To whom should Jesus’ followers show mercy? If we follow Jesus’ example, we should provide it to people we do not expect.
Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking about the seventh chapter of Mark’s Gospel (Mark 7:24-37), the section we might describe as “two stories in which Jesus healed people” – because that is precisely what he did.
The second is fairly straightforward. Some friends brought a man to see Jesus and asked him to heal the man’s deafness. Jesus did a few actions, said “Ephphatha,” which means, “Be opened,” and sure enough the man could hear.
The first one has a couple of unusual features, however. The first is that it was a long-distance healing. A mother came to Jesus and asked him to cast a demon out of her daughter, but the daughter was still at home. When Jesus consented, the mother returned home to find that her daughter was well.
Now that, in and of itself, does not make the story unique in the gospels. What does make it unique is that the woman was specifically identified as a foreigner, a Syrophoenician, and when she asked for Jesus’ help, initially he refused. He said, “It is not right to take the children’s food and give it to the dogs.”
She replied, “Even the dogs are entitled to what falls from the children’s table. Then Jesus consented to heal the girl.
One of the great theological conundrums of this text is, did Jesus learn something in this moment? It’s probably unanswerable. If your theological perspective is that Jesus’ godhood, his divinity, was the greater part of him, than you’d have to read this is saying that no, Jesus was in some way testing the woman, testing his disciples, to see if they would recognize that grace can be given to anyone. But if you believe that Jesus’ humanity was the more important factor at play, than yes, Jesus learned something here.
In either case, Jesus presumably – because he repeated the story – and Jesus’ disciples – because they clearly repeated the story – and Mark – because he heard the story and set it down for us to read and repeat over the centuries, even the millennia – they wanted us to learn something.
We find it all too easy to set people apart for one reason or another: religion, nationality, skin tone, gender, the people to whom they’re attracted, all sorts of things. We set them aside and somehow they are no longer recipients of mercy. At least, not our mercy.
Did Jesus learn otherwise that day? I don’t know. But the woman asked for that mercy and she received it for her daughter, and Jesus’ followers since that time have known, even if we haven’t always done it, we have known that mercy is due to all people, not just the ones who are closest to us, not just the ones who are like us.
Mercy is due to all God’s children: the entire population of the world.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
I’m thinking about the third chapter in Mark’s Gospel (Mark 3:20-35). At this point in his account, Mark has described the beginnings of Jesus’ ministry, some of the opposition that began to develop, but especially the degree to which people were attracted to Jesus: to his teachings, and also to seek healing for their ailments and illnesses.
As this passage opens, Jesus had returned to his home in Capernaum. So many people surrounded the house, said Mark, that Jesus was not even able to eat. Some of those who were suspicious of his teachings accused him of casting out demons by the power of demons. “How can Satan cast out Satan?” Jesus replied. “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
1800 years later an American politician would quote those words, and we tend to remember them more because he said them, than because Jesus did. Nevertheless, Jesus may have been first. Jesus quoted a lot, so it’s hard to tell.
Unity is a challenging thing in the Christian Church. Unity in first century Judaism was not to be found. There were significant differences between fairly substantial and organized branches of Jewish teaching and thought: Sadducees, Pharisees, and Essenes. Jesus himself represented a particular tradition within the Pharisaic tradition. He taught an awful lot like what is recorded of Rabbi Hillel, who had spoken some 50 to 60 years before.
But although they argued, they lived together in reasonable amity — at least until the rebellion came — and that kind of unity, that ability to live with one another’s differences, that ability to appreciate one another for who they are regardless of where they may fall on particular questions: that was a characteristic that made for endurance of what were otherwise pretty challenging conditions in the first century.
Here in the 21st century we once more experience challenging conditions. We have perhaps emerged from a lengthy global pandemic (I’ve seen that there are some warnings that illness may rise once more this coming year). In the United states we are faced with significant political challenges. And the entire world faces, whether they acknowledge it or not, the realities of a changing climate and its effects upon agriculture, upon transportation, upon literally where one can build a home.
A house divided against itself cannot stand, said Jesus, and we have seen the truth of that assertion time after time after time over the centuries. How can we, how will we, live with one another and appreciate one another for who we are? How will we attempt to correct the mistaken views which some will inevitably have? How will we correct our own mistaken views when others bring new information to us?
Unity without diversity is simple tyranny. But diversity without some sense of unity, well, that leads to inevitable conflict, and conflict that can get terribly, terribly serious. A house divided against itself cannot stand. Let us not divine our home.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
Let me admit, right up front, that the Apostle Paul and I are not on the same wavelength today. Almost two thousand years ago, in the mid-50s of the first century, Paul was concerned about things he’d heard about the Corinthian church.
“It has been made clear to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you,” he wrote.
Watch out for Chloe. She’s got people.
As Douglas A. Campbell writes in The Christian Century, “The church at Corinth was a mess. I count 15 distinguishable problems that Paul addresses in 1 Corinthians…” Dr. Campbell, by the way, went on to list them, which I’m not. He offers this summary, however: “Underlying this mess, there were four main difficulties: a basic failure in relating to one another in love; a dramatic failure of the local church leaders to act considerately in the face of their competition for status and influence; arrogant theological reasoning that denied the importance of the body (which we might call ‘Christian intellectualism’); and tensions arising from the pressures that Paul’s teaching about sex placed on his converts. Each of these problems would have been bad enough, but when they were all present together, the combination was toxic.”
In the first chapter, Paul took on the divisions Chloe had reported in the Corinthian church, people identifying with the opinions and commitments of different apostles, including Apollos, Simon Peter, and Paul himself. “Was Paul crucified for you?” he wrote testily.
To counteract the divisiveness Paul raised the basic scandal of the Christian faith: a crucified Messiah. In Judaism, a Messiah who fails to free the people from the domination of outside nations is, by definition, not a Messiah. Among the Greek-influenced people of the Eastern Mediterranean, among the Greeks of Corinth, a crucified leader is simply a rebel, and a failed rebel at that. A crucified Christ is ludicrous.
Adam Hearlson writes at Working Preacher, “Near the palatine hill in Rome, there is this remarkable piece of graffiti scrawled into the wall of the dormitory of imperial pageboys. In the depiction, which any Google search will unearth, a Christian boy is mocked for worshipping a crucified man with a donkey’s head. The boy, standing in front of the cross, raises his hand in adoration of this donkey God. Scrawled below the picture are the words: ‘Alexemenos worships his God.’”
You are together in this foolish faith, wrote Paul. You’re up against a world that sees you as fantastically deluded. Dividing against yourselves is ludicrous.
If you’re thinking that’s a pretty good argument but maybe not quite enough, Paul continued on for three more chapters.
But I’m not on that wavelength. In verse 22, Paul wrote, “For Jews ask for signs and Greeks desire wisdom.” That’s something of a stereotypic statement, and like most stereotypes it has some truth to it and some falsehood. Certainly Greek culture was well known for its philosophy and commitment to reason. It was, after all, the society that had molded Plato, Aristotle, Sophocles, and so many others. Early Christians embedded Greek philosophical ideas into their writings, notably Gospel writer, John.
“Jews ask for signs.” Did they? The Hebrew Bible is full of the mighty acts of God, and much of the rest of those ancient Scriptures refer to mighty acts of God to explain the obligations of human beings to God. For the early Jewish Christians, Jesus’ own resurrection was a great big brightly lit sign of God’s favor. For the early Christians, signs of the Holy Spirit’s presence defined a church doing God’s will.
In our twenty-first century setting, I think relatively few people look for signs or wisdom to be a support, a buttress, that keeps faith from collapsing. We have a marked ability to discount potential signs. Is there a natural explanation for this, we ask, and if there is, it isn’t a sign.
As for wisdom, well. We do not live in a time that values wisdom. Contemporary people tend to want to know what they can do. What are the limits to our power, and if there are limits, can we push them farther? As the opening to the Six Million Dollar Man went decades ago: “Better. Stronger. Faster.”
As we found with weaponry, as we found with transferring carbon into the atmosphere, as we may be finding with artificial intelligence, we do things and only later do we start to wonder, “Was this a good idea?”
That’s… not wise.
If it’s not signs and it’s not wisdom, though, what is buttressing our faith? There are Christian preachers out there who will tell you that visible accumulation of wealth shows the presence of God. I think they’re wrong. In fact, I think they’re lying. But if you’re looking for something to support your faith and you’d like it to be riches, there are people who’ll cheer you on.
There are a bunch of people who will tell you that it’s power. The Church, they say, must be in charge. These people have been around for centuries, first succeeding in making Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in 380 CE through the Emperor Theodosius, and failing to recognize the folly of this project from then until now.
I’ll tell you that for me it’s the support I find in my soul when things get really bad: when I’m deeply sad or emotionally fragile or lost for the next part of my journey. To be honest, I don’t recommend relying on that as your buttress of faith. I may receive a lot of strength in pain, but it’s still painful.
For many Christians over the centuries, it’s been study of the Scriptures that has sustained their faith, and if that what it is for you, push it a little further. Go a little deeper. For many Christians over the centuries, it’s been prayer. Some desire nothing more than time and silence. Others find it helpful to have words to follow, which is why we have a Lenten devotional. Some need to be along. Some treasure the company of others.
I’d encourage you as well, when your faith seems the most fragile, to remember than God called you. That wasn’t an accident. As Carla Works writes at Working Preacher, “God, in God’s wisdom, chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise. To Paul, that does not just mean the cross. God continues to display God’s power by choosing even the weak and lowly to be part of God’s church.” Weak and lowly us to shame the confident and powerful of the world.
I hope that at least one of your supports is what we do today to close our worship: nourish ourselves at the table of Jesus. It’s a sacrament. We believe that God has promised to be there when we gather to do this, and we believe that God fulfills these promises. So come to the table in a few minutes. Come to be nourished. Come to be filled.
Come to experience the signs and wisdom that support your soul.
Amen.
by Eric Anderson
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Pastor Eric frequently diverges from the sermon he has prepared. Sometimes it’s an improvement!
