Sermon given on 2009-09-06 by D. Weber-Wulff, United Methodist Church, English-language congregation, Berlin, Germany
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in they sight, oh Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer!
The sermon text for this evening is from Mark 7:24-37. I will be reading from the New International Version.
The first thing that many people think when they read the first story of the Syrophoenician woman is: Wow, Jesus is being really mean there at first. He’s calling the woman a dog! Isn’t he discriminating against her just because she is Greek and not a Jew?
The story is so important that it is also told in the Gospel according to Matthew in chapter 15, verses 21-28. The story there is a someone longer one, Matthew tells of the disciples coming to Jesus and saying that there is this bothersome Caananite woman who keeps crying out for him and just won’t stop, because he is not answering her. Couldn’t he just please chase her away? Jesus replies "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel." But as in the story in Mark, she kneels down to him, and they have the same discussion about the crumbs for the dogs.
Let’s have a look at the circumstances of this event. Jesus and his disciples have gone to Tyre, a town on the Mediterranean coast. They have a long and grueling time behind them, and Jesus wants to have a retreat with his disciples. Some might say, they are on vacation, and in a way this is true. They wanted to get away from the crowds that hound them, and so they tried to keep it quiet that they were there.
But someone must have gossiped. A servant in the place they were staying? The owner of the place, proud and happy that Jesus of Nazareth, that guy everyone is talking about, chose to stay at their place? That will do wonders for getting tourists to stay. “Sleep where Jesus slept, use the plate that Jesus ate off!!”
In any case, the Greek women who was born in Syrian Phoenicia, or Caanan, which today is called Lebanon, heard about it. She does not have a name, as many of the women briefly mentioned in the Bible, so I shall call her Sophia. The name means “wisdom” in Greek, and as we shall see, she is indeed a wise woman.
Sophia has a sick daughter, who is possessed by an evil spirit. Now we are not sure just exactly what this means today. Some have said that it meant suffering from epilepsy. Others speak of other syndromes such as Tourette’s Syndrom, where a person constantly utters swear words, or many other such sicknesses. Or perhaps her daughter was a particularly rotten teenager, much worse than your normal teen.
She has heard the stories about Jesus’ healing powers. Such stuff travels fast, even without newspapers and TV and Internet. She is determined that her daughter be cured – she loves her daughter. And even more, she has faith – she trusts Jesus, and believes that he can, indeed, heal her daughter.
So Sophia goes to Tyre and plans on finding this Jesus. Now, even in those days, a Greek woman would not go up to a man and speak to him, much less to a foreign man, a Jew. But she seeks Jesus out, and won’t let herself be shaken off. She wants to see Jesus. When she finally finds him, she falls at his feet and begs him to drive out the evil spirits.
He replies with a parable – the children are fed first, then the dogs. This is an interesting parable in that it can be understood in a number of different ways. For the disciples hear him saying: Hang on there, we’re on vacation. And anyway, I’m ministering to the Jews first. Then the rest of the world can have their turn. And they will nod their heads, yup, that’s our Jesus. The Jews are special, God’s chosen people, we come first.
Sophia, however, understands the parable differently. First and foremost, she does not hear Jesus saying “no”. That is the really important part. He is giving her a test, testing her faith in his healing powers.
But why is he using the word “dog”? When we call a woman a “dog”, we are saying that she is ugly. Many women are also called “she-dogs” or “bitches” when they don’t act the way men want them to. But a writer Glenn M. Miller, who runs the online site called “Christian Thinktank” makes an interesting note: in the original Greek, Jesus does not use the word κύων (kyōn), which is a word Jews often used to speak of people of other faiths. Kyōn were the semi-wild dogs that roamed outside the city walls and ate the garbage – and the dead bodies – that got thrown over the walls.
But Jesus uses the word κυνάριον (kynarion), a diminutive meaning “little dog” or “puppy”. Middle- and upper-class Greeks, at least, had started the custom of keeping “inside dogs” for the children to play with. And these are positive creatures. So what she hears Jesus say is “First my disciples, then it’s your turn”. He’s not saying “no”, he’s saying “wait”.
Sophia probably has an inside dog at home. And as anyone who has ever had an inside dog before knows, they have to be trained to sit still while the family is eating. Puppies who have not yet been trained smell the food and dance about, because they have already learned that an occasional morsel gets dropped, either accidentally or surreptitiously by one of the children on purpose. Even if they have to wait for the can of dog food to be opened, a few tidbits are theirs during the meal. And Sophia is determined that one of those tidbits is going to be for her daughter. So she replies – "but even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs."
How can Jesus resist this answer to his parable? She stays within the same analogy, but remains steadfast in her faith. She believes, that Jesus can save her daughter. She hears that there will be a great feeding later on. And indeed, the Gospel of John notes in chapter 10 verse 16: I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.
So Jesus replies: "For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter." Sophia has what she came for, Jesus’ healing. And her faith is so great, that she does not demand that he return home with her and lay hands on her daughter. No, she is sure that if Jesus says something, then it is true. If he says that she is healed (not will be healed sometime in the future, but healed now), then she believes this. She has faith. She trusts in the Lord.
I was given a chance to apply Jesus’ logic the week that I prepared this sermon. I was up in Sweden, on vacation. A neighbor came over, a German neighbor. They are selling their house and needed someone to be there when the real estate agent came the next day just to be sure that they understood everything.
Even though I am on vacation, I said yes. It ended up taking one hour that day, and one and a half the next, and I needed to interpret both languages – German and Swedish – which are not my mother tongue. I was a bit exhausted after that and a bit irritated that they didn’t even say thank you.
But then I got to thinking: WWJD, what would Jesus do? And sure, even though he was on vacation, one of his many powers was the power to heal. And heal he did, because the woman had faith. This scripture does not report that she thanked him, and Luke 17 we see Jesus healing the 10 lepers and only one returning to say “Thank you”. It was just Jesus’ gift to heal, and he did it without complaining. And so my neighbors, too, had faith that I was giving a true translation. I hope I didn’t disappoint them!
Do we have faith like Sophia did? We ask God for things all the time, particularly for healing for us and for our loved ones. But often it doesn’t happen right away, and we get irritated. “I prayed for it, but it didn’t happen!” The healing powers of the Lord are not available, packed up in little boxes at the supermarket for us to pick up whenever we need them. They are available through prayer, and faith that our prayers will be heard.
We need to learn to listen to Jesus’ “wait”, be patient, and pray. And if we have faith, we, too, will be fed. We too will feel the healing power of the Lord.
Let us pray.
Our Father, forgive us our impatience, as we wait for your healing grace. Help us to grow strong in our faith, help us to pray without ceasing, that we may also experience a healing in you. In this moment of silence, let us each lift up to You our prayers for healing.
After the sermon we sang hymn 710, “Faith of Our Fathers”