Text: Mark 7:24-37
Theme: “What Makes Jesus Happy”
15th Sunday
after Pentecost
September 6, 2015
FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
Denton, Texas
Rev. Paul R. Dunklau
+In the Name of Jesus+
24 Jesus
left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre.[a]
He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it; yet he could not keep
his presence secret. 25 In
fact, as soon as she heard about him, a woman whose little daughter was
possessed by an impure spirit came and fell at his feet. 26 The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian
Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.
27 “First
let the children eat all they want,” he told her, “for it is not right to take
the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
28 “Lord,”
she replied, “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
29 Then
he told her, “For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter.”
30 She
went home and found her child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
What makes
Jesus happy? It’s a good question for
the church (ours included) to ask, and it’s an even better question to have
some solid answers for. What makes Jesus
happy?
Well, for
starters, it looks to me as though He’s happy when he can get away from it
all. Today’s Gospel, geographically,
locates Him in Tyre. That would be modern
day Lebanon. My former employer was from
Lebanon. He and his family immigrated to
America in the 1970s during the Lebanese civil war. They now enjoy full American citizenship. And
they are Christians of the Maronite Catholic variety.
Another thing
that makes Jesus happy, based on this Gospel, might be a private
residence. Mark reports: (Jesus) “entered a house and did not want
anyone to know it.”
So here we
have a happy, Labor Day sort of Jesus!
It’s all about getting away from it all, going “off grid” (as they say
nowadays) and spending a day in a comfortable home “chilling out”. Look around in the Gospels for workaholic
Jesus, and you don’t find Him. Neither
do you find a slothful, couch potato Jesus.
It never ceases to amaze me.
Jesus defies every profile folks try to slap on Him.
Interrupting
our happy, Labor Day sort of Jesus is a woman from Greece. She was somewhat familiar with region where
Jesus was staying, for she was a Syrophoenician by birth. In short, she knew the area; she likely grew
up there. She’d been listening to all the latest
scuttlebutt about this itinerant rabbi and was able to find out where Jesus
was.
The woman was
not happy. The only thing that could
make her happy would be the healing of her daughter. An evil spirit possessed the daughter. The mother wanted the daughter back. The demoniac had to go. Word on the street was that Jesus could
exorcise and cast out things like evil spirits.
The woman was beyond the lighting candles, holding hands, and praying
bit. Piety would not bring her daughter
back. But Jesus might.
She “fell at
His feet.” That’s the biblical posture
of worship – to kneel down and bend over almost in the fetal position. Then the begging began. The Syrophoenician mother from Greece with
the demoniac daughter is reduced to begging.
That’s not a happy visual.
Jesus was not
from Greece, and He was not Syrophoenician by birth. Born in Bethlehem, a child of Abraham, a
descendant of King David, and emerging from the history and promises of the
Israelite people, Jesus was as Jewish as you can get. Not so this Arabic woman and her
demon-possessed daughter.
Finally, Jesus
speaks to the woman – and that, given the way women were treated in general in
those days, is quite a radical thing to do.
He says to her: “First let the
children eat all they want, for it is not right to take the children’s bread
and toss it to their dogs.”
What an
obnoxious statement. What a sickening
phrase to utter! What a horrible thing
to say! What happened to basic human
decency? Have you ever asked that
question lately given the almost daily news reports? Here was this human being at the end of her
rope; life, as they say, was “dancing on her last nerve”. She was vulnerable, desperate, rolled up on
the ground in the fetal position. Jesus
intimated that she was little more than a wild dog. It was beyond insulting; it was a racial slur. The “children” were the Israelites. The “dogs” were non-Jewish people like this
Syrophoenician woman and her daughter ravaged by an evil spirit.
The big
surprise is that the woman did not get all 21st-century American and
gasp in shock at this nasty turn of phrase.
The feelings, sensitivities, and piety of a lesser person might be
offended. Of course, she could have
stood up, brushed herself off, and said:
“I refuse to be treated this way.
How dare you speak in that manner, Jesus of Nazareth! I’m setting my boundary right now. I want nothing to do with you. It’s bad enough that I have to be in this
world. I don’t have to be of it.” Off she would strut in her pious
sanctimony.
No. That’s not what happens. Thanks be to God. She doesn’t get up from the ground. She stays put.
“It’s not
right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs,” says Jesus. I can almost envision her glancing up at him
with a wry, broadening smile. She says: “Yes, Lord.
But even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Did she give him a wink when she said
it? We are not told.
But she did
have him at hello! She had him eating
out of her proverbial hand. She, the
Syrophoenician mother with the demoniac daughter, cornered Jesus in His own
words.
It doesn’t say
that Jesus smiled, but how could He not be grinning from ear to ear? “For such a reply,” he said, “you may go; the
demon has left your daughter.”
Here is what
makes Jesus happy: corner Him in His own
words. When it looks, for all the world,
that He’s kicking you to the curb, corner Him with His own words. When life hands you a lemon, the best
lemonade is made when you corner Him in His own words. He loves that. He’s happy about that. He marvels at such faith as that.
Would you like
a full-blast answer to what makes Jesus happy?
Read Luke chapter fifteen. What
did the shepherd do when he found the lost sheep? What did the absent-minded woman do when she
found the lost coin? What did the father
do when the prodigal son came home?
“There is joy among the angels over one sinner who changes his/her
mind,” says Jesus.
The remarkable
thing about the Syrophoenician woman with the demoniac daughter lies in what – or, I should say, who – she
took refuge in. She did not take refuge
in her race, nationality gender, economic status, sexual orientation, political
affiliation, her piety, or her pride.
Setting all that aside, she took refuge in Jesus.
She got the
crumbs from the Master’s table and then some.
She went home. She found her
daughter on the bed. The demon was
gone. Your sanctified imaginations, I
trust, can fill in the details. This mother and daughter would never be the
same. They knew to whom they were
precious.
Do you know to
whom you are precious?
The Gospel
does not declare that “God so loved Syrophoenician women and their demoniac
daughters that He gave His only-begotten Son.”
It says God “so loved the WORLD…”.
And that, obviously, includes the Syrophoenician women with demoniac
daughters demographic!
What makes
Jesus happy is a people and church that stays put – even when it seems as if
God is being mean and vindictive. What
makes Jesus happy is a people and a First Presbyterian Church of Denton that
clings to His gracious promises. When you
and I are ready and eager to corner Him in His Words, He is happy.
The crumbs are
about to fall from the table! We will
never be the same. Beyond the gruff
exterior of God, you are precious to Jesus – worth Him giving His body and blood
for.
Amen.
