“As It Was and Ever Shall Be”

Mark 7:24-37

In Genesis 1:31 God looks out over what he has made and pronounces it good. In Isaiah 35:5 the prophet proclaims a time when “… the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped.” In Like 4 Jesus quotes from Isaiah 61, saying that, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” And what was that Scripture? “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

God’s Creation, unsullied by sin, is good. So says God himself in Genesis 1. A time is coming, according to Isaiah 35 and 61, when God’s anointed will come to restore the goodness to all that is. In Luke 4 Jesus makes it clear, in the words of Jeff Cook, that “… [He] believed that was exactly what was beginning to happen. God’s restorative rule was beginning to put back together all that had been slashed and burned by the power of sin. It was an event to be welcomed. It was an event to celebrate.”

As it was in the beginning of human history it shall ultimately be at the end of it: as it was it shall ever will be. In the words of biblical scholar E. P. Sanders, “Jesus did not expect the end of the world in the sense of the destruction of the cosmos. He expected a divine, transforming miracle.” And to quote Jeff Cook again, “God has not abandoned our world. Nor does he have a vacuum ready to suck out all the people he likes so he can destroy the rest.”

Creation will be restored. The human race will be redeemed from the horrible results of its own self-destructiveness. Illnesses healed completely. Death destroyed forever. The demonic forces of evil totally and utterly exorcised from God’s good creation.

And this isn’t something that will begin some day. It has begun in the incarnational ministry of Jesus. Jesus meant it when he proclaimed in Mark 1:15, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news.” Jesus had come not just to proclaim the good news; he had come to live it, model it, and act it out. He healed the sick. He raised the dead. He cast out demons. Although evil had come into the world to raise – r-a-i-s-e – hell, Jesus had now come to raze – r-a-z-e – hell: to destroy it.

In today’s text Jesus casts a demon out of a child and restores hearing to a deaf man. In doing so he restores to each of them some of the life they were created to live. And in the case of the little girl he interrupts a time of respite from his ministry to Israel to do so. Verses 24-29 take place in Tyre – in a Gentile country – where Jesus was traveling incognito. He didn’t want to be recognized. But recognized he was by a Gentile mother who came pleading on behalf of her daughter.

Some background: Jews considered Gentiles to be dogs: wild, mangy, flea-bitten, no account creatures. Jesus makes reference to this when he says, “Let the children [the Jews] be fed first, for it is not fair to take [those] children’s food and throw it to the dogs [the Gentiles].” He was not saying that he did not have a ministry to that woman and her child. He was saying that his first ministerial priority was to Israel: let the children be fed first.

Let’s look a little deeper. When he says that it would be unfair to throw the children’s food to the dogs he isn’t saying what the English translation suggests. He is not calling the woman and her daughter wild, mangy, flea-bitten creatures of no-account – he wasn’t, to put it crudely, calling the woman a name that rhymes with witch.

The Aramaic word he used, the one that Mark translated to Greek, was a softer more gentle way of saying “dog.” He was talking about a puppy, a house pet. He was telling the woman that even though the puppies were a valued part of the family, the children had to be fed first. The woman’s response: “Sir [or Lord], even the [puppies] under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” She was willing to accept crumbs from the table because her faith told her that even those crumbs were sufficient to heal her child. And thus her daughter was healed. The demon that afflicted that little girl was exorcised. A part of God’s good creation was restored. As it was in the beginning so shall it ever be.

Jesus was always getting into trouble for doing such things. He ate and drank with sinners. He touched bodies being eaten away by leprosy, and even the bodies of the dead. He spoke to women in public and even allowed them to follow him. He even talked to and drank from the cup of a woman, but not just any woman: a Samaritan lady of ill repute. In today’s text his sigh just before the healing of the deaf man was descriptive of the effort he was exerting. When he exerted such effort on the Sabbath he got accused of working. Within the context of God’s Kingdom and God’s will he was doing everything right. But in the eyes of the religious elite – the guardians of orthodoxy – he was doing everything wrong.

Why? Because he was doing God’s work of restoring creation – of giving back life – of healing what was wounded and damaged. Within the context of God’s Kingdom and God’s will he was practicing true orthodoxy: obediently pleasing his Father rather than keeping an arbitrary set of rules and regulations.

More than that, he was going against the tide of his culture. His culture said, hate the Romans. He said love them. His culture practiced vindictiveness. He taught forgiveness, turning the other cheek, and going the extra mile. His culture deemed some people to be untouchable, calling some of them dogs. He reached out to such people. His culture wanted a Messiah who would ride into Jerusalem on a stallion, leading an army of the righteous to kick the Romans out. He rode in on a lowly donkey, refused to start a war, and even let the Romans put him to death on a cross. He defied conventional wisdom, not because he wanted to be unconventional, but because his wisdom came from God and not from the world.

We are disciples of Jesus. It is to him that we are ultimately accountable. Not culture. Not conventional wisdom. Not the kingdoms of this world. Not even to what some of our brothers and sisters in Christ name orthodoxy. We are citizens of God’s Kingdom. As such it is our task to live, model, teach, and proclaim such citizenship. It is our task to continue what Jesus started: bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, let the oppressed go free, and proclaim the year of our Lord’s favor.

The Good News is that God has called us to and empowered us for just such a mission. The bad news is that in carrying it out we risk the wrath of the world. We risk being labeled as liberal, Commie, socialist, do-gooders. We risk being called unpatriotic, un-American, politically naïve, and economically irresponsible. We risk gaining a reputation as religious fanatics who do not live in the real world.

Love and forgive our enemies: how weak is that in a world where we are taught to hit back and get even? Break bread with hookers, dopers, and drunks: how unseemly that is in a church that is much more self-righteous and concerned with its cultural image than we dare admit? Welcome home our prodigals no questions asked: just how irresponsible do we want to look? Share the faith we wish to teach our children with the undeserving dogs of this world: how dare we invite such people to church? Engage in prayerful conversation – not debate, conversation – with those with whom we disagree over the various issues tearing our culture, our nation, and even our churches apart: how dare we take the risk of having to admit that we might be wrong?

In a recent workshop dealing with leading a multicultural congregation, I heard something wonderfully liberating: anyone with the heart of a pastor can lead any church. Over the past 32 years of ordained ministry I have been developing such a heart. That’s why some of you may find me a bit more liberal or unorthodox than you’re used to your pastor being.

I’m willing to officiate at weddings of folks who’ve been divorced and couples that have been living together. I’m willing to baptize the babies of unwed parents. I do not condone the behavior but I will not condemn the people. I am a pastor not a judge. In spite of the early on expressed desire of a former Session member that I act as a gadfly and all-around pain in the fanny with respect to our presbytery, I am an active part of it and friend among its minister-members. I am a pastor not a keeper of the flame of somebody else’s orthodoxy.

More than that I am a disciple of Christ who is struggling with the demands of discipleship as Jesus spells them out in the Beatitudes. I am a disciple struggling to love Jesus more than anything or anybody else. I am a disciple working to discern the full implications of citizenship in the Kingdom of God. I am a disciple heeding a call to continue the healing, redemptive work of Jesus. Amen.