Note: This sermon was introduced with a scene from "Traveling Light"
All of us have limits and boundaries that make us uncomfortable if we go beyond them. I was reminded of this back in November when my oldest son and I went to the Promise Keepers "Passage" event at the Anaheim Pond. At one point during the two day event they had a concert by a band named Delirious. My son really wanted to go out on the arena floor with the crowd during the concert. Now it had been pretty calm out on the floor during the previous bands, so I told him that I really didn’t want to go, but he could go ahead. So I stayed behind in our seat, while he got in line to go out on the floor. Big mistake. As soon as the band was announced, a flood of several thousand people rushed onto the floor of the arena. And of course my 13 year old son was in the front of the pack. As the concert started, I tried to tell myself that he was fine, that I’d made a good decision letting him have a little independence. But then I noticed that the crowd near the stage seemed much more out of control than the crowd had been during the previous bands. I noticed bodies being carried over people’s heads and realized that complete pandemonium had broken out. People were crashing into each other, falling down, in danger of being crushed and trampled. In fact, after a few songs, the singer stopped the show to ask security to get some control out on the floor because it was getting dangerous.
Now I had two thoughts at that moment. The first thought was concern over my son, hoping he was okay, because just letting him go out on the floor stretched me out of my comfort zone. The second thought was my wife, as I pictured myself trying to explain how I let our oldest son get trampled at a concert while I watched from the safety of my seat. Well fortunately he was fine and soon reappeared at my seat with all kinds of stories to tell of being crushed and trampled.
That event reminded me that all of us have limits on what we’re comfortable doing and what we’re not. These limits not only apply to situations, but they also apply to people. There are certain kinds of people we feel less comfortable with than others. When we’re separated from people by language, culture, or race we can sometimes feel uncomfortable, out of our comfort zone. Whether we like this fact or not, it’s true that we’re more comfortable being situations with people who are like us and less comfortable being in situations with people less like us.
Where are the limits of your comfort zone?
During the time of Jesus walked the earth, the biggest boundary separating people was the boundary between Jew and non-Jew. This boundary was an impassable boundary for many people. You see, the Jewish people had faced extinction many times in their long history as a people. As far back as the Jewish exile to Persia, a man named Haman had tried to exterminate of all the Jewish people. And of course we saw the same thing in the twentieth century in Germany under Hitler. Hatred has for generations fueled a desire on the part of some people to completely destroy the Jewish people. And if they couldn’t be destroyed by killing them, some people who hated Jewish people tried to erase Jewish people’s identity. If Jewish people could be persuaded to intermarry with non-Jews and let go all their distinctiveness as Jewish people, they could be destroyed.
So the Jewish people at the time of Jesus held on to their uniqueness for dear life. In their minds, their very existence as a nation relied on their uniqueness. In Jesus’ day, this uniqueness revolved around three areas of their life (E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism). First they were unique because their men were circumcised. This uniquely set them apart from other men. Second, they were unique in their celebration of the various Jewish Sabbaths: The weekly Sabbath, the monthly Sabbaths, and the seasonal Sabbath celebrations like Passover. Third they were unique in their purity laws, their laws that separated different objects into categories of clean and unclean. They would only eat certain kinds of food, abstaining from food that they considered "unclean," food like pork and catfish. They could only touch certain kinds of objects, while objects like dead bodies, dead animals, and people with leprosy were considered unclean. We know from history that the Jewish people of Jesus’ day felt that these distinctives--circumcision, Sabbath keeping, and purity laws--were the essential ingredients to maintaining their uniqueness as Jewish people.
In fact, a few hundred years prior to Jesus a Syrian ruler named Antiochus had tried to conquer the Jewish people by eliminating these very distinctives. Antiochus made it illegal for women to circumcise their infant sons. He made it illegal for Jewish people to celebrate the Sabbath. He tried to force Jewish people to eat pork under the threat of torture and death. We know from history that many Jewish people faced martyrdom rather than eat pork during the Jewish resistance to Antiochus. You see, it wasn’t just the pork, but it was what the pork symbolized; it symbolized their uniqueness as God’s people.
The Jewish people of Jesus’ day saw a huge boundary between Jewish people and non-Jewish people. That was a boundary that could only be crossed by non-Jewish people if they adopted a Jewish identity. It was a boundary maintained by these disinctives of circumcision, Sabbath keeping and purity laws. Non-Jews would be welcomed into Israel only if they were circumcised, made a commitment to observe the Sabbath, and keep the purity laws. Then and only then could a person go across the boundary between Jew and non-Jew.
Jewish people viewed non-Jewish people as unclean, contaminated by paganism and impurity. "Gentiles" were as unclean as an animal carcass or a dead body to many pious Jews of Jesus’ day. In fact, many of the Jewish people hated the non-Jews as much as the non-Jewish people hated the Jews. It was a mutual hostility, a mutual hatred that often bubbled up in violence.
Now Jesus was Jewish. He was born into a Jewish family, a descendant of the ancient King David, from the tribe of Judah, a descendant of Abraham, the father of the Jewish people. He was circumcised as a baby, and he grew up observing these boundary markers that maintained the uniqueness of the Jewish people.
But when he began his ministry, he questioned and challenged many of the traditional ways of understanding what it meant to be part of the people of God. For Jesus, being the people of God wasn’t about maintaining these badges of uniqueness.
We’ve been in a series through the New Testament book of Mark called Following Jesus in the Real World. Two weeks ago we saw Jesus in a debate with a religious group called the Pharisees over traditions and purity (Mark 7:1-23). In that debate we saw Jesus question the traditions of the Pharisees, the rules and rituals that they added to the Old Testament law. But Jesus went ever further than questioning their traditions, because he also overturned all the Jewish dietary laws. We saw two weeks ago that it’s not the food that goes into a person that causes that person to become unclean, but that it’s what comes out of a person’s heart.
It only makes sense that if Jesus questioned the Jewish food laws, that he’d also question the traditional categorization of people into categories of clean and unclean. Today we’re going to see Jesus cross some radical boundaries in his ministry. We’re going to see Jesus venture into non-Jewish territory, and while there we’re going to see Jesus encounter two non-Jewish people. In these two encounters we’re going to find some principles that apply to us as well as we follow Jesus to the outer limits of our comfort zone.
So turn to Mark 7:24 and take out your outline.
1. Encounter With a Non-Jewish Woman (Mark 7:24-30)
If the first half of this chapter is about unclean foods, the last half is about unclean people. This episode is among the most difficult to understand in all of Mark’s biography, because Jesus seems so mean to this woman.
First let’s set the scene a little. Jesus travels from the region around the sea of Galilee to a city named Tyre. Tyre was an ancient non-Jewish city that had a long history of hostility with the people of Israel. Tyre is located in modern day Lebanon, and it was from Tyre that Queen Jezabel had come, Israel’s most notorious enemy during the years of the divided kingdom. The Jewish historian Josephus called the people of Tyre Israel’s most bitter enemies (Against Appion 1.13). Tyre represented the most extreme kind of paganism that a Jewish person of Jesus’ day could expect to encounter in his or her lifetime (Edwards 217).
Now why does Jesus go there? Well his conflict with the religious leaders in the region of Galilee has probably put the spotlight on him, getting the attention of the Roman authorities in the region of Galilee. By fleeing to Tyre, Jesus goes outside the jurisdiction of the Roman authorities in Galilee. Perhaps that’s part of the reason. But we also get a sense from Mark that Jesus is trying to get a break from the crowd. He goes for some privacy, for a break from the exhausting pace of ministry he’s been on in Galilee.
But once there a woman comes to him with a request. This isn’t the first time someone has come to Jesus with a special request. But out of all the people who do this, this woman has the most against her. First she’s a woman, and many of the Jewish men of Jesus’ day wouldn’t even speak to a woman unless it was their wife or their mother. But this isn’t just any woman; she’s a non-Jewish woman, a Greek woman born in Syrian Phonecia. Yet despite her strikes against her, she begs Jesus to deliver her daughter from a demonic spirit. Now most of the Jewish people of Jesus’ day believed that all non-Jewish people were demonized, so the fact that this woman’s daughter was demonized wouldn’t come as a surprise to a first century Jew. What would surprise them was that she wanted her daughter to be free from this stronghold of evil.
But what surprises us even more is Jesus’ response to the woman. He uses a parable, a metaphor, to explain his reluctance to heal her daughter. He says, "First let the children eat all they want because it’s not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs." Clearly the "children" in this parable refer to the people of Israel, and the "bread" refers to Jesus’ ministry. The "dogs" then refer to non-Jewish people. Jesus is saying that he should finish his ministry in Israel before he branches out to non-Jewish peoples. Jesus is affirming the priority of the people of Israel in his mission, that his main focus has been the people of Israel, and it’s only after he leaves the earth and his church starts expanding that the doors will open to non-Jewish people like this woman. Jesus is affirming what the apostle Paul would later affirm as well, when Paul says, "I am not ashamed of the good news because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believers: first for the Jew and then for the Gentile" (Romans 1:16).
What disturbs us here is that Jesus likens this non-Jewish woman to a dog. And in the ancient world, dogs weren’t usually the cute, cuddly pets we think of, but they were wild scavengers. In Jewish thought, dogs were associated with ritual impurity because they scavenged off dead bodies. For a Jew to call a non-Jewish person a "dog" was common enough. It was a term of derision, of contempt, which is why we find it difficult to imagine the word coming from the lips of Jesus.
But what surprises me even more is the woman’s response to Jesus, because she accepts her role in the parable. Her response is clever, as she seizes on the imagery of the parable to make her case. She says that even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the children’s table.
Several things are remarkable about this exchange. One remarkable thing is that this is the first time in Mark anyone understands a parable of Jesus without Jesus having to explain it to them. This woman shows insight into the teachings of Jesus that so far in Mark’s story no one else has shown. It’s also remarkable that she accepts the priority of the Jewish people in the unfolding of God’s plan. She doesn’t debate the priority of Israel, but accepts her designation as a non-Jewish person. She recognizes that God’s plan will come through Israel, and that Israel has an important role to play in the plan. Yet she throws herself on the mercy of God, not ashamed to assert herself in the presence of God’s son. Her response is both humble and bold at the same time.
So Jesus grants her request, and her daughter is delivered.
Now some have thought that this woman’s quick wit changed Jesus’ mind. But I think there’s a better explanation for Jesus’ response to her. I think Jesus says the bit about the children and dogs with a twinkle in his eye, because he knows this woman is coming with more faith than anyone who’s come to him so far in Mark’s gospel (France 296-97). He says what his disciples expect him to say. But he says it like a teacher playing the role of critic, asking a student rhetorical questions, leading a student to the conclusion, a conclusion in the end the teacher himself agrees with.
Here we find an important principle from this episode. WHEN WE FOLLOW JESUS HE WILL LEAD US BEYOND THE LIMITS OF OUR COMFORT.
Here was Jesus deep in non-Jewish territory, in the city of their most ancient enemies, among a people deeply committed to the paganism that was abhorred by Jewish people. Yet Jesus went there willingly, purposefully. That’s where he wanted to be.
If you think following Jesus is the best way to play it safe in life, you’re mistaken. If you think being a Christian and raising your children in a Christian home is the best way to keep your family together and happy, you’re mistaken. Following Jesus means going where Jesus leads you, and sometimes he leads us to places that are frighteningly out of our comfort zone.
I think of a pastor friend of mine, who’s daughter left her Ph.D. program to live a life of voluntary poverty among the poor in India. This father agonized over his desire to keep his daughter safe, and his desire to see his daughter faithful to her Lord Jesus. He knew that there was no guarantee that his wouldn’t end up a victim of terrorism or some terrible disease.
I remember years ago when we commissioned a young couple from our congregation to go on the mission field. During the commissioning service, the father of the girl we were commissioning walked out of the service. I caught him outside, and he was filled with anger, anger that his daughter would leave for such a dangerous place, anger that she would put his grandchildren at such great risk. He said, "Why can’t they stay here, minister here, there’s so much need here." Yet his daughter had to follow the leading of her Lord.
I’m reminded of a scene from the C. S. Lewis books The Chronicles of Narnia. The Christ figure in these stories is a lion named Aslan, and when the children in the story first hear about Aslan, they’re afraid. They ask, "Is he safe?"The person telling them about the lion laughs, and says, "Safe? Of course he’s not safe. He’s a lion. But he’s good. He’s the Lord."
Jesus is not safe, and following him is not safe.
2. Encounter with a Non-Jewish Man (Mask 7:31-37)
This brings us to our second episode. Jesus’ travel route here is odd, because it’s more of a circle. Sidon was another non-Jewish city, which was often lumped together with the city of Tyre. Again, it was a non-Jewish city, a place deeply steeped in paganism and all that most traditional Jews found to be reprehensible. Then Jesus swings East and then South back to the Decapolis. Decapolis is Greek for "ten cities," and these ten towns formed a league of cities. Again, the vast majority of the people in these ten cities were non-Jewish. So this strange trip takes Jesus purposefully to the most non-Jewish places he can find to go.
Since Jesus is deep in Gentile territory, presumably the crowd who brings Jesus this deaf man is a crowd of non-Jewish people, and the man himself is non-Jewish as well. Jewish people simply didn’t go to the Decapolis unless they had to. This man is deaf and he has some sort of speech impediment that makes him "barely able to talk." The crowd begs Jesus to place his hands on the man, to bring him healing. Coming in contact with such a man would make most of the Jewish people recoil, because touching a non-Jewish person would cause a Jewish person to be impure for a period of time.
But Jesus doesn’t recoil. Instead he takes the man away from the crowd. Jesus puts his fingers in the man’s ears, perhaps letting him know that he’s going to restore his hearing. He uses his spittle to let the man know he’s going to restore the man’s speech. Then he looks up to heaven and speaks, "Be opened" in Aramaic. And the man can hear and speak clearly. It’s a miracle.
Now this miracle has more significance than first meets the eye. You see in the Old Testament book of Isaiah, the prophet Isaiah had uttered several prophecies of judgment against the cities of Tyre and Sidon. For example, the entire 23rd chapter of Isaiah is a message of judgment on Tyre and Sidon for their arrogance and wealth. However, that first section of the book of Isaiah ends in chapter 35 of Isaiah, where we read these words,
"Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, ’Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance, with divine retribution, he will come to save you.’ Then will eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert" (Isaiah 35:4-6 NIV).
When this portion of Isaiah was translated from Hebrew into Greek by Jewish scholars, the word they used for "mute" is the same word translated "hardly able to speak" here in Mark 7:33 (Greek mogilalos). In fact, those are the only two times this word appears in the entire Greek Bible, in the Greek translation of Isaiah 35 and here in Mark 7:32. It’s a rare word because it means "hardly able to talk" rather than "completely unable to talk." So clearly Mark intends us to see this miracle as the fulfillment of the promise of Isaiah 35. Yet the wrinkle on the story is that it happens to a non-Jewish person in the Decapolis instead of a Jewish person in the Jewish region of Israel. That may not seem too significant to us, but to the early Church it was extremely significant. The promises of Isaiah are fulfilled by Jesus in an unexpected way, as the Messiah comes not just to save the Jewish nation, but to offer God’s salvation to all people.
We started this chapter with Jesus challenging the idea that some food is clean and other food is unclean, but we end it with Jesus breaking down the distinction between clean and unclean people. Israel isn’t erased from God’s plan, but under Christ non-Jewish people are no longer automatically excluded from God’s plan Now what counts is following Jesus, not where you were born or of what family you were born into.
Here we find another principle. WHEN WE FOLLOW JESUS, HE WILL LEAD US TO RESPOND WITH COMPASSION TO NEEDS AROUND US.
Jesus went out of his way to meet the need of this unnamed deaf person. Often we go out of our way to avoid seeing the needs of others. We choose a different route to drive home, so we don’t have to see the homeless on the streets. We change the channel when we see pictures of horrible poverty or suffering in other nations. We explain away suffering and poverty, trying to figure out ways to conclude that people who suffering really got themselves into their situation. When we see poverty, we try to explain it in terms of people’s laziness or lifestyle, because it’s far easier to fall asleep at night if we think they brought it upon themselves.
But God doesn’t call us to explanations, he calls us to compassion. Compassion means allowing our hearts to be open, taking the risk of being hurt, of being disappointed. Compassion means allowing ourselves to feel the plight of others, placing ourselves in their shoes. Compassion is dangerous, because if you open your heart, you will get hurt. You’ll be wounded. You’ll be disappointed. You’ll be taken advantage of. If being a Christian is being a follower of Jesus, then you can expect that Jesus will lead you to the kinds of places where he went.
You may never find yourself in Sidon or the Decapolis, but you’ll find yourself facing needs that call for compassion. And you may not have the power to heal like Jesus heals, but you do have the ability to open your heart, to partner with the rest of the Christian community to meet needs.
Let me share with you a few of the ministries that our church partners with that try to bring God’s compassion. Pacific Lifeline is a transitional shelter for homeless women and children we support out of our missions budget. Homeless women and children stay at Pacific Lifeline here in Upland as they prepare to get a job and move into an apartment.
We also support a ministry called Somebody Cares Southland. Somebody Cares Southland works with the poor and homeless here in the Inland Empire. Each month they serve approximately 40,000 people, with food, job skills training, and shelter. This year they gave out five million pounds of food. In the process, they share the good news of Jesus Christ with the people they serve.
We also support a crisis pregnancy ministry called Alternate Avenues. For several years Alternate Avenues has been providing hope for girls facing a crisis pregnancy. They provide everything from adoption referrals to counseling, from medical care to maternity clothing, from abstinence education to post abortion support groups. And again, all the while sharing the good news of Jesus Christ through their words and their actions.
These are just three ways we as a church support the compassion of others. If you give to our church, you already financially support these three compassion ministries. But I want to encourage you to find ways to get involved with more than just your financial support. All three of these ministries-Pacific Lifeline, Somebody Cares Southland, and Alternate Avenues rely on volunteers who take the risk to open their hearts to others. They rely on followers of Jesus Christ like you who are willing to follow Jesus into situations that require compassion. It’s risky but following Jesus means taking the risk.
Conclusion
Jesus will lead you beyond your limits. In fact, following him will stretch you beyond your comfort and place you in situations that require the compassion of Christ. If you’re not being stretched out of your comfort and opening your heart with compassion, it’s a legitimate question to ask about how much you’re following Jesus.
You see, one of the great lies of our generation is the lie that a person can be a Christian without following Jesus. When we define being a Christian purely in terms of believing the right things, we empty the term of its original meaning. Being a Christian means believing in Jesus, of course. It means believing what the Bible says about Jesus, that he’s the Son of God, the Savior who died on the cross in our place and rose from the grave, conquering death. But it also means following Jesus, that trusting the truth about Jesus means living our lives in the steps of Jesus. This isn’t just for "super-Christians," but it’s the normal Christian life.
