“Pleading for Crumbs, Given a Loaf” (Mark 7:24-37)

Intro:  Our reading this morning comes from the Gospel of Mark.  It contains two stories of amazing healing, that take place in very different ways.  Mark has told us just before this passage that Jesus could not perform miracles in his home town and that he has taken a retreat.  All that takes place in this passage has Jesus in Gentile territory.  //

(for Setting the Theme) Isn’t there is something irresistible about the smell of bread baking?  I know whenever I pick up the scent of freshly baked bread I can’t contain myself.  My nose goes straight up and I’m on a mission until I find the source of that wonderful smell.  It gets me in trouble sometimes…I bump into things (or at least gets me some funny looks).  Perhaps some of us remember bread being baked at home, or at grandparents houses and remember how that smell could fill a house.  There is something it that calls out “come and get me”, something that is warm and inviting. 

In a way, the woman in our story is responding to Jesus like that.  She is in need, hungry for a cure for her daughter and she is on a mission and will not give up until she is satisfied.  Now Jesus is out of his usual territory, he is on a retreat, trying to get away from it all.  But word about him is following him wherever he goes.  This woman has heard about him and believes that he is indeed the messiah, someone who could help.  But would he help?  She was not a Jewish woman.  She knew that she had no claim to him as the Savior of Israel, but still she approaches him and engages him in a real discussion of ministry and mission.  This particular passage is one of my favorites because it shows to us a very human Jesus.  A Jesus who is willing to learn, one who can recognize change and growth in himself.  He knows he is different after this meeting with this woman.  

Now this whole exchange can fall hard on the ears as we encounter a Jesus who is not all welcoming, all loving, with time for everyone who comes by.  Here we see a Jesus who is tired and wanting to be left alone.  But work comes and finds him.  (he didn’t take it home with him, it followed him on vacation).  This unnamed woman comes and begs him to cure her daughter. At first Jesus ignores her, but she persists, chasing after the life she knows he can give.  The disciples are getting more and more annoyed with her, saying master make her go away, she keeps “barking” at us. 

Jesus stops to speak with her.  And we don’t know with just what tone of voice he said it, but he says,  “I can’t help you, it is not right to take the food from the children and give it to the dogs.”  What he most certainly means is it is not right to take the blessings meant for the people of Israel and give them to those who are not of Israel. 

The woman is not daunted by this, she takes his phrase and turns it, saying “yes, but dogs are allowed to eat of the crumbs”,  all she wanted was a crumb, that would have been enough. She just wanted a little morsel of the greatness she saw in him.  Just enough to help me she pleads.  And Jesus knows she has him.  He thought he has sent just for the people of Israel, but his calling was more.  There was healing that needed to be giving to given to all.  Israel may have been the chosen people for God to express God’s love for the world but there were people, real people, right in front of Jesus who may not have been of the house of Israel, but who needed to healed just as much. 

So Jesus says, because of your words, your daughter is healed.  It is not because of her faith, or her actions, but her words.  She helped Jesus learn something.  He needed to lift his eyes higher, to grasp the fuller meaning of his ministry on earth.   She came asking for crumbs for herself, instead Jesus gives her a loaf that will feed the world.  Her request is granted, her daughter is made well, but Jesus is now fundamentally changed. 

We see the change reflected in the feeding stories that create kind of a bookcase around this passage.   The chapter before this we read of the feeding of the 5000.  Where Jesus takes the loaves and the fishes and feeds that whole crowd with 12 baskets left over.  Without going into too much detail the way that story is written and the numbers that are used, it emphasizes how Jewish this occasion was.  Jesus was in Jewish territory then and he was offering this miracle to Jews.  Then if we turn past our story this morning into chapter 8 of Mark, we will find another miracle feeding story, also including bread, it is the feeding of the 4000.  But this time it is Gentiles being fed.  The symbols involved point to serving the whole world.

As we consider the deaf and mute man who was healed, we see just different this healing was.  While the woman’s daughter was healed from afar, without any physical contact.  The man was the opposite.  The process involved  most close contact.  Spit, and fingers in the ears and all that.  Not so tidy, if you ask me.  But is shows how Jesus is willing to be involved in making changes in lives, sometimes that change comes with some yuckiness. 

Look at what changed for him.  To be able to speak and to hear,  those are the gifts given to the man who was trapped within a world where he do neither.  The core of one person is expressed and shared with another, not by seeing, or feeling or thinking.  It is through speaking and hearing that we come to know one another and to love one another.  The deepest truths of the human heart are expressed when one speaks and another hears. 

Jesus comes to him and says “be opened”.  It is a liberating command, not coercive.  He is now  free to become someone new, someone whole.  As Jesus has just been opened himself to a world that was fuller and richer and more wonderful than he first imagined.  There was more for him to do.   He had learned something.  And the man was now free to go and learn and make mistakes and learn from those too.   

We are set free like that.  We, who like the woman and the man in our story, who aren’t Jewish.  We, who have no more claim to Jesus as a Messiah than they did.  We who come empty-handed, needy but full of hope.  We are here hungry and filled with needs, looking for forgiveness, a new beginning, wholeness, healing, guidance.  We, who should be pleading for crumbs, are given not the dogs share, but a loaf.  A whole loaf.  All of God’s love and hope and blessing comes to us as bread,   as Jesus who says I am the bread of Life. We do not get the crumbs, but get a meal prepared for God’s children.  Thanks be to God.  

When this woman stood boldly and demonstrates her faith by her persistence, Jesus learns from her, and has compassion for her and lays aside his personal exhaustion and his desire to be alone. If Jesus was testing her responses, she proved herself by her unwavering commitment to stay in place and speak, she knew that it was the right thing for Jesus to heal her daughter and she had faith that he could do it.

What a radical notion: the mission of God begins with the covenant people, and only reaches completion when the whole world is brought in! In the rest of the gospel, Jesus expands his ministry and dealt compassionately with Gentiles and Samaritans. He set in motion a spirit that has proved capable of breaking down all barriers and distinctions between slave and free, rich and poor, king and peasant, Jew and Samaritan. It seems idealistic, and unworkable in the real world, that this bold, joyous, perhaps foolish sprit could be at work, but at times it does.

In the forties and fifties the daily broadcasts of a well known radio announcer was heard all over the States and overseas, from such a wide audience there naturally came fan mail and letters.  A whole host of secretaries were in place to sort each days mail and they would select one or tow to pass on to him. (they tried to guess at ones that he would want to personally respond to.) one day a letter came that was not outstanding in anyway. It was a poorly written, It was written by a man who said he was a shepherd in North Dakota. scribble, with misspelled words and incorrect words and in shaky handwriting.

It was written by a man who said he lived alone in the hills, 20 miles from nearest neighbor, his only companions were his dog, the radio and a violin. The radio was the main contact to the outside world. For years the shepherd considered him an old acquaintance. He was writing because his violin was out of tune, and he asked if someday the commentator would play an A on the piano to get his violin back in tune. Normally such a letter would have been discarded. At best a form letter may have been sent.

But one day, right in the middle of a national broadcast, right in the middle of commentary on world affairs, there came a pause.

“Shepherd of North Dakota Hills are you listening?” Then a note was struck clearly and loudly on the piano. “This is your A. This is your A.” If only for a moment, the ways of the world were interrupted and its conventional wisdom challenged. If only for a moment barriers came down, crumbs overflowed on the floor. Someone who was used to being overlooked was noticed and got what they needed.  The right thing prevailed.

When we have the chance to say and do the right thing, may we each find the courage to say what’s right, and bring down barriers that divide, and may we come to know how good and pleasant it is to live in unity. Amen.