“Two Healings”
Text: Mark 7: 24-37 Esv
24 And from there he arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And he entered a house and did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden. 25 But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell down at his feet. 26 Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27 And he said to her, "Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." 28 But she answered him, "Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." 29 And he said to her, "For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter." 30 And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.
31 Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. 32 And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him. 33 And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue. 34 And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, theyEphphatha," that is, "Be opened." 35 And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.
36 And Jesus charged them to tell no one. But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. 37 And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, "He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak."†
Feeding Dogs Beneath The Table: Who can resist?
As a young boy, I found out the hard way that dogs will not eat broccoli, asparagus, or spinach. When these despicable green things showed up on my plate, I was glad to have a dog—a basset hound that would eat almost anything.
“No, Noel—you can’t be excused until you eat your zucchini.” Good dog! “Come on, Noel—lots of people like liver and onions—you should try it. At least have a few bites.” Yes, what a good boy you are, Beauregard!
Who can deny a face like this?
What, have you no heart?
There are certain scientists who’d say that dogs have simply evolved what we call “cuteness” as a mechanism to make us share food with them. What an unsatisfying explanation!
The first of our two healings concerns little dogs. The second is about King Midas. Both accounts proclaim that Jesus is our healer, our power—Almighty God in the flesh.
Little, Worthless Mutts
As you’ll remember, Jesus and the Disciples have been unable to escape the crowds. Wherever they go, the crowds appear. Where could they go? Gentile territory, perhaps. Our first healing has Jesus in the region of Tyre and Sidon, north of Israel. You’ll remember as well the stormy relationship between Israel and various kings and princes of Tyre. This was enemy territory for devout Jews. It is most likely the Rabbi Jesus and his disciples are there to catch a break from the 80-hour work-weeks they’ve been doing. The text says he was trying to stay incognito, but no luck: in comes a Greek woman of Syrophoenician heritage, begging Jesus to do an exorcism on her little daughter.
Jesus’ response is quite troublesome on first hearing. He says:
Let the children [Israel] be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs."
The Greek word used here, kunariois, means “little dogs” or “worthless” dogs.
Ancient Jews did not like dogs. They were considered unclean, un-kosher, and since they were scavengers, their association with corpses made them undesirable. Even so, larger dogs were valued as watch dogs. But this word, kunariois, suggests little dogs that were not really good for anything—mutts. In short, Jesus calls this woman a mutt: she is a Gentile of mixed heritage.
This is troublesome because it doesn’t sound like the Jesus we know—the one who loves and values all people equally and infinitely. The Jews are first? Does that mean superior?
Most Jews of Jesus’ day considered Gentiles dogs, even as they did the Samaritans, their racial cousins. This wasn’t born of simple prejudice, but rather out of Israel’s own struggle for identity. The Chosen People were not chosen out of divine racial preference, but rather so that God could be glorified through their weakness. They were chosen as nobodies. Their relationship with God was never automatic, but covenantal—God’s favor and support depended upon their faithfulness to his covenants. The greatest threat to their faithfulness appeared via foreign peoples and their idols. Staying apart, distinct and separate was always hard work and they usually failed.
The common, Jewish disregard for non-Jews came from the constant threat that they might compromise their integrity again. It is just so much easier to call those who do not live under the same covenant “dogs” so that there will be no risk of too much intermixing and therefore reduced risk of compromising faith.
Since we already know how the story turns out, I think we can say confidently that Jesus is speaking to her through the mask of 1st-century Judaism. Jesus is playing along to make a point for his disciples.
Note as well that we have been here before. When Jesus passed through Samaria, the woman asked him, “How do you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan, for a drink of water?” Jesus’ question is almost the same type. It could be worded: “How do you, a Syrophoenician Greek, ask me, a Jewish Rabbi, for a special favor?”
So Jesus reminds the woman that most Jews think Greeks are dogs, and challenges her with the implicit question, “Why should I bother?”
The woman could have left it at this. She could have wept, or shrugged her shoulders, turned and trudged away. She could have gotten angry and shouted: “You Jews are all a bunch of racists!” But she doesn’t. What she does instead is far more excellent: she plays along with his insult only to persist in her request:
Yes, but even the useless little mutts eat the crumbs from the children’s table!
At that moment, I think we would have seen a change in Jesus’ face. From the guarded, tongue-in-cheek , superior Jewish face into—what?—a warm, joyous and very impressed face. The face of love and acceptance. The Loving Lord eager to lift up and build up that which the world puts down. He blesses her. He says:
For that, go—your girl is healed.
Jesus knew her heart and suspected she might stand up for herself. We have to see him as delighted that she followed through.
Jesus knows us as well. There are times we are down, hurting, feeling spiritually poor if not literally poor, but needing something from the Lord very badly. We can take home from this text that Jesus wants us to persist in prayer—to keep asking when we have good reason to quit. There is only one kind of failure in the.life of faith—only one—and that is give up, to quit. Giving up—finally, for good—may be the most common form of sinning against the Holy Spirit. No matter what life gives us, we are to persist unreasonably in prayer. God will surely meet us there.
Notice as well that Jesus performs the most extraordinary exorcism in all scripture, right here—not only is he at a distance, but he hasn’t even seen the girl. What is more, he doesn’t so much as speak a word! No calling out the demon, no great demonstration of his authority; he just casts it out—like that—without so much as a word.
This final detail brings us into extreme contrast with our second healing story.
Midas in the Decapolis
Jesus and the Disciples leave Tyre and Sidon and go to the area of the Decapolis—the ten Roman cities mostly east of the Jordan river—where no decent Jews would ever set foot.
Remember the first time Jesus and the Disciples tried to escape the crowds? They got in a boat and sailed across the Galilee Lake. A storm came up and blew them over to that horrible place with all the pigs and the demoniac—remember Legion? Well, they’re back and perhaps still looking for a quiet place to retreat. It’s sad that they have to go so far as these Roman, Gentile towns for a little sabbatical, but even here they won’t get much rest.
They really shouldn’t have been bothered, as Jewish news may not have easily spread to these outlying, ten cities. How did they know about Jesus? Remember who the first evangelist is? The Legion guy, now healed—remember, Jesus sent him to the Decapolis to tell all that Jesus had done for him? So he did his job well, and as soon as Jesus enters the Gentile cities, the crowds come a-runnin’. They come—a group of men bring their friend who is deaf and unable to speak. They beg Jesus to heal him.
Mark means for us to remember Capernaum and the paralytic, whose friends bring him to Jesus and lower him through the roof to be healed. Now this city of the Decapolis—solidly in Gentile territory—resembles Capernaum, Jesus’ headquarters.
What Jesus does is very odd. He takes the deaf man into private (presumably with a few disciples). There in private, he puts his fingers in the man’s ears, spits and touches his tongue—this was the standard, well-known rigamarole of ancient healers—run of the mill, professional mumbo jumbo. So here’s the question: We’ve just seen that Jesus can cast out a demon at a distance without so much as a word—so why now this ancient healer routine? Why the mask?
Yes, Jesus heals the man completely, but then immediately commands everyone not to tell! Jesus wants to keep the lid on but it is exploding beyond control.
The desire to conceal—to veil God’s true identity—runs throughout Mark’s gospel. It is the major theme: Jesus is the self-revelation of God, who seeks to remain veiled in the flesh.
Like that great, old, Wesleyan Christmas carol says:
Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see!
Hail the Incarnate Deity!
Jesus is not reluctant to heal, but reluctant to be found out. No matter where he goes or how he tries to hide it, the God—THE LORD—that is in Jesus keeps bursting out, shining forth, and seems to be impossible to contain!
Jesus is God—so much so God—that his deity slips out, seeps out, shines out behind every mask and through every veil.
Like King Midas, everything Jesus touches turns to gold—leaves the traces and aroma of Heaven on everything and everyone.
The human being Jesus wants to remain veiled, masked, incognito, but the people—even Gentiles, even Syrophoenician Greeks—see it. The king walks among his people disguised as a pauper, but the golden touch keeps giving him away.
It’s like someone with a marvelous secret that keeps slipping out though they try their best to contain it; like a lottery winner who has won a hundred million but goes back to work at the sawmill and wants to live an ordinary life (except that he’s now driving a Ferrari to the mill)—something keeps getting out!
This is Jesus. This is the good news of the gospel, the light that can’t be put under a bushel basket, Mark shows us Jesus who is self-revealing and humble at the same time. Mark shows us Jesus like King Midas beneath a beggar’s robe, and the story is that all the masks and disguises fail! This is the message of the Holy Spirit: Aha! You can’t fool us—we see who you are! You’re not just some ordinary, Jewish Rabbi—you are THE LORD! You are GOD! You are so much GOD that even the greatest veils won’t hide you, the thickest masks won’t contain your light, and the disguises are all betrayed by your love, your power and your goodness.
Veiled in flesh? Yes, but just barely.
The irrepressible light of God Almighty blasts forth from him and him alone. His name is Jesus. He was born in a peasant stall, but he was a king. A Midas king whose mere touch transforms all.
Midas Christianity
This should be our witness as well. We point to Christ as the source of all light, but that light should shine in us as well, reflected as it is from his own heart through ours. This is our witness, that the goodness of God would be bursting out of us as well. We too wield the Midas touch. We can be Midas Christians, instruments of Peace, channels of God’s love, vehicles of God’s power and grace. We are his Church; he means for us to live this way.
From the little mutts beneath the table to the most outsider of outsiders, we today carry God’s touch within us for the world. Let’s agree to make some good happen. Let’s represent our Lord and king, whose Midas touch has brought gold to our lives, turned our hearts to gold, and may we share the touch today, this week and to end of our lives. †