Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity – morning
Sunday 9th September 2018
Proper 18 – 15th Sunday after Trinity – morning
Isaiah 35.4-7a
Mark 7.24-37
Revd Preb Maureen Hobbs
It is not too big a guess that at the start of our Gospel reading this morning, Jesus is tired and maybe a little tetchy. Yes, even the Son of Man can get tired and tetchy at times it seems! So don’t be surprised if you feel that way too sometimes… and I’ll let you into a little secret that I’m sure you are well aware of – even Vicars get tired and tetchy at times! Shocking I know, but true, nonetheless!
Jesus is trying to escape the crowds that are now allowing him little or no peace. He has crossed a border. Gone away for a few days. He is outside the Jewish territory. He has gone to Tyre – a gentile city.
But even here it seems, news of his extraordinary healing powers has travelled and so this Greek-speaking woman comes pestering him on behalf of her daughter. Begging him to take some action and heal her of the ‘demon’ that is making both their lives a misery.
And somehow she gains access to the Jewish stranger – a holy man and healer; a prophet some say. Only to find that he is not in a mood to help her…
Or is he?
How many of us have used the expression, “Charity begins at home!” perhaps to justify some refusal to give to a good cause that is helping people/children or animals overseas? How many more of us have thought it, when hearing how many millions the UK Government is giving to Overseas Aid and Development? (Although whether this should count as charity or more likely an investment made in the long-term interests of this country and all of us is another complex argument – one which we don’t have time to explore here!)
Some have taken this story to mark a moment in Jesus’ life when he changed his mind. When he began to accept that his message and ministry had meaning not only for the Jews, but for the Gentile world as well. Others have denied that he really changed his mind, but that he was using this as a teaching opportunity for the twelve who had accompanied him on this little trip into Gentile territory. Faced perhaps with opposition among his own followers that they should concern themselves with the wider world outside Judaism, he used the discussion and banter he had with this un-named mother to make a serious point.
We will never definitively know. Certainly the language used is shocking and a bit crude – likening this woman and her daughter to dogs. Now while we in this country are devoted to our canine friends, they were rarely thought of well in Middle Eastern Culture in the 1st Century.. You will struggle to find anything positive said about dogs in the bible I’m afraid. But the point is made and underlined when she addresses him as Kyrie – Lord. Even the dogs may eventually eat the crumbs that the children drop… Even the Gentiles can recognize the Lord when they see him. The boundaries of what is externally clean, acceptable, proper and holy are being redefined. For devout Jews. For Gentiles. Maybe even in the mind of Jesus himself as he lives the vocation of God incarnate – made man.
What is not ambiguous, however, is how he hates and despises the corrosive uncleanness, the impropriety of evil, which threatens human wholeness and well-being. The demon leaves the child. The deaf mute is allowed to hear and speak. Jesus is doing precisely what Isaiah foretold the Messiah would do. God’s spirit is free and available to all who believe in him.
People are astonished, but do they make the connection? Do we? Do we accept that God’s kingdom is arriving among them/us.
Only later perhaps, in the light of the resurrection will Jews and Gentiles alike who are giving their allegiance to the new way of relating to God, understand that it demands a new way of relating to neighbour and stranger alike. But it is a lesson that we have to keep re-learning, because our human limitations and tribal instincts repeatedly get in the way!
Jesus, who embodies the fulfilment of the law, cannot be followed piecemeal. Charity may indeed begin at home, but it must never be limited to the local and the familiar. Our horizons in God’s world need to be a lot wider. Amen.