"crumbs"

[This sermon was part of a Communion Service.]

Welcome to the Lord’s Table. Today we ‘feast’ on … [hold up a piece of bread and a communion cup]. To the naked eye, this doesn’t seem to be much of a “feast,” does it? A typical ‘royal’ feast in Jesus’ day would start out with an appetizer to whet the appetite and would include such things as conger eels, oysters, two kinds of mussels, thrushes on asparagus, fat fowls, a ragout of oysters and other shell-fish, with black and white marrons. “Marrons” are a type of crayfish. During the second course, the guests might be served a variety of shellfish and other marine animals, beccaficos (beka-fee-kos), haunches of venison, a wild boar, a pasty of beccaficos and other birds. “Beccafico” were tiny songbirds … like warblers.

Believe it or not, we’re just now getting to the “main course” where the guests would be invited to dine on the udders of swine, boar's head, fricassee of fish, fricassee of sow's udder, ducks of various kinds, hares, roast fowls with pastry, boiled ostrich or Flamingo or a turtle dove boiled in its feathers, roast parrot, dormice, and Picentine bread. I wasn’t able to find out what ‘Picentine’ bread was. And, of course, to top off this fine royal feast, you had your choice of fricassee of roses with pastry; stoned dates stuffed with nuts and pine kernels and fried in honey, or hot African sweet-wine cakes with honey.

[Hold up the piece of bread and cup of grape juice.] Not much of a comparison … and yet … a Syrophoenician woman knew that a crumb from the Lord’s table was far more rewarding and satisfying than anything offered at a king’s or emperor’s table, amen?

Once again, I’m going to urge you to try and relate to this event in the same way as Mark’s audience did and try to hear it as though you are hearing it for the first time. Also, Mark’s style is to lay out the facts and let you come to your own conclusions.

Jesus has already done some shocking and amazing things, amen? Healing the sick. Driving out demons. Commanding a storm to stop. Raising a girl from the dead. Now … He has already sailed to the other side of the Sea of Galilee to an area dominated by pagans but that region was still part of Palestine, and therefore still part of the Jewish state or region of Judea. Today what should get our attention is that He is in Tyre, an area completely outside of the actual borders of Palestine or Judea. Although this area was populated by many Jews, historically it had a reputation of being antagonistic towards the Jewish people and was noted for the people’s zealous devotion to paganism. Tyre was the home of Jezebel, who in Elijah’s day almost overthrew the Northern Kingdom with her pagan prophets and practices.

This next line is very significant. Mark says that Jesus “entered a house and did not want anyone to know He was there” and yet, says Mark, “He could not escape notice” (Mark 7:24). Word of Jesus’ activities has spread beyond the borders of Judea. He started out ministering in the region around His hometown of Nazareth and Galilee and then began traveling further and further out from there … to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, for example, and sending out His Disciples with His power to heal the sick and cast out demons and warn the people to repent because the Kingdom of God was at hand. And now He has actually left Judea and entered enemy territory, if you will, and Mark’s audience again is wondering why in the world He would ever go to a literally God-forsaken place like Tyre?

On the surface, it makes sense. What better place to get away from the crowd, right? No self-respecting Jew is going to following Him to a place with a reputation and history of paganism and antisemitism like Tyre and why would the pagans living there care who He was or even notice Him except for the fact that He was a Jew. And yet, says Mark, He could not escape notice and He is approached, not by a Jew but by a gentile woman Mark describes as “Syrophoenician” (Mark 7:26).

While Jesus hasn’t really traveled that far away from Judea physically, this woman couldn’t be farthest thing from a Jew. The fact that Jesus was approached by a “Syrophoenician” … man or woman … was shocking to Mark’s initial audience. This woman came from a region of Syria … that’s the “Syro” part of “Syrophoenician” … that was occupied and controlled by the Romans. “Syrophoenician” is a compound word. As I said, it refers to a portion of Syria now under Roman occupation that used to be occupied many years earlier by the Phoenicians … so this woman’s ancestry had roots in two groups of people who had a long and bitter and oftentimes bloody relationship with the Jews. In the minds of Mark’s audience, Jesus’ references to dogs was completely expected and appropriate. And yet, like Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, the faith of this woman provided quite a contrast to the skeptics and doubters who had already started hounding Jesus and challenging His teaching and His authority. The fact that she had heard of Jesus and was willing to approach Him and make a request of someone who, in the eyes of her fellow countrymen was the one who was no more than a dog shows her desperation … as so many scholars and preachers have talked about over the centuries … but it is her response to what sounds like Jesus’ rebuff that shows that her desperation contains a great deal of hope as well.