Standing in the Need of Prayer

Preached on September 8, 2024, at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on Mark 7:24-37.

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Let’s start by asking, Why was Jesus in Tyre? Last week, Susan preached on the first part of Mark 7. Jesus had done some amazing things reported in Mark 6. He fed 5000 men, walked on water, and after landing at Gennesaret, he healed many people. Of course, the scribes and Pharisees couldn’t stand for that sort of thing. So they challenged him. The first half of this chapter describes Jesus sparring with his fellow Jews about what is proper behavior in God’s eyes. They argued about ritual purity and interpretations of Mosaic Law.

One of the students who attends Sacred Paths, our campus ministry, commented that she gets the most criticism from other Christians. Just the fact that she attends our meetings while also attending other ministries must mean that she has ideas that are “wrong” in the eyes of those other ministries. And of course, in many Christian traditions, certainty and having the right answers and right beliefs are essential to salvation. They are right and we are wrong, of course. If you argue about certain doctrines, they will either appeal to the authority of the Pope or some other human leader, or cite some scripture that they believe settles things.

This kind of argument is tiring. We are all children of God, all trying to do our best to understand God’s will for our lives. Some beliefs may be more or less life-giving, but it’s hard to say who is right and who is wrong. The stressful nature of discussing matters that are so close to the heart is probably why there is a taboo about discussing religion in polite company. The self-righteous nature of those who think they have exclusive access to the Truth shuts down a healthy exploration of faith that allows for different perspectives and different ways of following God.

Jesus was embroiled in these arguments, had enough, and decided to escape to Tyre for a little break. He probably figured that the scribes and Pharisees wouldn’t chase him that far. Tyre is a good distance from Gennesaret, about 35 miles, probably two or even three days’ journey, and Gennesaret is already a good distance from Jerusalem, about 80 miles. So Jesus could perhaps count on some downtime where he didn’t have to spar with other Jews about the interpretation of written and oral Law.

Tyre was an old and prosperous city. It was the main source of Tyrian purple, an extremely valuable dye that they started producing about 1200 BC. Tyrian purple is extracted from the mucus produced by the Murex family of sea snails. Its production is difficult and time-consuming, and so the dye was literally worth its weight in gold. It was a leading commodity of the Phoenicians that was exported around the Mediterranean and because of its expense, it became associated with royalty.

In the Roman era, Tyre began producing another valuable commodity called garum, which was a sauce created by fermenting fish innards. One source I read compared garum to caviar, because it was so highly prized. The fact that Tyre produced these two commodities by processing fish and sea snails probably made the whole city smell bad, but also made it an extremely wealthy city. On top of these industries, Tyre was also a major port that connected the Mediterranean to the Silk Road and East Asia. Tyrian shekels were almost pure silver so they were the currency used to pay the Temple tax.

So when you hear that Jesus went away to Tyre, maybe it was like going away to Silicon Valley today. Sure, there are poor people in Silicon Valley like everywhere else, but you might expect the random person you meet to be relatively well-off.

The story of Jesus’s encounter with a Syrophoenician woman doesn’t look good at first. A woman comes to Jesus asking for what he has already done so many times before, to heal her daughter. Does he do it? No. He compares her to a dog and seems ready to send her away. I’ve read several perspectives on this story, but the one that makes the most sense to me is that he was implicitly criticizing the wealth of Tyre. As a wealthy commercial center, its residents would have naturally felt superior to a Galilean country bumpkin. So Jesus is essentially saying, You have all that wealth that has been extracted from people like me. Let my people at least have these gifts from God to themselves. Use your wealth to take care of your daughter, and I will share God’s grace with those who have nothing.

In response, the woman asks for the crumbs from God’s table. We have already seen, a chapter earlier, that when Jesus feeds the multitude, the crumbs fill a dozen baskets. Shortly after this story, Jesus feeds another multitude, and the crumbs fill seven baskets. God’s providence is so abundant that no matter how much is showered upon the lost sheep of Israel, there will always be more left for the Gentiles.

So here we have the contrast between the people to whom Jesus was sent and the people who were outside the covenant that God had made with Abraham. The covenant established an eternal relationship between God and Israel in which God would shower blessings upon Israel in return for their love of both God and neighbor. The story of Abraham actually has two covenants within it, first one of unconditional love and grace from God to humanity, and then one that is conditional. My interpretation is that God’s unconditional love and grace are always available to us, but that the conditions of the Law guide us as we strive to build a society that lives as God’s kingdom now.

The scribes and Pharisees in Jesus’s time, as well as many Christians today, put the emphasis on the conditions. You must earn your place in God’s kingdom by following these nitpicky rules as interpreted by someone in authority. Only those who embrace the church’s rules are worthy of a place in the earthly expression of God’s kingdom. But they forget that the rules are built on top of the unconditional love and grace of the original covenant. They forget that no human can limit God.

The Syrophoenician woman, though, focused on what actually matters. She loved her daughter. No amount of wealth or social privilege could heal her daughter. She may have thought that this country bumpkin from Galilee was beneath her station and not worthy of her attention, just as Jews thought that Gentiles were outside the covenant and not worthy of approaching God in the Temple. But one thing was more powerful than any hierarchy of wealth, culture, or ethnicity: love. Her love of her daughter drove her to seek any solution, no matter the cost to her dignity.

I am reminded of the time Rhonda was fighting her facial pain. We have very good health insurance. I wouldn’t say that I’m wealthy exactly, but I certainly have more financial resources and job flexibility than many people. We visited numerous doctors, in St. Louis and at Mayo Clinic and at Cleveland Clinic. But at the end of the day, none of it mattered. Money can’t buy a cure. The only way we were able to get her pain under control was by working with one doctor over a period of nearly two years to find the solution together. My love for her kept me searching for a solution, and our relationship with her neurologist enabled us to find the solution together.

In the same way, the woman’s wealth did not enable her to cure her daughter. Her wealth did not make her worthy to enter Jesus’s presence. Yet her ethnicity did not make her unworthy, either. The disciples may have thought that she had no place asking Jesus for help, but she was bold to ask anyway.

Have you ever been made to feel unworthy of God? Maybe you were too young or too old, or of the wrong social status, or had said or done something outside the norm or contrary to doctrine, or you weren’t dressed properly. People have a way of making outsiders feel uncomfortable and unworthy, and church members are sinful people. We try our best, but sometimes we can’t help but allow our cultural attitudes overwhelm our calling as Christians. Perhaps this woman felt the same way. She went to a house full of Galilean Jews, probably mostly men, and felt excluded because of her gender and ethnicity.

Yet she persisted. She knew that none of it mattered. It didn’t matter that she was a Gentile. It didn’t matter what her wealth or social status were. It didn’t matter if she was ritually unclean. All that mattered was that she loved her daughter, and Jesus could heal her. She needed God’s grace in her life, and nothing would prevent her from seeking it.

Jesus first reminded her of her status, perhaps as a social critique. Perhaps he knew how his disciples would react if he left their fellowship to care for the child of a wealthy foreigner. She could have responded by demanding that Jesus do her bidding, as she had probably done before to many other men she considered beneath her. She could have responded by promising him wealth or power, just as Satan tempted Jesus after his baptism. Yet she knew that Jesus was no ordinary man, able to be bribed or cajoled.

The sacrifice that God desires is a contrite heart. The woman knew that she needed God’s grace and that nothing she could do would make her worthy of Jesus’s service. But Jesus’s response reminds us that nothing she could do would make her unworthy, either. She was in need, and God’s abundant grace overflowed onto her.

In the same way, no matter how worthy or unworthy you feel, you may be bold to approach God with your needs. God cannot be cajoled or bribed. God cannot be argued into doing your will. But if you approach God with a contrite heart as the Syrophoenician woman did, God’s grace will flow over and through you. Even the crumbs of God’s blessings are abundant and life-giving.

You too may be wealthy or poor, an insider or an outsider, a person of high standing in the community or one of the lowly and forgotten. None of that matters. All of us stand in need of prayer. All of us need God’s grace in our lives—unearned and unearnable, a free gift through Christ. All of us need healing in our bodies, minds, and souls. All of us need to be connected to the infinite love of God that transcends the pains and struggles of the world. And all of us may be bold to approach God through Christ who came to demonstrate that God’s love is for everyone. Amen.

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