'“First let the children eat all they want,” he told her, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
“Lord,” she replied, “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”' Mark 7:27-28
Sometimes when you earnestly want to make it clear that you disagree with someone’s interpretation of something said, you can wind up giving the impression you disagree with the very thing that was originally said. In that case, your meaning wasn’t fully understood.
Last time, Jesus was rebuking the Pharisees who had come up from Jerusalem and had accused Jesus and his disciples of defiling themselves by eating with unwashed hands.
He rebuked them saying that they had ‘let go of the commands of God’ and were ‘holding on to human traditions’.
He was disagreeing, fervently, with the mishandling of God’s purity commands.
So, at the end of that passage, he explained to the crowd that it’s notwhat goes into a person that defiles them, but what comes out of a person’s heart that defiles (v.14-15).
In other words, he showed that by his opposition to the corruptions of those pharisees, he wasn’t minimising God’s emphasis on purity. In fact, he was intensifying it. And now he’s going to double down on that intensification with two miracles to show it.
It might seem like Jesus is fairly aimless at this point in his ministry. There’s a lot of coming and going. There seems to be a lot of spontaneous decision making.
It might look like he’s being reactive. But Jesus was never reactive; he was always deliberate about his actions. All of them were serving his purposes.
One of those purposes was that the 12 disciples got to witness everything that was going on. That’s important because as they observed Jesus, they were on a missionary course of sorts. They were learning every day what their own responses would need to be like after Jesus had risen and ascended in heaven.
They were, after all, going to take up the mantle once Jesus had gone.
And for ‘disciples’ we should hear us as well. We are on their missionary course too! We are meant to learn from Jesus like they did through Mark’s account.
And so, I think that the events that Mark records for us in the second half of chapter 7 are instructive for us - designed by Jesus to flesh out the words he just spoke to the crowds and the disciples in verses 14-23.
Jesus has given the disciples the doctrine, but now he wants them to see how it plays out in practice, and that’s why we’re leaving the area of Galilee and heading into the vicinity of Tyre, verse 24 says.
Tyre was situated to the north-west of where Jesus had been interacting with the Jewish leaders. It was a town on the Mediterranean coast, and it was in Gentile country.
Which is why the woman that Jesus encountered in that place is described by Mark in verse 26 as being of Greek descent; but born in Syrian Phoenicia.
Tyre, being a prominent port would have seen a lot of people from the Mediterranean rim coming and going – and no doubt some settled in the region, like this woman’s family evidently had.
So, Jesus has gone into Gentile country. But don’t forget the instruction he just made to the Jewish crowds: namely, that purity doesn’t depend on what goes into a person, but what comes up out of the heart. That’s the key!
The Jewish leaders had just shown their hearts by completely missing Jesus - focusing on unwashed hands because their hearts were hard and calloused and unbelieving. But what about these Gentile folks? How will they receive Jesus?
Mark gives us the story of this Gentile woman between verses 25 and 30. She has a little daughter who is possessed by an impure spirit, Mark says.
And upon hearing that Jesus has arrived in town she’s quick to act – I’m getting that from verse 25 where Mark says ‘as soon as she heard about him’ she acted.
How did she act? Verse 25 says ‘she came and fell at his feet’. And verse 26 says, ‘she begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter’.
A desperate woman mobilised by love for her little daughter.
Let’s note that this is almost identical behaviour to that of Jairus in chapter 5. Do you remember how that synagogue leader came to Jesus and pleaded earnestly with him for his little daughter who was dying? Healso came and fell at Jesus’ feet.
The details here are almost identical. But the one’s that aren’t identical are significant. He was a man; this is a woman. In those days that was significant.
He was a Jew, she’s a Gentile. That’s significant too.
And he belonged to the religious leaders, but she, according to Jesus in verse 27, belongs to the dogs. And that’s very significant here.
These differences are serving a purpose. They are to show that Jesus regards all people the same, Jew-Gentile, male-female, honourable-dishonourable; their needs are the same, and Jesus is the same to everyone.
For Jairus, Jesus raised his little daughter back to life. And for this woman, he rids her little daughter of the impure spirit.
Jesus may be a Jew and, as a Jew, he may be defiling himself under Jewish law by going to Gentiles and interacting with impure spirits, but it’s not what goes into a person that defiles remember, it’s what comes out that defiles. And what comes out of Jesus is not defiling, it’s saving!
You know, in the name of Jesus, you too can cross cultures; you can cross income bands; you can cross offence with the good news of Jesus and not be defiled. And like Jesus, we must do it without showing a shred of prejudice!
Jesus is for the murderer and the judge. He’s for the banker and the fraudster. He’s for the prostitute and the faithful wife. He’s for the atheistand the priest. At deepest root all their needs are the same. They – we– all need Jesus! More than we know!
Let’s see what makes the difference though, because there is a difference. Clearly not everyone has Jesus. Jesus is willing to come to anybody, but not everybody receives him.
Watch how this woman receives him. If you receive Jesus like this woman, then you have Jesus.
First, she knows her need – her daughter has an incurable demon spirit that’s wrecking her life. It will probably kill her; that’s why she comes.
Second, she believes what she’s heard about Jesus – why else would she find him out and beg him for a miracle.
Third, she acts quickly – she drops everything to get in front of Jesus.
Fourth, she’s bold – she’s running, she’s falling, she’s begging.
Fifth, she’s humble. And this is the crux of the story – it really is. And it’s so compelling.
She already humbled herself physically by falling at Jesus’ feet. But now watch her humble heart.
Verse 27 is where we want to be focused. Jesus says something to her that sounds on the surface very offensive.
After begging for her daughter, Jesus says, ‘First’ – which implies that she’s not first. ‘”First let the children eat all they want,”’ – that means ‘let the children of Israel have me first’. In other words, ‘Israel, as God’s children, get first dibs on me, not the likes of you Gentiles’.
We know he means ‘Israel’ when he uses the word ‘children’ because Matthew tells us explicitly that’s what he meant - in his parallel account.
‘“for’, Jesus says, ‘it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss is to the dogs”’ – which means that she as a Gentile is like a starving dog that nobody cares enough about to give it the bread that’s designed to feed the children at the table.
That’s good nourishing bread and the children are more important than the starving dogs outside.
That’s what Jesus means, on the surface, by what he says to this woman.
And that raises some tough questions, like:
‘I thought you just said that with Jesus everyone is the same – well it doesn’t sound like it!’ Is Jesus for everybody?
Was he right to speak like that to her?
‘I thought Jesus was kind – what’s all this ‘dog’ language?’
Well, Jesus wasn’t factually wrong in what he said. In Deuteronomy 7, God commanded the Israelites to totally destroy those living in this land. He told them not to intermarry with them; not to give their sons and daughters to them.
In Ezra, the Israelites who returned from captivity, in an act of faithfulness to God, ‘separated themselves from the unclean practices of their Gentile neighbours in order to seek the Lord, the God of Israel’.
And Peter, in the passage we read this morning from Acts 10, said to the crowd, ‘you are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean’.
So, Jesus is not saying anything that is surprising for a Jew to say, or for a Gentile to hear.
But all this, I believe, is a test of this woman’s heart. Will she react against what Jesus says and defend herself by saying, ‘Jews aren’t more worthy than me! You know what? Forget it! You’re just like all the other Jewish religious leaders - a bigot!’
Or will she speak the truth?
What is the truth? The truth is that this woman doesn’t deserve anything. She doesn’t deserve Jesus’ miraculous gift. She’s coming empty handed and if she goes away empty handed, she’s got no more than she deserves. That’s what Jesus knows to be true.
Will she respond in accordance with that truth?
She will!
Here’s her response: ‘”Lord”’ – that’s not only a tip off that this answer is going to be good, it’s a remarkable one. Because this is the only time in the whole account of Mark that anyone directly addresses Jesus as ‘Lord’.
Only one time that Jesus is addressed as Lord - master, ruler - and it comes from a Gentile woman with a demon possessed child! That’s amazing!
‘”Lord’, she says, ‘even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”’ This response is so beautiful because it’s dripping with humility. This is what is coming up out of this woman’s heart – humility!
She’s saying, ‘even if I can have your crumbs Lord Jesus, I’ll be so so rich!’
It’s a phrase that says, ‘you’re worthy, I’m not’.
It’s a phrase that says, ‘you’re everything I need – I’m lost without you’.
It’s a phrase that betrays a heart of humility, faith in Jesus, and true dependence.
And it’s a saving phrase because, Jesus says, ‘for such a reply, you may go, the demon has left your daughter’. Her daughter is saved from her demon.
And it’s very helpful. What comes out of the heart is what defiles. What came out of the Pharisee hearts was cold, calculating, religiosity.
But, when God works on a heart, then what comes out can be pure and beautiful. When God works on a heart, humble honesty about our own unworthiness and wholehearted trust in Jesus’ worthiness can come out.
And when it does, it saves.
Jesus said in Matthew 23, ‘those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted’.
We – all of us; Jew and Gentile; murderer and judge - are ‘worthless’. Romans 3:12 says so, ‘we have all turned away…there is no one who does good not even one’.
This is how we come to Jesus - empty handed – like starving dogs. And when we sit at his feet waiting for the crumbs to fall, because our hearts are so convinced that he is everything we need, crumbs don’t come falling down, but torrents of grace.
As Jesus says in verse 27 – let the children eat all they want – just like the five thousand did in chapter 6.
The woman may have been an unclean Gentile, but Jesus - demonstrating what he was preaching at the end of the first half of the chapter – can, alone, make clean!
Despite Jesus moving from Tyre on up the coast to Sidon, we find him move on to Decapolis - way down south-east of Tyre and Sidon; on the east side of the Sea of Galilee.
He’s been here before - when he healed the demoniac back in chapter 5. Remember back then, the people couldn’t get rid of him quickly enough.
But, evidently, something’s changed because verse 36 says that although Jesus commanded them to keep quiet, they couldn’t stop talking about him.
This time the subject of Jesus’ work is also a man – but a man who is deaf and can hardly talk, verse 32 says.
It’s possible that this man’s afflictions could have been brought on by a disease in adulthood. But much more likely he had been this way from birth.
What will the heart of Jesus be like towards him? I see 5 very visible, tactile, things that Jesus does for this man who can’t hear or talk.
And let me point something out: Jesus healed the woman’s daughter without seeing her, never mind touching her.
I think that when he says to her in verse 29 ‘go; the demon has left your daughter’ it’s so that she can know that the miracle has been done.
If the daughter had been with her, it would have been self-evident that it was done. So, I think Jesus didn’t see or touch the girl. In other words, he doesn’t need to touch in order to heal.
So, bearing that in mind, watch how tactile Jesus is with this man.
First, he physically takes him aside to a place of solitude – ‘away from the crowd’ Mark says. It’s him personally who Jesus is concerned with.
But he can’t tell the man that because the man can’t hear. There aren’t any apps to help him understand. There isn’t any British Sign Language, or readily available writing apparatus like pencils, pens and paper to communicate with him. So, Jesus is being demonstrable here.
Second, Jesus put his fingers in his ears. Mark doesn’t say that Jesus touched the woman’s daughter in Tyre, but he’s touching this Gentile – make no mistake about that. Maybe the fingers in the ears convey to the man that Jesus knows he’s deaf and he’s here to help him with that.
Third, he spit and touched the man’s tongue. I imagine he spit on his own fingers and then placed his fingers on his tongue. Jesus knows he can’t talk and he’s going to help him with that too.
Why the spit? The short answer is I don’t know. He will heal a blind man also by spitting on his eyes in the next chapter.
Apart from the fact that Jesus uses lots of different methods to convey miracles on people, I have wondered if there’s some way in which Jesus - who was spat on by his Jewish accusers at his trial - is showing that the prophet Isaiah was right when he spoke of Jesus saying, ‘the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed’.
Is Jesus showing us that as he bore the indignation of being spit upon for our sakes, that he is so pure and so powerful to save, that when his spit lands on a person it doesn’t defile, like theirs did, it restores what’s been lost - speech from this man; sight for the man in chapter 8? I don’t know.
What I do know is that next he looked up to heaven. I think this indicates where this miracle is coming from. Remember, these are Gentiles - all their gods are false and powerless. Jesus wants this man to know that his powerful healing is going to be from God in heaven, not from a magician. That’s the fourth demonstration.
The fifth demonstration is a deep sigh. A deep sigh can be seen and feltas well heard – the heaving of the chest, the long exhale. Jesus wants him to know that he is groaning about this man’s affliction.
It should not be this way – his deafness and speechlessness should not be - just like Paul says in Romans: the creation is groaning. Sin’s curse on the world is visible all over the created order, including in bodily afflictions.
And then, just like in chapter 5 with Jairus’ daughter, Jesus uses an Aramaic phrase to confer the healing: Eph-pha-tha which Mark helps us to understand - it means ‘be opened’.
And the man’s ears were opened to hear. And his mouth was opened to speak.
Here’s an unclean man with the marks of the curse written all over him and Jesus works to lift that curse and restore.
It’s not what’s on the outside, but what comes out of the heart that either defiles or doesn’t. And with Jesus, his heart never defiles, but it rescues!
There’s something magnificently autonomous about this miracle. This man hasn’t got a tongue to ask for himself, or ears to hear what Jesus might tell him to do. But Jesus overcomes all that.
And until Jesus overcomes the deaf ears of our unbelief and the bound tongue of our hard hearts, we will not come to him either. We cannot!But if he does, we will! He must create in us a willing spirit.
To be sure, this man’s friends do him a great service, imploring Jesus on his behalf. And there’s a lesson in that for us to be sure. But the miracle is all of Jesus.
The people who saw the miracle were ‘overwhelmed with amazement’ Mark says. They were stunned by Jesus. And they said, ‘he has done everything well’.
Nobody then could make the deaf to hear and the mute to speak; nobody can now either. But Jesus, who made the universe, Hebrews 1 says, sighed deeply over the creation-curse of this man’s affliction.
And like at the beginning of creation when he said, ‘let there be’ so he said to this man ‘be opened’ and he created what he commanded.
And like he pronounced all that he had made to be good in the beginning, so he worked in these people the recognition that he had done everything well.
Jesus is the restorer of creation; the purifier of the world; the cleanserof the sin-sick soul.
So, clearly, Jesus is at pains to show his disciples, and us, that out of his own purity he is able to cleanse the defiled and reverse the curse.
He is able to make the heart, which was defiled, inclined toward God so that pure things come out. This is the power of Jesus’ saving work.
Would that the purified heart were the fulness of all that it should be, but it is not. And that is why the New Testament writers implore us to be holy and pure. To use everything we’ve been given to become progressively holy.
Listen to Peter, in his second letter this time: ‘[Jesus’] divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life…For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love.
For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But whoever does not have them is near-sighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins’.
If God’s people fail to pursue holiness, then it shows that they have forgotten that they were once defiled. And that they have forgotten that Jesus performed a miracle of cleansing grace in their lives.
If you are saved this morning, you are a miracle of cleansing grace! A more miraculous work has been done in you than was done in either the Syrophoenician’s daughter or the deaf-mute.
Do not forget it, Peter says. Look with a long hard stare at the cleansing work of Jesus again. Remind yourself of what he has done for you.
Remind yourself of what it cost him to make you clean. And flee from impurity. Strive for holiness. Add to your faith. Get those qualities in increasing measure. Don’t be ineffective or unproductive in your knowledge of Jesus Christ. But feast yourself on his glories and say with the people of Decapolis, ‘He has done everything well!’
Comments