Mark 7:24-37.  Yesterday’s comments were way too long.  I hope I am not driving anyone away by writing too much.  The purpose of this blog is to help people read there Bible’s regularly and it’s hard to read something that you don’t understand.  I want to give enough information to help people understand and keep reading.  I will try to write less though.  In yesterday’s reading we saw Jesus challenged about the actions of his followers with respect to following the washing habits and traditions of the religious leaders.  Jesus’ answer went way beyond the issue and according to Mark he basically wiped out the rules about what not to eat.  Jesus’ teaching was that being “unclean” comes from within, from our hearts, and not from what we eat.  The rules were there to teach the Jewish people (and the world) that god is pure and that we are not.

The Jewish people felt that they were special, and they were, God chose them to be an example to the world.  But being special did not make them perfect, in fact the fact that they were not perfect seems to be the main point of what we learn from them.  Because they had the Law of Moses and did not keep it we all understand that god is perfect and that we are failures.  We also learn of the mercy of God and his plan to fix our relationship with Him through Jesus.  In today’s reading we see Jesus dealing with the attitude of the Israelites (Jews) toward non-Jews (Gentiles).

Remember that Mark was writing to a group of believers who were mostly not Jewish, the church in Rome.  Also remember that they were seeing more and more hostility from those around them, it would not be long before even the emperor was attacking them.  They were also seeing more and more hostility from Jewish people, some of whom may have been friends and relatives.  Mark arranged the stories he chose to tell about Jesus with all of this in mind, he wanted his history of Jesus to be useful to the believers in Rome.  As non-Jews (Gentiles) it would have been good to hear that they did not need to abandon all of their culture to follow Jesus, also it may have been much more difficult for them to find “approved” food in a Gentile place like Rome.  Not to mention the fact that the Jewish people there may have made it even more difficult to buy the “right” food, if they had wanted to obey all the rules that the Jewish leaders had placed on the Jewish people.

In today’s reading Jesus moves from the actions of these non-Jewish believers to their actual existence.  Jesus leaves the “Jewish” region of Galilee and goes to the coast.  In the history of Israel the coastlands were often occupied by a group of people know as Philistines (you may remember the story of David and Goliath (a Philistine) or of Sampson (who had a lot of trouble with the Philistines).  Tyre and Sidon were both cities on the coast that had been centers of Philistine life and culture.  Tyre was about 35 miles north-west of the Sea of Galilee in a Roman territory known as Syria or Syro-Phonecia.  This was not a “Jewish” province and most of the people there would have been Gentiles.  In this story it seems that Jesus is taking a break.  Although he may be taking a break from the crowds Mark’s gospel always moves and Jesus is there to continue working out God’s plan to save people.  The fact that Jesus didn’t want people “knowing” he was there does not mean that he didn’t care about people or that he was trying to generally keep his identity a secret.  Jesus was there for a specific purpose and it didn’t involve the crowd.  Jesus had a specific thing to do in Tyre to move god’s plan a little bit further forward.  I build and fix houses and what I do isn’t always about  pounding nails, sometimes I have to plan, get supplies, call people and arrange for them to come work,, etc.  When I have people working with me or for me it’s not always about pounding nails for them either, sometimes I need to sit down and train them, or explain the plan to them.  In this story Jesus is doing something like that.

While in Tyre a woman comes to him because a demon has possessed her daughter.  She wants Jesus to order the demon out.  In verse 26 Mark tells us that the woman was a “Greek” of the “syro-Phoenecian race”.  The Greek part probably refers to her “culture”; how she acts.  The “Syro-Phoenecian” part tells us that she clearly was not an Israelite.  Jesus tells her that he is supposed to be focusing on the Jewish people.  His comment doesn’t reject Gentiles completely because he says he is supposed to help the “children” first.  Sometimes the Jewish people are called the “children of God” and that is what Jesus is talking about here.  I the way he is dealing with the woman Jesus is sort of living out a parable with her.  He is using a picture of family life to help her, and us, understand.  So a good parent makes sure the children are “fed”.  Jesus tells her a good parent doesn’t make dinner and throw it on the floor for the dogs and leave the children at the table hungry.  Behind this example you need to understand that Jewish people often referred to gentiles as dogs.  It wasn’t a kind comparison.  Jesus doesn’t feel the same about the gentiles but is probably trying to point out just how shocking and against the “rules” what he about to do is (the same rules that the religious leaders had made up to override God’s real purposes, see Mark 7:7-13).  Instead of being insulted by Jesus comments the woman stays focused on her need (By the way some experts like to point out that Jesus uses a form of the word for “dog” that is something like “puppy”.  They think that it makes what he said less harsh.)  The woman uses the example and point out that the dogs under the table often get the crumbs that the children drop.  She doesn’t want to take food out of the “children’s mouths”, she just want a little crumb.  Clearly from what we have read in Mark so far, casting out demons is a big deal, but this woman realizes that it is just a “crumb” of what Jesus can do, she’s not starving anyone.  Jesus compliments here great faith and tells here the demon is gone.  She was right, Jesus, didn’t even have to go see the girl, his power is so strong that all he had to do was want the demon gone and it was.

After leaving Tyre Jesus took the long way back to Galilee traveling through more Gentile territory, Sidon and Decapolis.  Along the way he does another miracle, he heals a deaf and mute man.  This story may seem odd because of what Jesus does as he heals the man.  First he touches the man.  The fact that this man is living in Decapolis probably means that he is a Gentile too.  Mark doesn’t tell us that but it certainly seems to be the point of this part of Mark as we will see.  Jews avoided going into gentile territory and even tried to avoid physical contact with them, so this is unusual activities for a Jewish Rabbi (teacher), which Jesus was.  Jesus put his fingers into the mans ears then put some spit on his fingers and touched the man’s tongue.  Yuck!  What’s that all about?  In ancient days doctors would use similar ritual to try to heal someone, so Jesus was copying what the doctors would do in his day.  But why?  I’m sure the man had seen this before, and the key word is “seen”.  Remember that man could not hear.  Jesus actions would have communicate to the man that he was gong to heal him.  Of course Jesus didn’t need to follow some stupid ineffective ritual to heal, we just saw that with the woman, but by following the ritual Jesus communicated to the man in language that he would understand.  But Jesus did more, he prayed, and he did it in a way that would also help the man see.  Basically Jesus was acting out for the man this message, “I’m going to heal you and it is going to be by the power of God.”  Then Jesus healed the man, the man could hear and speak.  Some translations tell us that originally he could speak with difficulty, and that is the meaning of the word translated “mute” in verse 32.  But in verse 35 the word used means that he couldn’t speak at all and verse 37 is a quote from Isaiah 35:5-6 where the Hebrew word used means “not speak at all”.  In an old Greek translation of Isaiah 35 it actually uses the word from verse 32 to translate “mute”.  Whether the man could make any noise at all isn’t the point.  The point is that his broken body was fixed and by quoting Isaiah 35, or hinting at it, it is clear that the people saw some sort of connection with Isaiah’s words.  Those words are in a part of Isaiah where he is talking about the time in history when God will take over the world and the messiah, the Christ, the chosen one, will rule it.  It will be a time when all the promises made to the Israelites will be fulfilled.  If you read through Isaiah with us you might also remember that those promises were not just for the Israelites but that all the people groups, all the nations, of the world would share in them.  Pretty cool stuff to be hearing in from the people in the gentile region of Decapolis.  They seemed to be starting to realize that Jesus was the promise one.

God had a plan, a plan to save the world.  By world I mean the people in it.  God wants his relationship with us fixed.  It took God coming into the world and taking the consequences of our disobedience and rebellion (sin) on himself to do that.  That is why the sinless Jesus died on the cross and suffered separation (death) from God the Father; to pay the price in our place.  But that substitution would be useless unless people hear.  So God’s plan involved sitting down (or traveling around) with a small group of followers, showing and explaining who he was and what he was doing.  Jesus had more to do that just die on the cross. That is why sometimes he needed what he was doing to be private, just for his close followers, just for a time.  Remember the religious leaders were looking to destroy him (Mark 3:6).  Jesus had a complete story to set up so the whole world would be able to hear and understand and be healed.  This story was good news for those “gentile” believers living in Rome and it is good news for us too.  Jesus is willing to heal even us; Jesus’ power is for even us.  Jesus is available to all people; all the nations get to share in who the messiah is and what he is doing.  Awesome.

Jesus thank you that you do not play favorites.  Yes you had a plan and it started with the Jews, but it didn’t end there.  Thank you for being about people.  Thank you for being about me.  Help me trust you and give you honor.  Help me see you as the fulfillment of all the promises made to mankind.  Thank you for crushing the serpent (Genesis 3), help me not resurrect him in my life.  The demons are gone, my ears are open, help me speak your words of love and healing to the world around me.