Title: Jesus and the Persistent Pagan
Text: Mark 7:24-30 (Matthew 15:21-28)
Thesis: Jesus isn’t fussy about who we are when we earnestly bring our hope to him.
Introduction
A church in England has recorded "the sound of silence" on to a CD which has become a surprise hit with its congregation. Members of St Peter's Church in Sussex, England recorded "a little bit of the silence" of the building's atmosphere. The recording features the ambient sound of footsteps, voices, background traffic noise—but mostly just silence.
Robin Yarnton, a church technician at St Peter's, said: "It does what it says on the tin. Silence is all you get. Mostly people have said it's nice and they like it, and that it's quiet and peaceful."
The full CD features a 30-minute track, with a spoken introduction, closing words, and 28 minutes of silence. An article in a Taiwanese newspaper called the CD a "half-hour of absolutely nothing." But it's more accurate to say that it's a recording of something valuable that we've lost in our frantic lives—silence. According to the church, customers from across the world have been snatching up the recording. (Chris Parsons, "St. Peter's Church Records CD of 'the Sound of Silence,'" Yahoo News, 10-18-12)
In our text today I think we see Jesus attempting to snatch up a little solitude and silence.
I. Solitude Mattered, Mark 7:23-24
Then Jesus left Galilee and went north to the region of Tyre. He didn’t want anyone to know which house he was staying in, but he couldn’t keep it a secret. Mark 7:23-24
Jesus was a busy guy. When he was working, so to speak, there was no shortage of opportunities for him to teach, get into theological discussions with religious leaders, instruct his disciples and meet the needs of people who wanted him to do something or heal something or help in some way.
In the first few chapters of Mark we see Jesus attempting to get away:
• Mark 1:35 – He went to a solitary place to pray
• Mark 1:45 – He had to stay in secluded places
• Mark 4:35 – He had his disciples cross the Sea to get to the other side of the lake
• Mark 6:32 – He left for a quiet place where they could be alone
• Mark 7:17 – He went into a house to get away
• Mark 7:24 – He went to the region of Tyre and he did not want anyone to know where he was staying
Dr. Susan Koven who practices internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital wrote in a Boston Globe column, “I the past few years I have observed an epidemic of sorts: patient after patient suffering from the same condition. The symptoms of this condition include fatigue, irritability, insomnia, anxiety, headaches, heartburn, bowel disturbances, back pain and weight gain. There are no blood tests or x-ray diagnostics of this condition… the condition is simply excessive busyness. (Scott Dannemiller, “Busyness Is a Sickness,” Huffington Post, 2/27/15)
One way of applying this is to consider Jesus as an example for us: We all need to find time to rest our bodies and maintain our inner emotional and spiritual lives.
On a recent, late night, I-80 trip I stopped to get gas and noticed one of the rear tires on the car was really low. I felt it and it was hot. I kicked myself wondering just how long it had been low and given the time of night began to worry about whether it was a slow-leak or a fast-leak and how I would get it repaired.
Tires are one of the most important parts on your car. Tires not properly inflated will wear out quickly, waste fuel. Under-inflation creates excessive heat, and can lead to tire failure, which could result in vehicle damage and/or serious injury or death. Research indicates that due to tire under-inflation, at least 260,000 accidents happen per year, and at least half a million gallons of fuel are wasted each year. Under-inflation is the leading cause of tire failure. That should come as no shock given tire inflation is the most neglected item of auto maintenance.
I don’t know when or where or how the air leaked out of my tire. But I do know that is how it is in life. We just keep going and going and going without taking time to check the tire pressure. And unless we take the time to make sure our lives are properly inflated, so to speak, we will most certainly find ourselves headed for an unfortunate blowout.
Jesus was not immune to the exhausting demands of needy people. He was not immune to the exhausting of his personal and inner spiritual resources. Jesus needed to take time to properly inflate his physical and spiritual resources. Jesus knew that to continue on at warp speed on an under inflated spiritual life was to invite disaster.
If we follow Jesus’s example we will find a place of solitude where we can have some space to rest, read and reflect on the Word of God, do other spiritual reading, spend some time with others for spiritual direction and pray.
In our text Jesus’ attempt at a little solitude was interrupted by a desperate mother.
II. Desperation Mattered, Mark 7:25-26 (The love of a mother for her daughter)
Right away a [Gentile] woman who had heard about him came and fell at his feet. Her little girl was possessed by an evil spirit, and she begged him to cast out the demon from her daughter. Mark 7:25-26
Our text says that despite his efforts to keep his location a secret, “right away” a woman who had heard about him fell at his feet begging him to heal her little girl. We have no diagnosis of the little girl’s condition other than wording of Matthew 15:22 where the mother is quoted, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! For my daughter is possessed by a demon that torments her severely.”
Some believe that all illnesses may be attributed to demon oppression or possession. Others believe that many who were simply ill were diagnosed as demon possessed, i.e., if you were sick you were demon possessed.
Quibbling over the little girl’s diagnosis misses the point. The point is that this mother loved her daughter and was desperate to find a way to get relief from her illness.
A story lifted from E. M. Bounds On Prayer, is a retelling of a friend’s experience one morning. Rising early one morning, he said, "I heard the barking of a number of dogs chasing a deer. Looking at a large open field in front of me, I saw a young fawn making its way across the field and giving signs that its race was almost run. It leaped over the rails of the enclosed place and crouched within ten feet of where I stood. A moment later two of the hounds came over, and the fawn ran in my direction and pushed its head between my legs. I lifted the little thing to my breast, and, swinging round and round, fought off the dogs. Just then I felt that all the dogs in the West could not and would not capture that fawn after its weakness had appealed to my strength.
So is it when human helplessness appeals to Almighty God. (A. C. Dixon, quoted in E. M. Bounds On Prayer by E. M. Bounds, Whitaker House, p. 107)
It was human helplessness that prompted that mother to force her way into the arms of Jesus in order to receive help for her daughter.
One way to apply this thought is to remember: In the face of our helplessness the place to turn is to Jesus.
This shows Jesus’ heart. Just as he had compassion on the harassed and helpless people of Israel who were like sheep without a shepherd (9:36), he has compassion on a little girl and her mother, who are like dogs without a scrap of hope, and he responds. And so it is we too rely on the compassionate heart of our Shepherd.
In our text the woman did more than simply turn to Jesus for help. She was not leaving until she received the help she needed.
III. Persistence Mattered, Mark 27-28
He gave no reply, not even a word. Then his disciples urged him to send her away. “Tell her to go away, she is bothering us with all her begging.” Matthew 15:23
In the parallel passage of this story found in Matthew 15 we get another and perhaps less flattering picture of Jesus. It seems he simply ignored her. Apparently he ignored her long enough that his disciples decided she probably needed to go away. They even said to Jesus, “Tell her to go away… she is bothering us.”
Earlier we noted that the woman was a Gentile born in Syria. Normally people are marginalized because they do not conform to societal standards. They are poor or sick or of different racial or ethnic backgrounds, or they are odd or eccentric, or they are marginalized by their chosen faith. In this case the woman was right at home. Syria was where she was born, raised and made her home. Jesus was the outsider, so to speak. Yet Jesus seems to marginalize the woman because she was a Gentile.
Initially Jesus ignored her. When he did speak to her he reminded her that his mission was to Jewish people and that he could not give what was intended for the children of Israel to the dogs.
Basically, the sweet Jesus we know, called the Gentile woman a dog. Dogs were the scourge of a city. They ate garbage and dead things. They were not like the wonderful dogs we on television who have had all their shots and been bathed and blow dried and made to tug at the strings of our hearts begging to be adopted. These were nasty, mangy, diseased, mutts and curs that ran the back alleys of the city.
But the woman was very quick and countered, “That’s true but even dogs are allowed to eat the scraps that fall from the master’s table.”
It is important that we see Jesus and this conversation in its proper light. This was not a hostile conversation. It was Jesus and a woman who had a great need, sparring with each other. It was what we might call repartee… it was a conversation in which clever statements and replies are made quickly. If we were to imagine Jesus as a grumpy guy arguing with a woman grieving for her daughter it would be so unlike the Jesus we know and love.
Jesus was correct in pointing out that she was a Gentile and that his mission was to the Israelite people. She knew this well enough. She was not shocked by his comment. In their exchange the word Jesus used when he referred to feeding what was rightfully the children of Israel’s, his reference to the Gentiles was not to the dogs of the street. The word Jesus used was puppies or pets. And in that context the woman pushed back, “Don’t even the puppies get to eat from what falls from the master’s table?
• This woman did not care what other people thought of her.
• This woman knew she had no right to expect anything from Jesus.
• This woman made a nuisance of herself.
• This woman accepted being called a dog.
• This woman sincerely believed that Jesus’, be he dead serious or joking, would find it in his heart to help her daughter.
She was not going anywhere… she stood toe to toe, so to speak, with Jesus.
It is common for runners, and athletes in any endurance sport, to "hit the wall" as they push themselves past their comfort level. Here's how the long distance runner Dick Beardsley described it: "It felt like an elephant had jumped out of a tree onto my shoulders and was making me carry it the rest of the way in."
Hitting the wall is a very real physical condition. Once carbohydrates and hydration are diminished, the body wants to stop. The body burns out of energy and becomes so tired it can't go forward. The day before the Boston Marathon, an article in Harvard Health predicted what would happen to the thousands of runners:
Come tomorrow morning, about 27,000 runners will begin the annual 26-mile mass run from suburban Hopkinton to Boston. But if past marathons in Boston and elsewhere are any indication, perhaps up to 40 percent of these optimistic and determined souls will slam into a sudden sensation of overwhelming, can't-do-this fatigue several miles (typically about five) before they get a chance to experience the glory of crossing the finish line.
What is true for the body is true for the soul. Spiritually speaking, sometimes we also hit the wall. We feel like an elephant has jumped on our back. We hit that can't-do-this spiritual fatigue. Life is an endurance race, in which we all will at some point "hit the wall" and want to quit. But those who persist for the last 5 miles experience the glory of crossing the finish line. Persistent people aren’t going anywhere but forward. (Adapted from John Bishop, God Distorted (Multnomah Books, 2013), pp. 171-172)
One way to apply this thought is to remember that: When given an opportunity to exercise your faith, exercise it… pray and pray and pray.
Tim Keller says it was in the second half of his adult life, that he discovered prayer. He said, “I had to.”. There were the dark weeks in New York after 9/11, when our whole city sank into a kind of corporate clinical depression. For my family the shadow was intensified as my wife, Kathy, struggled with the effects of Crohn's disease. Finally, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. At one point during all this, my wife urged me to do something with her we had never been able to muster the self-discipline to do regularly. She asked me to pray with her every night.
She said, “Imagine you were diagnosed with such a lethal condition that the doctor told you that you would die within hours unless you took a particular medicine—a pill every night before going to sleep. Imagine that you were told that you could never miss it or you would die. Would you forget? Well, if we don't pray together to God, we're not going to make it because of all we are facing. I'm certainly not. We have to pray, we can't let it just slip our minds.’”(Tim Keller, Prayer (Penguin Group, 2014), pp. 9-10)
The woman’s persistence was a reflection of her faith.
IV. Faith Mattered, Mark 7:29-30 (Jesus is her only hope.)
“Dear woman, your faith is great. You request is granted.” And her daughter was instantly healed. Matthew 15:28
Jesus was pleased with her repartee and her determination to get what she came for. Jesus knew that she knew he was her last hope. If Jesus could not help her daughter all hope would be lost. This was her last chance.
In the film The Hunger Games, President Snow rules over a futuristic society called Panem. Every year the people of Panem are forced to participate in a contest called "the Hunger Games," an event in which one boy and one girl aged 12-18 from each of the twelve districts surrounding the Capitol are selected by lottery to compete in a televised battle continues until one winner is declared. In one scene, Snow asks his chief Gamesmaker, a man named Seneca Crane, "Seneca, why do you think we have a winner [for the Hunger Games]?"
Seneca frowns and asks, "What do you mean?"
"I mean," says Snow, "why do we have a winner? I mean, if we just wanted to intimidate the districts, why not round up twenty-four at random and execute them all at one? It would be a lot faster." Seneca Crane stares at him, obviously confused.
"Hope," muses Snow. Crane, still confused, asks, "Hope?"
Snow continues, "Hope. It is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective. A lot of hope is dangerous.” (Adapted from David J. Lose, Preaching at the Crossroads (Fortress Press, 2013), p. 49; YouTube, “Hunger Games #4 Clip, President Snow, 2012)
You might say the woman never lost hope. You could say hers was a dangerous hope. She never gave up and Jesus honored that faith.
One way to apply this thought is to remember this principle: We demonstrate great faith when with an immovable steadfastness, we trust God against all odds and circumstances.
Hope matters. We may come to feel like all hope is lost… but we never stop hoping.
Conclusion
I’ve always been a little fascinated by epitaphs. While meandering through a cemetery in Torch Lake, Michigan I found a marker that read: “Hit by a car walking between taverns on New Year’s Eve 1948.”
There is a famous marker in Ribbesford, England that reads, “The Children of Israel wanted bread, and the Lord sent them manna. Old clerk Wallace wanted a wife, and the devil sent him Anna.”
In a cemetery in Pennsylvania a marker reads, “Here lies the body of Jonathan Blake. Stepped on the gas instead of the brake.”
I would like to think that the epitaph for the Gentile woman in our text read, “She was a persistent pagan and Jesus loved her.”
Ours is yet to be written but may it be something like what Jesus said to the woman, “Your Faith Was Great!”
