Every Miracle Has a Target

Transcript

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[0:00] Our sermon text is Mark chapter 7 verses 24 through 27. It's a story of two miracles. And today I just want you to maybe sort of adjust your expectations perhaps. This is kind of a teaching sermon which is great. Every now and then we have sort of exhortational sermons which is partly but this is also a teaching sermon. We're going to learn a little bit about the purpose of miracles. We're going to look at one miracle in particular, the first one in this story, a little less on the second one, understanding why miracles are performed, how they fit into the larger goal. And this section of scripture that we're in now is what we would call narrative. It's in the gospels. There are other types of scripture. Some are epistolary, so that would be James giving some exhortation to people at a distance. There's parts of scripture that are exhortation or wisdom or poetry like psalms or proverbs, things like that. And some are prophecy, so things like Habakkuk. And Nahum and things like that where there's kind of this outpouring of God's word to Israel and to the other nations about their own sin and their need to return to him. So scripture is full of different genres of writing. It's not monolithic at all, which is what makes it so very interesting.

[1:17] And even the gospels themselves vary in what they contain. So often it's narrative, but in the midst of the narrative, sometimes Jesus will tell a parable and that functions in a very different way than the narrative. But today in the narrative, we're going to see that there's some really important and interesting things that are happening and some shocking things that might shock us. And we're going to get to that that shocking part and try to process that together. Okay. Now, one of the things we do when we look at narrative is we see that it gives us a snapshot of this sort of a short moment in time. That's how it functions. What was said and what was done. And it, but it reveals something deeper than just the narrative. So the narrative itself, for example, if the narrative was somebody went here and they did this thing and then they went somewhere else, that's the narrative. The narrative is more than just those details, those places, those times, and the things that were said. Because in the larger context, you find out what happened before it, what happened after it, what was the goal of that person who is doing something while this narrative takes place. And we see that then the narrative contributes to a larger picture about what's happening.

[2:28] And we see that then the narrative contributes to a larger picture about what's happening in the book itself. And in our case, we could say in the gospels, what is God doing in the world? And so today I'm going to encourage you to, even as we hear this narrative about two miracles, be asking ourselves, what's God's bigger plan in these two miracles? What's happening? All right. What's the larger purpose that's being served? Right.

[2:48] And I want to give just a quick introduction to our reading and we should know that Jesus is going to this. You can see it right there at the top. Jesus is going to the reading. And then we see that he's going to the region of Tyre. That always confused me when I was a kid because I always thought of the car, you know, with the tire, but it's spelled with the letter Y. And I just thought, why did they have to name it that? Because, you know, it's confusing. But of course, they named it first. So who am I to complain, right? It should have been somebody else. But anyways, they go to the region of Tyre. And Tyre is populated with a larger portion of non-Jewish people or Gentile people. This is an important sort of geographical, social, cultural context that helps us understand narratives. And it's also sort of a coastal town, probably richer. This important detail is probably richer. It's a hub of trade. So you have rich Gentile people predominantly.

[3:40] And it seems that Jesus might have gone there because he wanted to rest. He wanted to get away from people who knew anything about him so that he could just have a little space to himself. Turns out that that's not possible because in Mark chapter 3, verse 8, a few chapters before this, we read that people from this very region had come to where Jesus was, where he was teaching somewhere else. And they were amazed at everything he was doing. And they came back to this region and went home and told all their neighbors. So unfortunately or fortunately for Jesus, trying to escape notoriety, he went to a place where his reputation had already preceded him. So his attempt to rest failed. But that's okay because Jesus is very interruptible. That's part of his nature, which I love. So Jesus is interruptible. And he cares more about a person in need than he cares about his own comfort and his own emotional bandwidth. And that's something that's really amazing about Jesus. Okay.

[4:40] So that's one detail I want us to keep track of. Yeah. That's just the one detail I wanted us to see. Let's go to our reading. Mark chapter 7, verse 24. Then Jesus left Galilee and went north to the region of Tyre. He didn't want anyone to know which house he was staying in, but he couldn't keep it a secret. Right away a woman who had heard about him came and fell at his feet. Her little girl was possessed by an evil spirit, and she begged him to cast out the demon from her daughter.

[5:15] Since she was a Gentile born in Syrian Phoenicia, Jesus told her, First I should feed my children, feed the children, my children. My own family, the Jews. It isn't right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs.

[5:34] She replied, That's true, Lord. But even the dogs under the table are allowed to eat the scraps from the children's plates. Good answer, he said. Now go home, for the demon has left your daughter. And when she arrived home, she found her little girl lying quietly in bed. And the demon was gone.

[5:57] Jesus left Tyre and went up to Sidon before going back to the Sea of Galilee and the region of the Ten Towns. A deaf man with a speech impediment was brought to him, and the people begged Jesus to lay his hands on the man to heal him.

[6:12] Jesus led him away from the crowd so that they could be alone. He put his fingers into the man's ears. Then, spitting on his own fingers, he touched the man's tongue. Looking up to heaven, he sighed. And said, Ephrathah, which means, Be opened. Instantly the man could hear perfectly, and his tongue was freed, so he could speak plainly. Jesus told the crowd not to tell anyone. But the more he told them not to, the more they spread the news. They were completely amazed and said again and again, Everything he does is wonderful. He even makes the deaf to hear and give speech to those who cannot hear. He even makes the deaf to hear and give speech to those who cannot speak.

[6:56] Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. And we ask that you would add your blessing to it. In Jesus' name. Amen. I want to just really quick before I go into the first miracle, I want to contrast these two miracles. Because there are some people when they read miracles, especially the second one, they're like, maybe that wasn't a miracle. Maybe that was sort of some homespun, you know, primitive miracle. Maybe that was some sort of preventive medicine that Jesus was doing, like sticking his finger in his ear. Maybe he pulled some wax out. Maybe Jesus had a really good Q-tip, you know, and he was like, let's just fix this, you know, and let me just massage his tongue.

[7:37] But, you know, so you could say that, so then the miracle isn't that miraculous. But the preceding miracle, where Jesus heals a woman's daughter, that's at a distance. Do you get that, right? It's like she wasn't even in the same room. That's pretty miraculous. And that's not the only time that Jesus heals somebody at a distance. So, you know, sometimes people want to say, well, there's some natural remedies going on here when Jesus heals people.

[8:02] That's because you've already decided that miracles aren't miracles. Just because you don't have faith in miracles. But if Jesus can be raised from the dead, if Jesus can walk on the water, I don't think there's much else. You know, these other things shouldn't really be surprising to us. I wouldn't bring that skepticism to things like that. But I think the contrast is there to teach about miracles. That sometimes miracles are hands-on for Jesus, and sometimes miracles are at a distance. And in this case, these miracles both have very different purposes. But they both speak to one main idea, which we'll get into. Well, let's look at the first miracle. This woman had heard about him. He couldn't get away from his own reputation. You know, she had heard about him, probably from a neighbor who had gone to see him.

[8:47] And she falls at his feet. Now, it's possible that she was from the wealthier classes of society. She was a woman of Tyre. She was a Syrophoenician woman. So that means she was a Gentile. We don't know. We don't know if she was wealthy or not. But you know what? Any parent, whether they're wealthy or not, if they have a sick child, they'll do anything. Have you figured that out? You'll do anything for a child. I've learned that myself, right? So she falls at his feet, which is a sign of humility. She's willing to get down and beg. Because here's somebody who might help her child. And I'm right there with her. I would crawl through mud if my child was in the hospital and there was no other hope. But somebody said they could do something. I would do that. I think you would too. And so she asks for help with her child. And so Jesus challenges her. He says, first I should feed my own family.

[9:43] And this is the part that I hope shocks you a little bit. He says, it isn't right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs. Ouch! What's Jesus up to here? Are you a little surprised, shocked? Now I preached on this a few years ago, so this might depend on your memory.

[10:03] But because the lectionary repeats every three years. I hope you're a little shocked at the way Jesus speaks to the woman who wants, and she wants a miracle for her daughter. How could he heap this indignity on top of her, right? She's there with a need and he calls her a dog. Which is an insult. In basically every culture except for like the Westminster dog show. Everybody loves dogs there. So if you compare somebody to a dog there, it's probably a pat on the back. But just about everywhere else in the world culturally being a dog, being called a dog is not good. So the Germans have a really good phrase, Schweinhund, which means pig dog. This is kind of putting them together into one. The Germans have all sorts of really great words, you know, like schadenfreude, right? Schweinhund, yeah, they're good at it.

[10:48] So hold on to the idea. I want you to hold on to this idea that some commentators have. And this is, I'm going to sort of entertain this idea that some commentators have about this interaction. And here's how it goes. That what Jesus says when he calls her a dog and he says, I have to take care of my Jewish children so I don't really have the bandwidth to help a Gentile dog. So this is very much a racial, cultural, linguistic thing going on here, right? And that was just what was in the air at the time. That's how people saw each other. Jews, this wasn't actually very remarkable for the culture. It strikes us poorly, but it wasn't very remarkable for the culture because Jews and Gentiles don't get along with each other. And they don't do anything to help each other, right? If you were a Jewish woman asking for help with a Jewish child, I would help you. If you're a Gentile, you need to get your own help from some other Gentile person who can help with your child. But I'm not going to do it because we don't help each other. So there's sort of a built-in racism that we see even in the early church. Remember a few weeks ago, we talked about the widows getting different shares by the people who were passing out the food afterwards.

[11:59] Because we don't help people that aren't like us. That's just in the air. That's just the world back then. This is the world now, if we're going to be completely honest with ourselves, right? So the problem, though, is that that would make Jesus kind of a racist person, wouldn't it? Right? Because he's bought into this sort of racial worldview that says, I only help my kind of people. But isn't that what he just said? I mean, if we have to go with the text, it's just what he said. I can only help my people. You know?

[12:29] It's for the children. It's not for the dogs. Right? So that would make Jesus a racist person. So again, I'm going to ask you to hold on to that idea because this is a challenge. This is a challenge to our understanding of Jesus. Okay?

[12:47] George. George is a spoiler. Next time you do that, you have to say spoiler alert first and then people can cover theirs. No, very good, George. Thank you, George. No, it's good. It's good. So hold on to that idea. But here's what's great. The woman, you know, when you're desperate or smart or both, she had a quick response. You know, I'm not like this woman. I'm like somebody says something and I have a really good retort three hours later. And I'm like, man, I wish I had a time machine so I could go back and say that thing. I just can't. I'm not hypervigilant like that, which I guess is a blessing because I don't think I just naturally trusting maybe. But I think of the good. I think of the good comeback way too late. But not this lady. She was ready. I think out of desperation and intelligence. And she says and she's not she again, she's not she's not afraid of humiliating herself anymore. She says, you know what? We're going to do it. We are dogs. Right. I am a dog. I am a dog at this table. But even dogs get a few scraps that fall from the children's plates, don't they? Right. And that's true. Right. You know, if you have a dog, you know what I mean? In our case, in our family, the dog, the dog doesn't get what falls on the floor.

[14:00] The dog gets whatever the dog wants. Basically, at our at our house, it seems to me so. And I'm I'm probably the cause of that because I'm a softy. And so. So we just give the dog what he wants. But so we have a higher view of dogs, I guess, than they did back then. But anyways, I completely understand. You know, she's willing to do anything. She's willing to suffer humiliation. She's willing to engage in this dialogue if she thinks it'll help her child. Right. And so and Jesus responds in this translation. He says, good answer. Like he was. He's like, that was well done. You know, well done. And he heals her daughter from a distance, which is something he doesn't want. He can do. You know, this is this is. So what we're what do we make of all this? Because a lot of things are in play right here. One is.

[14:52] What is the nature of the incarnation? OK, hold on to that idea, both in terms of power and in terms of sort of what we maybe would call moral progress. OK, what is how does the the incarnation work? Now, some of these comments that I've asked you to hold hold on to see the story this way.

[15:11] Jesus is unthinkable. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. willing to be humbled and admit that he was wrong, that he had something to learn, and that even a very unlikely person could teach him something. So that, in a way, that's kind of neat, right?

[15:55] Right? And so in this version, it's the woman who teaches Jesus a lesson and wins a miracle for her daughter, okay? Now, I'm going to tell you one thing. You may not like, you may love that, or you may not like it, or you may not love it. And going back to a few sermons ago, I keep referring back to previous sermons, it's okay. You can believe it this way, you can believe it the other way. It's not really central to our faith in the covenant church. We have the freedom to think differently on this particular miracle. That's okay. You know, it doesn't really, but it does, right? It does. There are challenges to this view, so we have to talk about those. And again, you would say, what does it say about the incarnation? Because in the incarnation, we understand that Jesus is God in the flesh, and he's a man at the same time. Now, we know that when he's a child, he grows in wisdom, right? So the question is, when does he stop growing? Is he growing all throughout his ministry, or is he fully formed when he starts his ministry? Or is he fully formed by his bar mitzvah when he's 13, right? We don't know. It doesn't tell us. So is Jesus perfect at the beginning of his ministry, or does he grow as a person during his ministry? And isn't

[17:10] this kind of a question that we have to ask ourselves? Is Jesus perfect at the beginning of his ministry, or does he grow as a person during his ministry? And isn't this kind of a question that we have to ask ourselves? Of racism, even if it's sort of unthinking, or if it's part of the water that they're all swimming in? Don't we believe that Jesus is sinless, right? Do we believe Jesus is sinless? So if we believe Jesus is sinless, it's hard to square him calling somebody a dog. It's hard to square it, okay? So I want to give an alternate explanation. So the one explanation is that he's not fully formed, and he grew, and he learned, and he showed some true humility, okay? The other view is that in that culture, and it's not just in the Christian culture, it's in the Christian culture, it's in the especially because he was thought of as a rabbi or a teacher, it was really common to give people tests. It was common to test people as a way of teaching them. And so in essence, the alternate view is that Jesus is giving this woman a test. And that really mean statement was really just kind of a stern, seemed like a stern, but it was really a straight to the point test question, like on the SAT, but it wasn't like multiple choice. It was like, you know, you want something

[18:10] for your daughter, but you're of the wrong race. That's the test question. And her answer was, there's enough for everybody to go around. There's still some left over. And he's like, and what does he say though? What is his next thing after she answers? He says, good answer. So you kind of get the sense that he's in teaching mode, right? Do you see, there's two very different ways to interpret this miracle. And again, whichever you like the best, that's up to you. I think this one, I think this view has a little more going for it because Jesus is a rabbi. And I kind of think it's hard. It's hard to square the sinlessness of Jesus with him saying something overtly racist, unless it was designed as a way to elicit some kind of growth in somebody else, right? Because Jesus is the teacher. Jesus is God in the flesh, right?

[19:07] And so the idea is that there's a lesson that's being taught, but the person learning it isn't Jesus. The person learning it to a small extent is the woman, but she kind of already has it figured out. There's sometimes a hidden third person in a lot of these narratives. This is sort of the teaching part here. This is kind of the Bible exposition part. There's even an unnamed, actually two other unnamed people in this, one is the disciples. They're there. They're with him. It turns out in Matthew's version of this miracle, because it's a parallel passage in Matthew, the disciples at first try to shoo the woman away. They don't want anything to do with her. They don't want Jesus to talk to her. So they have actually led, sort of led the charge of pushing away somebody who was different, right? So it's possible Jesus is like, my disciples need to learn something today.

[20:06] I'm going to let this woman come and talk to me. And this will be an example for my disciples to learn something. The other unnamed person in all of these stories is the reader, which is different from the disciples. It's us, right? So we're being put to the test by this miracle as well. So there's this, there's all these characters in the story and two sets of them you can't even see in this particular text. Now you can see the disciples in the Matthew text, right? So the shocking comparison that Jesus makes to the dog is a test. He's testing the woman's resolve and her faith, and he's testing the disciples to see if they agree with his statement. And there might be some things that we don't even hear from the parable, like Jesus calls her a dog, and then he kind of looks at his disciples and some of them are like, yeah, we don't have, we don't have nothing for her today. You know, we're, we're too busy for her. So he's kind of putting his disciples to the test, right? And so the woman shows her perseverance and faith and he, he grades the test says, good answer. So she gets an A and I think the disciples get an F cause they didn't, they first, they try to shoo her away and they're like dumbfounded.

[21:17] Like what? He actually gave her, he just said he wasn't gonna give her anything. She doesn't deserve anything. Now he's giving her something what's going on with Jesus. The disciples are often confounded by Jesus, right? And so he still trying to teach them what he's all about. He's trying to... the way he teaches is by shocking his disciples sometimes, right? And even after Pentecost, they still don't fully get it as it turns out because they weren't distributing food to the widows in the early church fairly. So even the disciples still didn't get it after all this time. So, you know, I thank God that God is so patient with us because I think we're still learning. We can still learn from this parable too. So you can decide whether this is a parable about, or this is a, sorry, a miracle about Jesus learning something, or this is a miracle about his disciples learning something and us learning something. But we can ask ourselves, what was the purpose of this particular miracle? And I think in some cases, in general, miracles are designed to validate Jesus's claims about himself. He says, you know, if he can do powerful things, then people will go, oh boy, we should listen to what he says about himself, right? So miracles

[22:29] are proof that he really is who he says he is. So miracles really function, to validate who Jesus is, right? And they display that Jesus is a person of power, right? But this parable is designed to test and teach his disciples to be this very memorable rebuke to their unexamined racial attitudes, right? And it's also a message about who Jesus and his gifts and his gospel belong to, not just the children of Israel, but to all the people, as George was saying. Thank you, George. And so there's these little moments like this, where Jesus really does reach outside of his own tribe and say, this is for everybody. And even at, you know, he says, you're going to be my witnesses in Acts. He says, when he, you know, he goes up and he's ascends, he says, you are going to, the Holy Spirit's going to come upon you. You're going to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, all Jewish areas, and Samaria, what? Those, you know, not those people, and all the ends of the earth, right? So he's saying, this has, always been about expanding beyond us, beyond just our racial group. So little peppered along the way are these little breadcrumbs or signposts that say, there's more than, there's more than just our tribe that's being blessed by what Jesus is about to do. So this is, this is just one miracle.

[23:56] And there are many others of the one of the man that we read afterwards. Again, it kind of proves that sometimes Jesus is very, very hands on and incarnational, and it was designed to show his power and the response, if you remember the response to the second miracle, is his reputation grows. The people at the end say, there's nothing, he can't do anything wrong. Everything he does is wonderful. This guy is amazing. Look what he did to this man who was deaf and, and couldn't speak. So the first one was a teaching miracle. The second one was a reputational miracle, but they're both healings. They're both powerful, right? at a distance, one is close up. Do you get the idea that miracles, every single miracle is different? Every single miracle has a different purpose. They all point to Jesus and validate him, but at the same time, they each have sort of their own character, their own fingerprint, which I love. But one thing I want you to remember, and this is the overarching meaning of miracles in my mind, is that they are very visible signs of God's constant work to rescue the world from sin, death, and the devil. I'm not going to say that again. If you were taking notes, go ahead and write this down, because this is kind of the crux of it.

[25:12] The miracles are part of God's constant work, and I say constant because I think miracles are still happening. Miracles are part of God's constant work to rescue the world. From sin, death, and the devil. So a miracle is God supernaturally reaching into our broken world, which is in captivity and bondage to sin and the power of evil, and it is to free those bonds and to pull people out of it into a new life. And that is absolutely miraculous, no matter which way you do it, whether it's delivering a little girl from a demon, that's very clear how that's what that is, right? Or if it's healing a man from not being able to speak and bringing him back into his society as a full member, right? That's definitely rescuing him from the power of sin, death, and the devil. And all the other miracles that we see, even in modern times, is this God being active. So in the tradition, there's a tradition that the woman's name who passes the test is Justa, or Justa, Justa. And her daughter, her name was Bernice. We don't know if that's true. It's not in the Bible, but it's kind of cool to have traditions like this. So Bernice, no way to confirm it. But it's important that Bernice was delivered from a demon. That was God rescuing part of the world, right? And so here's where I want maybe you

[26:44] to hear a word of hope, but also a word of need, is that the world is broken and corrupt and demonic. I'm making a list here. Okay, so I'll start over just because it's a little bit more complicated. The world is broken and corrupt and demonic and cruel and merciless and racist and unjust and violent and all sorts of other things. I mean, we all know what the world is like, right? And when I look in my heart, I see that I'm part of that problem. I'm not making the world too much better, right? Paul wrote to Timothy that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. That's what Paul said, right? Right that God takes the old life and the bondage to sin and the brokenness and he rescues you from everything that ties you down to give you a new life and a new hope. That's the miracle. So that's the miracle I want you to go home with today. You know, they're all good miracles, but that one for you, I think is probably the most important. And it is for me as well. Let's pray.

[28:10] Father, thank you for these miracles. Thank you for how each one's different. Thank you for learning. Father, we thank you most of all that you've reached into our hearts to rescue us from sin, death, and the devil and presented us before the Father as new and holy and spotless. Father, we thank you for the miracle of new life in Jesus Christ. And we pray a blessing on it and we ask it in Jesus' name.