your path.  Our challenge is to see them, especially when they’re different, when they lie outside the boundaries of what’s normal, or familiar, or comfortable for us.  We encounter that challenge as a church when someone comes who doesn’t quite fit within our categories.  The reading from James today has some specific critique about drawing distinctions based on social class – and that’s always a temptation, especially for a church rooted in social privilege, like ours.  But the more diverse our world becomes – or, more precisely, the more we acknowledge how diverse God’s world truly is – the more we have to ask ourselves, “What boxes do I put people in?”  Maybe that’s what Jesus was asking himself after his encounter with the Syrophoenician woman: “Wait a minute – what did I just do?  That’s a unique child of God standing in front of me.  Did I just make her an object instead?”

If Jesus can fall prey to that temptation, it’s safe to assume we do, too.  So, what’s our response?  Well, we probably have some sin to confess, but the point isn’t to feel badly about ourselves.  The point is to see ourselves in the light of God’s loving truth, which sometimes illuminates corners we’d just as soon keep hidden, even from ourselves.  So, ask yourself the hard question: “Whom do I put in the box of prejudgment?  What people do I see as a category, rather than as individuals?  Who is ‘them’ to me?” 

Then, after a little time and reflection, look for the opportunity – which I feel certain God will provide – to engage with someone who might have been “them” to you before.  And when that opportunity arises, offer to God a simple prayer for yourself in that moment:  “Ephphatha – be opened.”

1.       United States Census Bureau. “2020 Census Statistics Highlight Local Population Changes and Nation’s Racial and Ethnic Diversity.” Aug. 12, 2021. Available at: https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021/population-changes-nations-diversity.html. Accessed Sept. 3, 2021.

2.       For data about racial and ethnic diversity in Jackson County, MO, see https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive/racial-and-ethnic-diversity-in-the-united-states-2010-and-2020-census.html.

3.       Note on Mark 3:11, The New Oxford Annotated Bible, 1834.

4.       One scholar says Mark 7:27 shows “Jesus’ desire to limit his ministry to the Jews” (note on Mark 7:24-30, The New Interpreters’ Study Bible, 1822).  Another says that “Jesus exhibits a surprisingly provincial attitude here” (note on Mark 7:27, The New Oxford Annotated Bible, 1844). 

5.       Note on Mark 7:24-30, The New Interpreters’ Study Bible, 1822.

6.       Rey-Coquais, Jean-Paul. “Decapolis.”  The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. 2. New York: Doubleday, 1992. 119.