Proper 18 -- Isaiah 35: 4–7; Psalm
146; James
2: 1–17; Mark
7: 24–37
The following is a homily given by Fr. Gene Tucker given
at St. John’s Church, Huntingdon,
Pennsylvania, on Sunday, September 6, 2015.
“GOD’S
POWER, OUR RESPONSE”
(Homily text:
Mark 7: 24–37)
The gospel text before us this
morning, which relates Jesus’ interaction with the Gentile woman of the region
of Tyre and Sidon, says a lot about God’s power, and about our response to that
power through prayer.
So let’s begin our consideration of
the interaction between Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman with a bit of humor:
It is Sunday morning, and as Father
is scurrying around, getting ready for Mass, he notices Charlie, who is sitting
in the back pew of the church. Father
gets the impression that Charlie isn’t a particularly devout member of the
church, for he is not seen with any regularity on Sunday mornings. But this morning, Charlie seems to be
consumed with intense prayer.
Indeed, that is so, for if Father
could hear Charlie’s prayer, he would hear this: “O Lord, I really need to win the lottery
this week. Please, Lord, help me to win
the lottery. Amen.”
Mass begins, Mass is ended, Charlie
makes his way out of the church and the week unfolds. But Charlie does not win the lottery, not
even one of the smaller prizes.
The next Sunday, Father notices that
Charlie is, once again, sitting in the back pew of the church. Father is delighted at Charlie’s apparently
newfound sense of devotion. But Charlie’s prayer is the same as the Sunday
before: “Lord, I asked you last week to
help me win the lottery. But I didn’t
win, not even one of the smaller prizes.
Please, please help me to win the lottery this week. Amen.”
Mass begins, Mass is ended, Charlie
makes his way out of the church and the week unfolds. But, once again, Charlie does not win the
lottery, not even one of the smaller prizes.
And then, on the third Sunday in a
row, Charlie is back in his usual spot in the back pew of the Church. Once again, he begins his prayer: “O Lord, I asked you to help me win the
lottery…” But before Charlie could go
any further, the Lord’s voice rings out from the church’s rafters: “Charlie, work with me, buy a ticket, why
don’t you?”
Something, simply asking God to
fulfill our wishes, is enough to result in the granting of our request.
But in Charlie’s case, his earnest
prayer wasn’t enough to allow God to answer that prayer. Sometimes, praying for something, without
taking the necessary steps to allow that prayer to be fulfilled, isn’t going to
result in an answer. We can understand
this clearly by looking at the example of a person who has a strong desire to
enter a profession where some advance training is required: If the person doesn’t take steps to get the
training, then that individual’s prayer to become whatever it is they would
like to become won’t. most likely, be answered.
This point brings us to the matter
of the Syrophoenician woman. Some
background of her interaction with Jesus will be helpful for us to better
understand what is happening in this passage:
The first thing we might mention is
that Jesus has now moved out of the Holy Land proper, and out of the area where
the Jews live, into Gentile territory, into the coastal area of what is, today,
southern Lebanon. The city of Type still
exists to this day. Jesus seems to be
“getting away from it all” with this move.
After all, His ministry and the consequent fame attached to His healings
and to His teaching have caused large crowds to gather around him. Oftentimes, there is no time even to pray and
to be quiet.
It is there, in this Gentile
territory, that the Syrophoenician woman comes to Him, asking Him to heal her
daughter. Most biblical scholars tell us
that this woman was, most likely, a native of Syria, but living in this coastal
area of Lebanon, and that she would be a Greek-speaking person. Suffice it to say that she is not a Jew, but
she knows (apparently) about Jesus and about His power to heal.
The second thing we ought to notice
is Jesus’ response to her request. On
the surface, His response seems harsh and cold.
He says 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.”
Two cultural understandings will
help us to understand this interchange more fully: Jesus reference to “children” is an obvious
reference to the children of Israel, that is, to the Jews. And His reference to “dogs” is freighted with
meaning, for Jews regarded dogs as being unclean, undesirable animals. So Jesus’ mention of “dogs” is meant as a
put-down, it seems, of Gentiles.
Non-Jews regarded dogs differently, for small dogs (and puppies) were
apparently welcome house guests.
In Jesus’ response there is a nuance
that most translators of the passage either ignore or omit: Jesus’ reference to “dogs” misses a key
meaning of the word, for the word that Jesus uses is literally not “dogs”, but
“little dogs”, i.e. puppies. Sadly, this
important difference is missing in most translations of the passage.
The third thing we might notice is
that Jesus says that the children ought to be fed “first”. Feeding the children first implies that there
will be a subsequent, second feeding.
Apparently, the unnamed woman is listening
very carefully, for she picks up on Jesus mention of feeding the children first, and on Jesus’ reference to puppy dogs, for when the woman says to
Jesus, “Sir, even the (puppy) dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs,”
she is claiming some place in the benefits that God provides, some share in the
succeeding blessings that will flow at some point in the future.
(At this point, it would be well for
us to notice that Jesus’ move into Gentile territory, and His favorable
treatment of this woman foretells the time when the Good News of God in Jesus
Christ will move out from the Jews into the Gentile world.)
In essence, we might say that the
woman is willing to “go to the mat” with Jesus.
She is willing to spar with Him.
She takes a very active role in bringing about the fulfillment of her
request to the Lord.
Is it OK to spar with the Lord? Is it alright to “go to the mat” with Him?
Apparently, it is.
In Holy Scripture, other such
instances of back-and-forth with God exist.
Perhaps one of the most prominent is Abraham’s bargaining with God over
the fate of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
In Genesis 18: 16 – 33, Abraham asks God if He will destroy these cities
if fifty righteous persons can be found in them. God says that He won’t destroy them, if fifty
can be found. Abraham then works his way
downward, asking God if He would destroy them if only forty righteous are
found, and then further downward still, asking God if only thirty are found,
then twenty, and finally, ten.
Whenever we make a request of God,
we are guaranteed an answer. God’s
answer will always fall into one of three categories: Yes,
No, or Not now.
Sometimes, God’s answer involves a
test. Personally, I believe that Jesus
was testing the Syrophoenician woman in His apparent rebuff of her request.
Sometimes, when God says, “Not now”
to our requests, a test is involved, a test of our willingness to remain
faithful and to maintain our trust in God’s goodness and faithfulness. An example from my own family will illustrate
this point:
My father was raised in a Christian
home. His mother was a very devout
woman. But as he grew up, he went his
own way and pursued his own dreams, and, as time went along, abandoned the
Lord. As the years went by, he descended
more and more into self-absorption and into two different addictions. He became more and more miserable, and more
and more isolated from my mother, the family and the world.
My mother prayed for him, stuck with
him, and supported him, year after year.
Eventually, once I had become an adult, she and I had a conversation
about the trajectory of his life, and I told her that I thought that her
support of him was aiding and abetting his addictive behavior. I advised her to leave him.
But she refused, citing her marriage
vows.
Turns out my mother was right, and I
was wrong, and here is the account of how we came to know that truth:
In the wee hours of a Sunday morning
in a hospital in Eugene, Oregon, my father had a massive heart attack. He was 72 years old. It turns out that this event was a tremendous
blessing, for everyone in the family can see in retrospect that my mother’s
insistence that he go to the hospital the previous afternoon put him in the
very best place to have a heart attack, for if he’d been at home when it came
along, he would have died.
And so it was that the doctors and
nurses came running once his heart stopped beating. They worked on him to get his heart
restarted. Over a three hour period,
they had to do that over and over.
Finally, they succeeded.
In the morning, the doctor came
around to see my father, and he said, “Jess, if you want to live, you’ll have
to make some changes.” No doubt that
doctor’s words were God’s way of getting through to my dad.
Change my father did. Both of the addictions that had claimed his
attention and focus disappeared completely with no outside help. Never again did he engage in either one of
them. Furthermore, he proclaimed a
living faith in Christ, and even joined the church!
There is no doubt in any of my
family’s minds that God was the grantor of this new birth in my father. Mom had remained faithful for all those
years, even when there seemed to be no hope and no prospect that her earnest
prayers would ever be granted. But
granted they were.
God’s “Not now” involved a test for
my mother. But she didn’t give up
praying, and she didn’t give up believing that God could straighten my father
out.
So when God’s “Yes” came along, it
was a glorious and abundant answer to my mother’s prayers. She had not lost faith, she had met the test
of faithfulness, and she had “gone to the mat” with God over my father’s
wellbeing.
Sometimes, just asking God for
something is enough. Sometimes, it
isn’t. Sometimes, we have to do more than
just ask.
May God grant us the ability to
remain faithful, to present our petitions to Him, and to do whatever God may
require to assist us in our prayers.
AMEN.
