Desperate?
15th Sunday after Pentecost, September 9, 2012 (Mark 7:24-37 with James 2:1-10, 14-17 in the b.g)
Have you ever been desperate? Like having your child being born in the back of your car, miles from any hospital or any kind of medical help? Or, like losing your job with no prospects in sight and wondering how you might survive? Or, like having the doctor tell you that you have cancer – and there are some possible treatments – but you should be prepared? Or, like having something happen to your parent or your child that is way beyond your control, and not knowing how that's going to turn out? Have you ever been desperate?
The woman in today's Gospel lesson is desperate. Not just worried about whether her team is going to win or not, or whether her daughter or son is going to be in the same room as her friends for school this year. No! I mean she is truly desperate. Mark tells us that this woman's daughter has a demon, an "unclean spirit". Sounds like that has very little to do with us. I mean most of us think and feel that we are far too sophisticated to accept an antiquated world view of demons. But know this. A "demon" then could be anything from an illness such as epilepsy, to Tourette's Syndrome, to a skin condition or a congenital defect that made a person look or behave in ways that were different from the general population. Any of these would have serious ramifications. The people of then interpreted any of these maladies as grounds for separating the one who displayed them from the rest of society. Often people with such maladies, such supposed "demons" were forced to keep their distance even from their own families. So, when Mark tells us that this woman's daughter has a demon – it means that this girl's life has been cut off from her society – and that even her physical health may have been in grave danger. Her mother wants her daughter to be well, to be restored to wholeness internally and in society. And her mother realizes that for her daughter to become well requires outside help. Indeed the mother is desperate for help for her daughter.
Now the mother doesn't curl up and die because of her daughter's plight. Nor does she sit in a corner and feel sorry for herself. Instead the mother (as mothers have from time immemorial) springs into action. It doesn't matter that she is a Gentile woman, of non Jewish ancestry. She refuses to be limited by the expectations of her society that Gentile women were not to approach Jewish men. This most certainly included not touching or speaking to Jewish men. Her role as mother trumps any such social or religious conventions. When this mother hears that Jesus has come near, this person who has been healing people in Galilee, she doesn't hesitate. With love and out of desperation for her daughter's well being – the woman heads off for Jesus. She throws herself at his feet. She then begs entreating him to help her daughter.
Would you ever throw yourself at someone's feet? Would you beg for anything regardless of what others thought – not caring how you looked? This mother does.
Surely this Jesus of our understanding will help her!
But - did you hear the text? Jesus has come to the city of Tyre. I don't think it was meant to be a play on words but Jesus according to Mark comes to Tyre because he is tired. Yes, Jesus is exhausted. But now, regardless of his exhausted state, this mother is screaming, wailing, pleading. Do we hear Jesus' response? "Let the children (implying the children of Israel) be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the ..... DOGS!"
I AM NOT SURE ABOUT YOU – but it's difficult for me to accept, even to understand Jesus' words here. True they may have been part of his cultural vocabulary as a Jewish male in the locale of Tyre surrounded by people who had often been enemies of "his own" people, the people of Israel. Nevertheless here comes this woman begging for help from Jesus. What does Jesus initially do? He calls her and her daughter, DOGS.
I suspect that if I had been that mother, I would have assaulted him verbally or headed off the other direction, absolutely devastated. But she does none of those things. Her daughter is ill. She LOVES HER DAUGHTER. Desperation drives her. She accepts the reference of being a dog – but refuses to give up. She is tenacious with Jesus. "Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs!"
Our text doesn't give us a time line for how long Jesus' response takes. But his demeanor changes. I am convinced that Jesus changes his mind. This mother's expectation of the immensity of God's grace and love changes his thinking. Now Jesus grants her wish for her daughter's healing. He says, "For saying that, you may go – the demon has left your daughter."
Mark then tells us that the daughter is lying on a bed with the demon gone.
Do you ever wonder if we and our world aren't afflicted by contemporary "demons". The power of evil abounds within us and then around us. How else can we account for a man shooting people after a political party is elected in a democratic election? How else can we account for another man, very young, waiting outside a theater planning to indiscriminately shoot and murder people he has never even met? How else can we account for the necessity of almost every sizeable Canadian community erecting shelters for women to try to help them recover from being beaten or harassed by so-called husbands and boyfriends? How else can we account for the need of hundreds of food banks and soup kitchens in one of the very richest nations of the world? How else can we account for own growing anger, that wells up within us and overflows as we drive our cars, walk our streets or scream at officials at our kids' games or at the Rogers Center or BC Place?
We and our world are in need of healing, of being restored or beginning healthy relationships with God, with each other and with creation. Nor is this a "one off" kind of thing. The "demons" that afflict us within and without – are powerful forces of greed and fear, of being hurt and hurting. They keep rearing their ugly heads.
But observe this Syro-Phoenician woman, the mother of the girl with the 1st century demon. She approaches Jesus – unashamedly, unapologetically, with no regard for what others might say or think. She comes because she has heard that Jesus might be able to help her daughter. Even though Jesus initially, being exhausted and struggling with his own understanding of the unfolding of his mission, isn't open to helping her, she refuses to give up. She is convinced that someone can do something, that someone must do something. As a result, Jesus changes his mind. His understanding of and timeline for his own mission changes.
AND THAT IS AMAZING. It's not the first time that God's mind has changed or been changed. Remember the rainbow in the sky after the flood? Remember Moses wrestling with God?
We need to know, to live with this. God's will, although it is often beyond our understanding, is ultimately good and gracious. See Jesus' life, death and resurrection! See the Spirit's presence in the light of Jesus transform so many people's intentions and living,( including ours?).
But also know this. Both individually and collectively we have roles to play in the way we live our lives, loving and caring with and for others. This includes the ways that we relate to God. Don't hesitate to be persistent when you know that your claim, your hope, your desperation is just. But, also in that persistence, may we be open by God's grace to what God is calling us to be and to do here and now.
For as strong, as relentless, as insatiable as our own "demons" are, in the face of the love, the mercy and the power of Jesus Christ they can be overcome.
Let us pray: May your reign, your kingdom, your sphere of influence oh God come ultimately. May we by your grace be parts of that, here, now and forever. May we and others be made well with our "demons" gone, for Christ's sake. Amen.