Mark 7: 24–37,
Isaiah 35: 4–7
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May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be
acceptable to you, O Lord our strength and our Redeemer. Amen.
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What a week we have had! It all began as our twenty–year
war in Afghanistan came to an end – and at great peril, the last
five C–17 cargo planes brought US troops and Afghan evacuees to
safety. But that was only the beginning. The week ended as
Hurricane Ida devastated an area that extended from the Gulf coast of
Louisiana to the Atlantic coast of New England. In its wake 60
people had died and countless homes had flooded or been destroyed by
tornadoes. And in the West scores of wildfires burned unchecked,
as firefighters concentrated their efforts on just a few heavily
populated areas. The images have been apocalyptic. It has
indeed been quite a week.
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Yet in the midst of all this chaos, all this death and destruction,
God’s grace has also emerged – all the more beautiful
because it was so unexpected. The prophet Isaiah put it well
when he said that God’s grace in our midst is like streams of
water in the desert, water that causes the desert to bloom with new
life and hope. And when I looked back over this week I found
God’s grace all over the place!
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I saw it in Afghanistan when I learned that President Biden – with
the clandestine help of the US Embassy and many US Special
Forces — had managed to airlift out 124,000 US citizens and
Afghan nationals, all in a three–week period. This was three
times the number of souls anyone thought he could save, a
present–day Dunkirk. And under the radar, that effort
hasn’t ended yet. So there is yet hope for those who
still want to leave.
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I saw it in Louisiana, two days after the storm passed, when no one in
that whole region had power – or food, or much hope at
all. In the midst of that bleak picture, a New Orleans resident
named Tommy, faced with a freezer full of food that was about to spoil,
decided to cook a feast for his whole neighborhood. “If
we’re not here to help each other,” he said, “why
are we here?”
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I saw it in New York City, even as the whole area flooded after
receiving eight inches of rain in just a few hours. Yet even at
the height of the storm, people were stopping their cars on the
throughways and getting out to help other motorists, all of them
stranded in the floodwaters. And in one neighborhood of Queens,
where the water flooded basement apartments in just a matter of
minutes, neighbor helped neighbor to dry shelter in their own homes.
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So this week, “We’re all in this thing together,” is
not just a platitude, a nice thought. Some people actually believe
it. They act on it. Nor is it a new thought. In fact,
it might just have been what God had in mind in the very beginning,
when he designed us all for relationship. No matter if some of
us learn it later than others. Eventually we all catch
on. Eventually we all learn to appreciate the web of relationship
that holds us all in God’s love.
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And dare I say – that even Jesus had to learn to recognize the
grace of God – even in areas where no one anticipated it. In
fact our Gospel account this morning gives us not one but two of those
incidents where even Jesus was taken aback by the breadth, the
magnitude, the inclusivity of God’s Kingdom.
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In the first incident, Jesus and his disciples have ventured farther
north than they’ve ever travelled before – to the Gentile
region of Tyre on the coast of the Mediterranean. We
don’t know if they were trying to expand their own territory or
just looking for some relief from all the Jewish crowds who had been
besieging them. In any event, in that Gentile region they
weren’t expecting to be recognized. But in that expectation
they were disappointed. For a Syrophoenician woman does
recognize Jesus as the miracle–worker she has heard so much
about. And she needs a miracle – not for herself, but for
her little daughter. For her child is sick, possessed by an
unclean spirit, and this mother seems to realize that only a miracle
will save her. So she bows down, humbly, at Jesus’ feet,
imploring him to save her daughter.
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We say it every week in the creeds – that Jesus was fully divine
and fully human too. But I wonder if we really believe
the “fully human” part. We prefer, I think, to
believe in Jesus’ omniscience, his divine oversight of each and
every situation. Only, here, in this account where a desperate
Gentile mother – by her quick wit – prevails over his
initial refusal to help – we are almost forced to realize that
Jesus himself needed to learn who was to be saved and who was lost,
who was worthy and who was unworthy of God’s miracle–working
power. It’s almost as if God brought this unnamed Gentile
woman to Jesus’ attention – just to awaken him to the
unexpectedly gracious, wildly inclusive character of God’s
Kingdom. For by her tenacious faith and her desperate love for
her child this unnamed woman does prevail. Her child is delivered
of a demon — and Jesus is forced to acknowledge that God’s
mercy is wider than he had first believed.
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But then, just in case we have missed this message that God’s
Kingdom will include all people – Mark tells us how Jesus and
his disciples then travel back to the Sea of Galilee to a
Greek–speaking region called the Decapolis. Here again, no
one is Jewish. No one is approved as Kosher. But here again
he heals someone – a man who is deaf and has a speech
impediment. The details of this healing are peculiar – with
Jesus putting his fingers into the man’s ears and touching his
tongue as well. But when Jesus commands, “Be opened,”
suddenly the man can hear. He can speak clearly. And we
have to wonder if what Mark really meant for us to notice is that
God’s Kingdom was thereby opened to one and all.
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And maybe what we have to realize is that we too must be open to one
and all. Ready to receive strangers in our homes. Ready
to open the doors of this church to people who don’t look like
us. Ready to reach out – beyond our comfort zones – to
help anyone in need.
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Maybe God is calling us to be agents of his grace – streams in
the desert that cause deserts to bloom.
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Amen.
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