When Jesus Got Cranky Sermon Aug 12, 2012

Ephesians 4:25-5:2 p 951 25So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another.26Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger,27and do not make room for the devil.28Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy.29Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.30And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption.31Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice,32and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. 5Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children,2and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. This is the word of the Lord….Thanks be to God Mark 7:24-37 p 819 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 departed to her house, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone. 31Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis.32They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him.33He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue.34Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.”35And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.36Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.37They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.” This is the word of the Lord….Thanks be to God We are back in the Gospel of Mark, after spending some time in the Gospel of John. And Jesus has just been preaching and teaching about impurity and defilement, and talking about how God has changed the rules, that the old rules no longer apply. That what defiles us is not what comes into us, what we eat or touch, but what comes out of us, from within us. And now, he has a chance to live out his words. Or eat his words. It’s hard to tell. Perhaps it’s happened to you--you know, the moment when you’ve been teaching your kids, or saying to yourself, or talking in a church meeting or at work about generosity, or opening wide the doors, or living in love and peace with your neighbor…and then God gives you the chance to actually live out what you’ve been preaching. Don’t you just hate when that happens? Well, it happened to Jesus. He goes away, for a break—to, of all places, the seacoast. A week at the beach- a private retreat—sun, sand, silence… All he wanted was some peace and quiet, to be with God. And then in comes this woman, this foreigner. Granted, he was up in Tyre, in Gentile territory. Still, she ought to have known better. You know how they are- pushy- marches right into a place she has no business being—she should NOT be talking to a Jew, she should NOT be talking to a man, she has no business interrupting his week off- and yet, there she is. The first thing she does is kneel at his feet. How she found out he was there, we don’t know, but she gets right to the heart of the matter. She has a daughter who is suffering, and she will do anything to get help for her. Immediately, we are told, she goes in and kneels at his feet, begging for her daughter to be cured. And Jesus. My sweet Lord. Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, says to her “no.” We don’t know if he is tired, if he just wants her out of there so he can have some peace and quiet, or if she got on his last nerve. But he is cranky. And then, after telling her no, he insults her. She turns to him in faith: she has confidence that he is able to cure her child. And he says that healings are for the children of God, of which her daughter apparently is not one, and uses an ethnic slur against her and her child. And what does she do? Does she back down? Down she slither away? Does she go home weeping? No. She answers back—and she uses Jesus’ term in her argument. Call me a dog, she might say. I don’t care. I know you have the power to heal my daughter. She tells Jesus: “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” She doesn’t dispute his calling them dogs. Rather, she insists that they do not need to wait for the children (the Jews) to finish their food first before they may have some crumbs. Apparently she believes that crumb sized blessings will suffice for her and her daughter. (Matthew Skinner, Word and World, http://wordandworld.luthersem.edu/issues.aspx?article_id=1143, 08/08/2012.) She tells Jesus that, in fact, the grace of God is not a zero sum game, that grace for some people does not take away God’s grace from others. It is her argument that changes the story and moves Jesus to act on behalf of her daughter. Her faith is great. She has come to a man she should not, she has risked condemnation—and promptly got insulted for it, and she has entered into theological argument with Jesus. It is interesting to note that Jesus does not praise her faith. That is part of many healing stories, the “woman, your faith has made you well” part. Not here. Here Jesus praises her logos—her word, her reasoning, her argument. Jesus himself, in the Gospel of John, is called The Logos of God—the word of God. And she is handing the word right back at him. In this woman’s arguing is her faith: she believes so strongly in the grace of God she is convinced that only a table scrap of the gospel is necessary to cure her daughter. She understands- perhaps even more than Jesus, at this moment-the scope of the reign of God. And she sees no good reason why it should not begin, right there, right now. Her faith is seen in her beseeching, contending, and in her going back home. For that is what she does—she goes home. She leaves Jesus, walks out of that house, after he has proclaimed that the demon has left her daughter. She travels home alone—there is no mention of husband, of father, family or friends. She is fueled by Jesus’ promise, but she still has not yet seen her daughter, seen the final certainty of her faith made real. She goes home, and in doing so takes Jesus at his word. His performance of the exorcism in this manner—long distance--does not attempt to re-humiliate this woman or drive her back into a life without him. He gives her what she wants, but it will still take an additional act of faith for her to realize this for sure. What was that journey like? Did she run all the way home, eager to see her daughter, or did she walk on feet frozen with fear? It is in her going home, in her willingness to take Jesus at his word, to know that it is time to leave off contending and to start traveling home, that she exhibits great faith. (Matt Skinner) She has to do what Jesus did- live into her words, live into her faith. We talk about faith as living “as if”. “As if” miracles were real, “as if” the kingdom of God was here, right now, “as if” God were acting in the world, “as if” people were all fed and safe and welcomed at the Table—as if we all were already forgiven and receiving grace. Her faith is so great, that it influences Jesus- because after meeting her, after being convicted by her logos, her words, he goes –not back home—but to Sidon, and to the Decapolis- all areas of gentiles…and continues healing Gentiles, extending the grace of God, even the crumbs, to others. Because with the grace of God, a crumb is enough. May we all live into that faith, may we all live out of that faith.