DESPERATE TIMES CALL FOR …

Genesis 32: 24-30; Mark 7: 24-37

Rabbi Marc Gellman and Monsignor Thomas Hartman are a religious team that has billed themselves as “The God Squad. They have appeared on morning television and on documentaries. But one book they wrote for children with the title LOST AND FOUND: A Kid’s Book for Living Through Loss, illustrates a problem we can have with written words, even written words in the Bible. In their chapter called “Losing a Friend,” they write: “There are lots of ways to get friends, but here are some ways to lose them. The first way to lose a friend is if a witch casts an evil spell and—zap!—turns your friend into a frog, and then you can’t go out with your friend to a movie or a restaurant, because most restaurants and movies have big signs on the door saying quite clearly NO FROGS ALLOWED IN HERE!” [Morrow Junior Books, 1999, p. 35] That’s how they start. How do they mean those words? Of course, most people here would understand that they are trying to break the ice of this subject with humor. But people from another country may not get it; people with certain learning disabilities are unable to distinguish humor; and some children may not get it. They are really not talking about a witch; they don’t believe in them or in evil spells or in people being turned into frogs. They are counting on us being literate enough to have heard Grimm’s Fairly Tales or to have read books some make believe books that portray witches as magical people. Unless we see the writer’s faces, it is hard to tell if they are serious or humorous.

Now shift to the first story from Mark today. Mark also assumes we know some things. He assumes we know that “the region of Tyre would have meant “the other side of the tracks.” Few from this country would misunderstand the idiom that treats tracks as a dividing line between two different kinds or classes or races of people. It’s an unfortunate image but one the reader has to get when hearing “the region of Tyre.” Then we read: “He entered a house and would not have anyone know it.” Why? Because it was a ritually unclean thing for a Jew to be in a Gentile neighborhood, like the days of Jim Crow laws in America, when a person dared not cross the invisible line of having a black person in a white person’s house and vice versa. The wonderful but cancelled show “American Dreams” portrayed that situation in our country that only began to change just 35 years ago. You have to know Biblical idioms for good Bible study! Let’s go on: “Yet he could not be hid.” People found out that Jesus was in that house as the curious always do. “But immediately a woman (already trouble there: a woman behind closed doors with Jesus) came about her daughter, uninvited; just barged in, which no civilized person would appreciate- and did something that looked how to Jesus: Pathetic? Honoring? Desperate? She fell at his feet. The old spiritual was sung in just that position “When I fall on my knees with my face to the rising sun, O Lord have mercy on me.” It is a position of humility. Next the reader is told: “Now the woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth. Mark is saying “She is a native, and not a Jew!” since the event happened in a large Phoenician port city of Syria! So here is a non-Jew, which implied a lesser or non-person, was taking Jesus’ time and asking for an exorcism. People of this town were known to worship other gods and have different beliefs. Jesus makes clear that his first mission is to the Jews as a uses idioms that I will translate for you: “Let the children {read God’s children, the Jews} first be fed, for it is not right to take the children’s bread {a reference to real food or perhaps to miraculous healings} and throw it at the dogs {Was Jesus speaking in colloquial language with those harsh words? Or was he saying that for the benefit of those around him, yet his heart was ready to heal?} You see, when all we have is words, we miss nuance and inflection of the voice. The woman responds to Jesus, clearly facing a desperate situation: she has entered another person’s house, faced a man of another race and faith, and then submits herself to him with begging for the sake of her daughter. She gives a response; but with what tone does she give it? Is it with tears, or with defiance? Is it with persistence the way Jacob refused to release God’s angel until he blessed him? Or could she possibly be defusing a tense situation with humor? Dr. Elton Trueblood has suggested just that! “Yes Sir, but even dogs under tables get to eat food the children drop!” Could she be saying that with twinkling eyes or a slight smile in an effort to diffuse tension? The Bible doesn’t let us read between the written lines to see the face of this desperate mother. But it is a lesson to show that desperate times call for desperate measures.

What are your desperate times? A child with an illness or one hurt from a terrible accident? In those times some try to bargain with God. Is that the best desperate measure? What if you lose a job? Is bitterness or a desire to get even the best response? We know Jesus preached that when his disciples were rebuffed they were to shake the dust off their feet and move in a new direction? How do you respond to crises? What about those who have hit rock bottom in their life? I’ve know some just cry that life isn’t fair and wallow in self-pity. Now that’s productive! (Can you tell how I meant that?) Some get destructive and angry or angry and blame everyone else. That’s mature. But the wise ones do what this resourceful Greek woman did: she humbled herself before Jesus, called him Lord, and respectfully and desperately asked for help. When his answer seemed to be “no,” she persisted as Jacob did with the angel. The outcome was different because of that. She won his blessing, like Jacob won his blessing.

The Rev. Larry Love tells the story of his visit years ago to the Women’s State Prison of South Carolina. He saw one woman in particular that was brought to his chapel service in shackles with a guard on each side. She had a history of violence but wanted to come. The guards didn’t trust her and were wary. Her situation, Rev. Love observed, apart from the grace and transformation of God, was hopeless. In prayer, he heard God say to him, “Tell her I love her.” And so he preached, and he prayed, and towards the end he made a point to come over to the woman and look her in the eye, and said “God loves you; I have head him say it and I believe it with all my heart.” He closed the service and watched her face get transformed from defiance to peace and relief. She began sobbing and thanked him. Two years later he went back to that prison. That particular woman was still there because she had a life sentence. The difference was that she was now leading a regular Bible study for more than 100 women. God had taken away her fear and replaced it with peace. “Where else could I make such a difference except in here?” she said to the warden one day, to which he replied, “God is doing great things through you.” [DYNAMIC FAITH, 2001, P. 30-31]

Today we conclude with Mark’s other story about Jesus: the miraculous of a man without senses to connect with the world. Again we must understand the words: The cities named are not geographic, they are inclusive. The route would be like “going from New York, to Washington D.C. by way of Boston, coming down the Mohawk Valley.” [THE GOOD NEWS ACCORDING TO MARK, Edward Schweizer, John Knox Press, 1977, p. 154.] The crescendo (read excitement) of Jesus’ work is growing. Mark sees a connection: this man that Jesus heals reminds him of a hopeful prophecy about God’s Kingdom breaking into the world. The prophet Isaiah declared that a new day will dawn when “the eyes of the blind are opened,”(check), the ears of the deaf are unstopped (check), the lame shall leap like a deer, (check), and the dumb (one of those insensitive words, now called “speechless” or “mute”) can sing for joy.” Isaiah 35: 5-6. Mark excitement about this news is heightened by his graphic descriptions: (fingers in ears, spit on tongue, and Jesus’ strange command: “Ephphatha” (be opened.”) Like the melodic question “How can I keep from singing?” even though Jesus charged those gathered to tell no one, how could they keep from telling others? “This Jewish healer has done all things well,” they testify, and Scripture describes more and more non-Jews begin calling Jesus Lord. The Kingdom of God was breaking in! And it still is. How we respond to life’s obstacles teach our souls and the souls of others one of two things: that we call on and trust Jesus in all things, or we put our human selves in the seat of self decision and chose paths that temporarily work, but later lead to bitterness, heartache, or pain. May the Warden of the prisons we made for ourselves by our old choices, look at our new choices, ones we will make from this day forward, and with a voice of hope declare: “God is doing great things through you.” Amen.

Jeffrey A. Sumner September 10, 2006