Past Sermon

Sermon Title: "Secret Blessing; Public Telling "
Date: September 10, 2006
Minister: Rev. Charles E. Ensley, Jr.

Lesson:  Mark 7:24-37

Every Sunday you hear a scripture lesson in the worship service.  Maybe you looked it up in advance after you saw in the Carillon what the scripture text was.  Maybe you pulled out the pew Bible and followed along as the lay reader read.  Or maybe you just listened to Faye read today and that was your sole encounter with the lesson.  We preachers never know how much to assume about your familiarity with a particular Bible passage.

When I studied among the lectionary texts for today, I was captivated by this story from Mark’s Gospel.  As I read it again and again, figuring out what to select as a sermon theme, I realized there is much depth to the story.  So I am going to do something I’ve never done in over 1,300 sermons.  I’m going to look at each layer I can discern as we go deeper and deeper into this story, and as we try to figure out how it touches and affects our lives today.

Level 1:  Jesus heals two persons—a woman’s daughter suffering from an unclean spirit, commonly known at the time as demon possession.  The second healing was of “a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech.”  Two healings, both successful.

Level 2:  The woman was a Greek of Syrophoenician origin, living in the region of Tyre, an area outside Jewish influence.  She was a Gentile, not a derogatory term but one used to this day among those of the Jewish faith to refer to a non-Jew.  Our Jewish friends would call us Gentiles.  The deaf man was also from out of the area, as Jesus traveled an indirect route from Tyre north to Sidon on his way to Decapolis.  So both of the persons healed were non-Jews, not Galileans, and likely not believers in Jesus as the Messiah.

Level 3:  The manner in which the healings were requested was different.  In the first, the woman approached Jesus.  Jewish men were not approached by women.  But this woman “immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet.  She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.”  In the healing of the man, others brought him to Jesus; “and they begged him to lay his hand on him.”  In the first healing, the little girl’s mother requested; in the second, friends of the man requested.  In both cases the word was “begged.”

Level 4:  We cannot ignore Jesus’ strange treatment of the woman.  His response to her request to heal her daughter is the true difficulty of the text.  Scholars and preachers alike have tried to explain it away for centuries.  “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”  Dogs in the ancient world certainly did not have the status of “man’s best friend” as they do today.  To call someone a dog was usually an insult.  The Jewish faithful were referred to as “children”; and Gentiles were referred to as “dogs”.  Was Jesus implying his ministry was only to those who believed in him?  That puts at odds his later statements to “go and make disciples of all nations.”  Perhaps it helps to understand that if Mark’s gospel was written around the time of the Jewish War—66-73 A.D.—Jewish-Gentile tension would have been dramatically heightened in that area.  The historical environment of the times seeps into the psyche of the writer, even today.  Mark may have preserved this story to underscore the precedence of the Jews in God’s plan of salvation to remind the fledgling, predominately Gentile church in Tyre of God’s favor for his children.

It must be noted that when the woman responded to Jesus that “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs”, she challenged him that the Gentiles had a right to God’s mercy and salvation as well as the Jews.  Recognizing her faith, Jesus told her that the demon had left her daughter.

Level 5:  We must consider the nature of the diseases.  The woman’s daughter was said to have an unclean spirit and “possessed by a demon.”  The man was physically imperfect, just as were many other persons Jesus healed throughout the Gospels.  These two persons would have been marginalized by their socio-religious culture.  The sick were sick for a reason:  perhaps God was punishing them!

Are you aware that attitude exists to this day?  I have had people of faith, members of my churches, upon hearing the bad diagnosis from their doctor, cry out, “What did I do to deserve this?  I lived a good life!”  Or, “Why is God doing this to me?”

In their moment of anguish, when the blood from their heart is pounding in their ears and they feel as if a car were sitting on their chest, it is nearly impossible to tell them that cancer is no respecter of a person’s religious faith or lack thereof.  Mutant cells begin to multiply in the random or precise pattern of disease that has nothing to do with your faith, your lifestyle, even your health.  How many people do we know who have had, or died, from lung cancer who never smoked, nor were much exposed to second-hand smoke?  Most recently, Dana Reeve comes to mind.

Level 6:  The method of healing.  In the first, Jesus ever sees nor touches the young girl.  It is the faith of the woman in his power to do so that persuades him to accomplish it at a distance.  He tells the woman to go home; the demon has left her daughter.  In the second healing, the man is brought directly to Jesus, whereupon Jesus “put his fingers into the man’s ears, and he spat and touched his tongue.  Then, looking up to heaven, Jesus sighed and said to him, ‘Ephphatha’, meaning ‘Be opened’.”  Jesus used his own spittle, a common practice among ancient healers; but he differentiates himself from other healers by appealing to God, upon whom he relied for his power.

How are we healed?  Most commonly, if we’re not stubborn, we call our doctor.  We expect him or her to prescribe some medicine or treatment that, within days, will cure what ails us.  But other times we may give in to patience and the power of prayer.  A woman I know who goes to another church did both for her young son in recent months, but she really attributes his healing to the laying on of hands by the elders of their church.

Level 7:  And to my mind, one of the most significant points.  Jesus had gone away from Galilee.  The story begins, “He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there.”  Later, after he heals the deaf man, “Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.  They were astounded beyond measure…”  Thus, the two stories of healing we heard today are bracketed by attempts at secrecy gone awry.

There is a significant amount of secrecy concerning Jesus’ ministry in Mark’s account of the gospel.  The “messianic secret”—who Jesus is and why he was here—is finally revealed when Peter declares Jesus as the Messiah in the chapter that follows this passage.

We have spoken before of Jesus’ need for some privacy, rest, time away or time off.  Today, we would say he surely suffered from “compassion fatigue.”  Perhaps he was attempting to keep his true identity and power quiet for just a while longer, for he could foretell what lie ahead.

After Jesus orders the crowd not to spread the news of the second healing, the inverse square principle takes effect:  “the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.”  The results of Jesus’ ministry were hard to contain.  News of his work preceded him; crowds thronged to be near him (the feeding of the four thousand follows directly); his power is known by demons and humans alike.  The message is plain:  when ears are opened by his love, tongues are loosed in proclamation.  “O for a thousand tongues to sing, my great Redeemer’s praise,” Charles Wesley wrote nearly three centuries ago.

For us as 21st century Christians, perhaps this is where today’s lesson really intersects with our lives.  God’s people today are much better than those in Jesus’ day at obeying Jesus’ strange command, the warning to keep the secret.

Perhaps it is because there is privilege in being the recipient of a secret blessing.  Those who bathe in God’s grace know the blessings of salvation and the comfort that faith brings.  But, there seems to be little urgency for a public telling of the Good News.  It is as if spreading God’s love—how God has touched and changed our lives—would be a squandering that can’t be afforded.  “Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one.”  The crowd did not obey.  But we do.  All too easily, the Good News of the gospel is kept here, tucked safely within the church’s walls.

The message of Christ is not to be hoarded.  Nor can it be concealed.  Its home is in the church, but it is a message that cannot be kept secret.  The prayer for believers is brief and powerful:  “Ephphatha!”  Be opened.  Even those who believe can be hard of hearing and slow of speech.  But, God has always found a way to get the word out.  Jesus cannot be hidden.  His compassion cannot be contained.  His word cannot be restrained.  God will use us to make his love known.  We are more than recipients of grace.  We are also its messengers.  And when God so works in our lives as to move us to publicly share our faith, we may find ourselves astonished and acknowledge with the biblical crowd:  “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”