St. Luke's Episcopal Church
Cleveland, Tennessee

14th Sunday after Pentecost
September 9, 2009
The Rev. Deacon Art Bass

Seeing Jesus As The Messiah

When the twelve disciples accepted the call of Jesus to follow him, they had done so largely on faith and because, no doubt, they had perceived that there was something extraordinary about this young rabbi, but what exactly was it?

After having accepted his call and having spent time living with him - - hearing him teach and seeing him heal the sick - - they had come to understand that he was special and that God was with him in a special way.

Recently, they had seen him calm the sea, restore life and health to a dead girl, feed five thousand people with only five loaves and two fish, and cross the sea by walking on water. Who was this man, Jesus?

And the twelve were not the only ones who had taken note of how special Jesus was. Many people had begun following Jesus from town to town, and wherever he went, crowds of people would turn out to hear him and to hope that they might witness one of his miracles first hand.

Now, however, Jesus had started to preach some things that seemed strange, different, even counter to his Jewish roots and culture. He spoke of people eating his flesh and drinking his blood. The Jewish people had always been taught that it was wrong to consume the blood of any creature, and of course, the eating of human flesh was just unthinkable, an abomination of the worse sort.

But Jesus also had taught that nothing which goes into someone could make them unclean; only the evil from within, on being brought out of a person, could cause them to be defiled.

All of this was different from what good, pious Jews had been brought up to believe. Some who had been following Jesus could not accept his new teachings, which so went against their religious culture, so they left. They quit following Jesus and returned to their homes. But all of the twelve, the inner circle of disciples, stayed with him. They had seen too much of God's power and authority in Jesus to leave him now, no matter what!

So today, as we have seen happen before, Jesus needs a break. He needs to get away from the crowd for a while and away from the questions of the Jewish authorities from Jerusalem.

So Jesus leaves Galilee, and he heads north into the region of Tyre. This is an area populated primarily by gentiles. Here, not so many people would know Jesus. There should be no demanding crowd in this place.

But even in this non-Jewish land, Jesus is recognized, and a gentile woman, a Syrophoenician, seeks Jesus out and begs him to exorcise a demon from her daughter at home.

Jesus, however, is very much aware that his is primarily a Jewish mission. Time is short for Jesus, and all his preparations for what is ultimately to happen in Jerusalem are preparations to be made with and for the Jewish people.

Jesus tells the woman very directly, using language drawn from his own Jewish culture, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs.” But the woman does not question Jesus' priority to his own people. Instead she says humbly: “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.” Her respectful answer, her persistence, and her faith in him impress Jesus, and he tells the woman to go home, that the demon is gone and her daughter is well.

When Jesus referred to the Syrophonecian woman as a dog taking food from children, his words may sound harsh to us - - even prejudicial by today's standards, but we have to understand that he was merely speaking as a person of his time in the culture of his time.

It is what he did for this gentile woman that is important. His actions in healing her daughter transcended culture, and were acts of grace.

No one, Jew or Gentile, deserves God's favor and goodness; no one deserves God's healing and gifts, but through Christ and through his grace and mercy, they are offered and given to all who seek them.

Thomas Cranmer clearly understood this, when in the Rite I Prayer of Humble Access, using words inspired by this very gospel, he wrote: “We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy. Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son, Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood.”

After his encounter with the Syrophonecian woman, Jesus moved from the region of Tyre and Sidon to the region of the Decopolis. “Decopolis” means ten cities, and these ten cities or towns were spread out along the eastern bank of the Jordan River. This also was predominately a gentile region.

Here too, it seems Jesus could not escape his reputation as a healer and worker of miracles. A man is brought to Jesus who is deaf and also suffers a speech impediment. Jesus makes no protest, but takes the man aside, touches his ears and his tongue, and tells him, “Ephphatha” or “be opened”, and immediately the man is healed, able to both hear and speak plainly.

Jesus asks the people to tell nothing of this man's healing, but of course the story is proclaimed everywhere to everyone. Soon all the people are saying of Jesus, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”

Together, these two healing miracles in today's gospel present further evidence, further signs pointing to who Jesus is. For those who can read these signs, that is for those who have been made able to hear, been made able to see, been made able to understand what is taking place before them, it is clear that Jesus is not just another rabbi, not even just a prophet, but is something much greater than that.

The gospel writer, Mark, wants us to remember the words of Isaiah: “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.”

When the disciples, the twelve, began following Jesus, they knew he was special, but they did not know how special. Now as we reach this point in Mark's gospel, the disciples have been given the ability to hear with understanding and to see with clarity exactly who they have been following: Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, himself. In next week's gospel, the disciples will finally come to grips with this fact.

Of course, we have an advantage over the disciples in today's gospel. We already know the whole story, the whole good news of the gospel. We know who Jesus is, and we know that he is Lord of both heaven and earth. We know about his sacrifice; we know about his resurrection; and we know that because of what he did for us, we do not have to look for crumbs under the table.