“Reversal of
Fortune”
Mark
7:24-30
September 6, 2009
In today’s Gospel
reading we are introduced to someone who had everything going against her as she made her
way into Jesus’ presence. She was a
woman, a foreigner, a pagan, and her daughter had an unclean spirit infesting her soul. Any one of those characteristics should have been
enough of a social taboo to keep her away from the famous Galilean Rabbi, Jesus. And yet she approached him nonetheless because she
was driven by a deep parental desire to see her daughter healed and made whole.
This morning’s reading,
according to the Revised Common Lectionary, is really made up of two healing stories; the
first I have briefly described while the second one is about a man healed of deafness. For various reasons I will only be focusing on the
first story.
Please listen for how the
Spirit is speaking through God’s word found on page 40 of the New Testament section
of your pew Bibles from the Gospel of Mark chapter seven verses twenty-four through
thirty-seven….
24From there [Jesus] set out and
went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was
there. Yet he could not escape notice, 25but a woman whose little daughter had
an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. 26Now
the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of
her daughter. 27He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is
not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” 28But
she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
29Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has
left your daughter.” 30So she went home, found the child lying on the bed,
and the demon gone.
This
is God’s word to us…
Wheels screech … the
sound of metal crunches … a familiar cry out in front of the house … a mother’s
heart stops. She is scared out of her wits as
she races from her home and sees the bicycle misshapen and her child on the pavement.
That’s the way mothers
are wired. That’s the way fathers are
wired too. Parenting is tough work especially
when your child is sick or injured. As a
parent, having a child who is not well pushes all other worries far from view as our heart
and mind race to figure out what we might do to make things alright. That’s just the way God has wired us as
parents.
We all have our stories
about a heart wrenching moment when our children have not been well, don’t we? For me, one of the most trying hours of parenting
happened just over four years ago at a Fourth of July picnic. At the time Eric still received most of his
nutrients from a feeding tube that had to be connected, several times a day to a “button”
in his stomach. That summer we had just
switched from one feeding button manufacturer to another on the advice of a family friend.
It had only been a few weeks
with the new button when things went horribly wrong. Upon
finishing his afternoon “meal” we went to unhook the feeding tube from the
button in his stomach when the rubber button failed. The
result was that Eric’ stomach contents started draining out all over him. He was in no pain, thankfully, but it wasn’t a
good thing to have a hole in his abdomen and I’m afraid my racing heart and stunned
mind did more to frighten three-year-old Eric than anything he was feeling as a result of
the failed button.
As it turns out, Kathy is
much more level headed in such situations and she took control of everything. As I held Eric in the back seat of our mini-van and
Kathy drove us to the emergency room we prayed for peace and safety for our little boy,
that we would get a new button put in his stomach and that everything would turn out for
the best. It was one of the longest
thirty-minute drives in my life. It feels like
it just happened yesterday, even though it was over four years ago.
As parents, all of us are
deeply and profoundly upset when our children are injured or seriously ill. And as almost all of us have faced some kind of
adversity with our own children’s well-being our hearts break when we see other
parents caring for their sick or hurt children. Anytime
a child is sick or injured our empathy peaks. Which
makes our hearing of this morning’s gospel story all that more real.
The woman who approached
Jesus was desperate for her daughter. Our
passage says that her daughter “had an unclean spirit,” that is, in the speech
of the day, she was demon-possessed. Now, you
have to realize that in Biblical times being possess by a demon was a common medical
prognosis; being unaware of germs and viruses: ancient doctors and others who practiced
the healing arts would often assume the cause of illness to be related to something that
either the patient or the patient’s relatives had said or done.
Can you imagine taking your
ill child to the doctor and being told it was your child’s fault or being questioned
about what you might have said or done as a parent to cause your child’s illness? What must have been going through the mind of the
mother in our gospel reading? How many times
would she have been questioned about what she or her daughter had done or said to make
room for a demon to enter her? All the while
thinking, “All I want is for my daughter to be made whole.”
The mother’s motivation
that she care so much for her daughter to seek out the one person who could do something
about it is what this passage is really about and not demonology. So what did she do?
Upon hearing that Jesus was in town, she sought him out. This wasn’t a simple matter of making an
appointment at the local doctor’s, mind you. No,
for this woman with all of her “issues” she was just as likely to get an
appointment with Jesus-the-physician as an uninsured, out of work, single mother today.
You must remember that she
had several things going against her. First,
she was a woman in a culture that forbade women to approach men who were not their
immediate relations. Second, she was not an
Israelite but a Phoenician—a foreigner—living in a territory controlled by an
historic enemy of Israel. Third, she was a
pagan that is an idol worshipper. And forth,
her daughter was demon possessed.
Taken altogether she was
about as far removed from Jesus as a homeless woman on the street trying to make an
appointment with the CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield. But,
as a mother, she didn’t let anything stop her, did she?
No, she simply bowed at Jesus’ feet and made her request, prayerfully
begging him to cast out the demon that caused so much distress.
And how does Jesus reply? Before we recall his exact words, according to Mark
its important to remember that so far in Jesus’ ministry he had been tempted by
Satan, he had called his disciples, taught in parables, stilled a storm, received news
that his cousin John had been beheaded, and had fed five thousand; in short he was
exhausted and in need of rest. That is why he
had left Galilee and retreated into foreign territory.
It is within this context
that he replied to the mother’s request by saying, “Let the children be fed
first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” That is, healing a Gentile, pagan, foreigner’s,
demon-possessed little girl was not something Jesus was ready to do. Still, even in his exhaustion, calling the
distraught mother and her daughter dogs doesn’t sound very Jesus-y, does it?
At this point, upon hearing
Jesus’ anything but loving reply, who among us would be surprised if the mother didn’t
simply get up and walk away? After all, by
that time she too would have been exhausted, worn down by countless physicians and healers
who had blamed her for her daughter’s distress. And
then to have Jesus all but brush her off, who would blame her for simply giving up, broken
heart and all, and walk away?
But that’s not what
happened, is it? No, somehow this woman from
the wrong side of the tracks, from the wrong religious background, with dubious reasons
for wanting to speak with Jesus found the courage to reply, “Sir, even the dogs under
the table eat the children’s crumbs.” What
a rebuttal, what a prayer, what an amazing example of faith.
Somehow this no account woman challenged the Son of God and won. For what is it that Jesus says in reply but: “For
saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” And, of course, she went home to find her daughter
restored to wholeness.
So what are we to make of
this healing story from Mark? Tempting as it
may be to wade into the deep and tumultuous waters of the healthcare debate, something
even more profound is at work in this passage; something that will endure no matter what
is decided in the grand halls of Washington D.C. That
is, no matter what mechanisms we use to pay for healthcare, we still have to deal with how
we approach God in times of deepest distress.
How will we as parents,
whether our children are seven or thirty-seven or sixty-seven, how will we come before God
in prayer when our children are ill, infirm or injured?
Long after the healthcare debates in Washington D.C. are over we will still
face heart-rending moments as parents or as we sit with our siblings-in-faith whose own
children face health-related issues. And when
we find ourselves in such situations whether personally or on behalf of someone we care
for; will we have the faith to be persistent in prayer, prayer as persistent as the mother
who came before Jesus?
Three years before the
broken-button incident Kathy and I were both tested by just such a question when we
welcomed Eric into the world three months before his due date. There is no adequate description for how distressed
we were at the realization of being presented with all of the possible calamities facing
our one pound six ounce baby boy. We found
ourselves having to rely on a whole medical community and the power of God in the face of
heart-rending adversity.
One of my most profound
memories from those early days of our then tiny baby boy’s life was sitting by the
warming bed and praying to God, “Dear God, help this little boy grow into the young
man you have in mind” and praying that prayer over and over and over again. Over the weeks, as we measured Eric’s growth
first in grams and then in ounces, we witnessed God blessing both Eric and us, all the
while persisting in prayer that God would help Eric grow into the young man God has in
mind.
And so, four years later
when Eric sat on my lap on our way to the emergency room and doubt began to creep into my
heart and mind I turned to God in prayer that everything would work out for the best. That everything did turn out all right may be
obvious today, but it wasn’t then as we made our way to the hospital. I guess the difficult thing about persistency in
prayer is that we don’t always know the outcome, do we?
So why do we pray? Why do we still make supplications to God through
prayer? Perhaps we do so because when we pray
we feel connected to God who watches over us. Perhaps
we pray because in moments of deep parental distress we find comfort in being connected to
our Divine, Heavenly Parent. And when moments
of uncertainty creep into our prayers, we would be wise to try and remember the mother
from our morning’s gospel. Remember her
because she had nothing going for her when she knelt down before Jesus and poured out her
heart to him. But when she stood once more her
deepest desire, her boldest prayer, was not only heard, but also answered.
May we learn, as the
Syrophoenician woman learned so well, how to persist in prayer; whether we are praying for
our child’s health or our spouse’ wellbeing or for peace in the halls of
Congress. May we remember that God hears our
prayers and that God abides with us even in the midst of great adversity. May our prayers be motivated by a deep desire to be
connected to the longings of God, our Divine Parent: longings that include health,
wholeness, and wellbeing not only for our own children but also for all the children of
God who inhabit God’s kingdom.
Amen.
