Grace In The Story That Splits The Room

A sermon by Rev Andrew Colman on  Mark 7:24-37

This evening we are met with two healing stories in the Gospel reading. The first one is controversial. Whenever it comes up in conversation, it inevitably splits a room in at least two, sometimes more.
This is the story of the Syrophoenician Woman who comes seeking healing for her daughter from Jesus. The text says that Jesus had entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there, yet he could not escape notice.

The story goes that she asks for her daughter to be healed, and Jesus responds… Now, this response is what splits the room:
"Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs.”
Dogs! Again, we have one of the sayings of Jesus that keeps our faith from being too easy. When he have stories like this,  it feels like if they had not been included, there would be less friction for us to truly believe, really just sign off on everything Jesus said. But he just doesn’t make it that easy.

But, ‘m so very glad that this story was kept and included in our Gospels. After all from the end of John's Gospel, we know that if we were to have a record of all of the healings, feedings, and miracles that Jesus accomplished on earth, the volumes could not be contained on this earth.

So there very easily could have been another non-controversial story where Jesus probably healed another syrophocian person where he didn't call them a dog; which a particularly condescending slur in the Middle Eastern world.

But no. There is something about this story that the author, guided by the Holy Spirit, thought was important for us to keep.

In brief, the split is usually goes something like this.

One side thinks that Jesus was tired and just wanted some food and a nap, and this gentile Woman came to bother him just as he was settling down. Jesus, frustrated and not yet fully understanding his mission to the Gentiles, cast her off with this condescending comment—she rebutted him — and this turns into one of Jesus' own revelations—that he is called, himself, to the whole of humanity!

This story emphasizes his humanity—he's hungry, tired, and frustrated, sometimes speaks without thinking, must learn as humans do, doesn't know everything, and sometimes gets caught short. He is fully 100% human after all—just like us. Thanks be to God.


The other side of the conversation is that Jesus, even though he was tired, could see what this woman needed within her way of faith. She was a woman who worked with her mind. Maybe he could see in her eyes that she knew that her even speaking to him was outside of the normal practice of the day, but she had thought it through.

Maybe he was giving honour to that.

This reading of the story leans towards his divinity—he is 100% God, after all. His mission, in the end, is not only to the Jews but the whole world. Maybe he was learning that fact at that moment, but through divine intuition or something like that, through this exchange with this bold and audacious mother.

Either way, the Syrophoncian Woman's daughter is healed,
and Jesus responds to her by saying,

"For saying that, you may go, the demon has left your daughter."
Now, there are many different healing stories. In some of them, like the Woman with the hemorrhage and this one, Jesus tells us why the healing has happened.

The Woman with the hemorrhage: your faith has made you well
And for the Syrophoenician woman it comes: "For saying that”

This is so very interesting—he does not refer to her faith, or allude to her tenacity like in the parable of the persistent widow, or commend her for her concern for the oppressed as we see in our proverb readings for tonight, though all of those things are present in this story.
It is for the words that she uttered. It is for her "saying that"
It is for her continued conversation that the demon leaves her daughter. It is for her thought and her words.

I've often thought of this Woman as the Patron Saint of Academics. She is the only person recorded in the Bible who responded to Jesus from a posture of disagreement to which he yielded.

And reverberations of this into our time and lives are profound.

This Woman had faith in Jesus—if she hadn't, she wouldn't have come to him in search of healing, and if her faith in him was fragile, she would not have pushed back.

This Woman's faith in Jesus was deep. It was expressed through dialogue, through challenge. These were a kind of prayer for her—her invitation of God into her life.

When we normally think of prayer this is very different. The classic image is that of hands together, praying at the altar rail or at one's bedside on one's knees, which is also great!
But for this Woman and for so many others, that is not their primary or most fruitful way of interacting with God. For many, it's being immersed in books of theology, philosophy, literature, poetry, or scripture.
Neither is better than the other - just different ways.

It reverberates into our time and lives now because we are shown the power of conversation, especially with those with whom we disagree.

This Woman - whether by the intention of Jesus or simply by his being over-tired - disagreed with God. And said so!

The Gospel message here is at least twofold:

First, we take the posture of the Woman and speak.
Two, we take the posture of Jesus and listen.
Or maybe it's both.

What ends up happening in the end is that the Woman's daughter is healed, and she has had a profound and meaningful interaction with Jesus which will have deepened her faith,
and we, as receivers of this story, are shown the power of disagreement in faith and conversation and the willingness to listen and respond in a way that build up not only each other the faith of the whole church.

Whether one leans towards the more human or divine side of this conversation, there is grace to be found and ever more conversation to be had, which, when had in love, will always build up rather than tear down.

And when those waves bounce off the following healing story, we see even more.

A deaf and mute man, a Jew, was brought by a crowd to Jesus. Then Jesus took him and performed what seemed like a wild healing ritual: He plugs the man's ears, spits, touches his tongue, looks up to heaven, and sighs ephphatha.

It's the total opposite of the story that immediately preceded it. In the first story, it was because of the active words of the Woman, by the power and decree of Jesus and nothing more than that, that her daughter was healed.

In this story, the man does not come to him on his own. He does nothing, says nothing, and then, by a ritual you might expect to hear about in a children's fairy tale by the Brother Grimm, he is healed.

The man offers no response and disappears from the scene. The conversation turns back to focus on the crowd - Jesus ordered the crowd to say nothing... not this newly healed man.

It really is the total opposite.

Except that it is God doing what God does. Acting, responding to those who come to him in prayer, or are brought to him in prayer, in ways that best for us.

Had Jesus waited for the deaf and mute man to respond like the Syrophoenician Woman to bless and heal him, it may have never happened.
And had Jesus responded with such a ritual to heal the Syrophoenician Woman's daughter, she may have pushed him away and called him crazy.
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One of the things we have in our Gospel reading tonight is the story of difference being met with Understanding, Love, and Grace.

Conversations of dogs and theology that jump off the page into our living rooms and across the table at restaurants.

Differing capacities to be present, to think, speak, and communicate being met by the one who cares not for capacity but rather for souls.

Another thing we have in our Gospel reading tonight is friction, one that causes us to stop and think, converse, and pray about what and who we believe in.

And discover a new that every time we do, we find that God was waiting there for us the whole time or we'd been brought there by God himself.

Amen.