9-1-15 - Cranky Jesus?

Those who doubt the full humanity of Christ might look no further than the 7th chapter of Mark's gospel. In the story we have this week, we meet at Jesus who appears out of sorts, brusque to the point of rudeness - and seemingly able to change his mind.

Jesus has come to this house to get away from the crowds and incessant need for his attention and power. He needs a break. And this woman, a Gentile yet, finds him and has the temerity to intrude upon his solitude, demanding deliverance for her daughter. At first he dismisses her, curtly saying she is outside his assigned mission, and then likens her to a dog seeking scraps.


She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, ‘Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ But she answered him, ‘Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.’ Then he said to her, ‘For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.’ So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.


As she steadily insists, though, refusing to take offense, he detects something underneath the annoyance she is causing. He discerns a woman of real faith, who will not take "no" for an answer because she knows with all her heart that Jesus can heal her little girl. This is the kind of faith he has hoped to see in his own Jewish community – but familiarity can cloud faith vision. This Gentile woman has no such blinders. She can see, and once Jesus' own blinders fall, he sees her truly too, and rewards her faith.
This story contains several invitations for us. One is to be persistent in prayer, with faith, even when it looks like God seems not to answer. Prayer is primarily about deepening our relationship with God, not "getting what we need," so we can pester and cajole and ask nicely and cry our need. Jesus hears us, and adds his perfect faith to ours, as we learn to trust his perfect will and timing.

Another invitation is to keep our senses tuned to discern faith in people outside the community of faith as we recognize it. Those of us who are longtime churchgoers and deeply steeped in our religious tradition don’t always see that the woman with the angel posters or the multiply "tatted" guy at the Shelter may have a clearer, less complicated,more powerful faith than we do. As we recognize that, we can make it our mission to invite such people to draw nearer the community, nearer to Christ – and maybe find that it is they who make Christ known to us once again.