Year B
Mark 7:24-37
The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn
Saving Grace for All
Have you ever been asked the question “Are you saved?” I have been asked this several times through the years. I know the person asking was being a good Christian and doing what a good Christian should do. Wanting to make sure they are bringing people to Christ and for many this is an annoying question. My answer is always, yes, I am saved by my belief and love of Jesus Christ as my savior. Today’s text’s offer us an opportunity to explore different aspects of salvation: healing of the body, healing of the heart, healing of social relations and how we might annoy a few people by cooperating in the Spirit’s saving work of bringing all kinds of people rich and poor to know and love Christ.
Throughout the scriptures and embedded deeply in the faith of Christianity is the belief that this world with its violence, evil and death, is not the last word. God is working in human history, often invisibly, to save and to restore to God’s creation the goodness that God intended for it from the beginning. This restoration began to break into this world in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ and His coming again one day will bring the kingdom of God to its fullness. At that time, God will make all things new, banish death forever, heal all defects, and be acknowledged as Lord over all. The text from Isaiah today portrays vividly what this new age will look like.
In this beautiful poetic passage, Isaiah is assuring the faithful that no matter what their condition or suffering at the present time, God will triumph over all God’s enemies of injustice, suffering, and death, and offer the hope of salvation to all who believe. Isaiah proclaims that the blind will see again, the deaf will hear, the lame will once again leap for joy, and the dumb will speak. Through this bounty of love, all will benefit, all imperfections will be replaced by wholeness, as we read in the book of revelation, “God himself will be with them; he will wipe away ever tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will there be mourning nor crying nor pain, for the former things have passed away.”
All these healings are seen in the ministry of Jesus, who guarantees these restorations and salvation for all. God’s rule over God’s creation will bring life-life in its fullness of joy and beauty, of health and well-being, of order and peace. We catch a glimpse of God’s fullness of life in today’s text from Mark which shows the extent of Jesus’ ministry among the Gentiles. The love that propels him moves him ever outward beyond the limits of geography, ethnic identity, gender, and social stigma which all speak to the new age to come. This portion of Mark follows immediately after the conclusion of the gospel text we heard last Sunday, where we read of Jesus’ interchange with the Pharisees regarding ritual cleanliness and the kosher food laws.
Following that discussion Jesus travels to the region of Tyre and Sidon, near the Mediterranean Sea and northeast of Galilee, to the Decapolis bringing the wonders of his healing ministry. These areas, greatly influenced by Greek culture, would have led Jesus to experience more contact with gentiles. For Mark, looking back and writing about the healings today, this journey was the beginning of fulfillment in God’s purposes for the Gentiles, which was brought to even greater fulfillment in Paul’s ministry and travels. The healing stories today proclaim God’s power at work among us and are a sign of God’s steadfast love for all people, gentile, Jew, rich and poor.
The story of the casting out of the demon that possessed the Syrophoenician woman’s daughter is remarkable, both because it is an exorcism from a distance and because of the conversation between the woman and Jesus. Jesus was trying to escape the crowds, but the desperate woman hears that he is in the area and finds him. This was a woman who had everything going against her. First, she was a woman, and a gentile from the wrong side of the tracks. She had no right to speak to Jesus but she is driven by her fear for her daughter’s life.
She bows before him as she recognizes his holiness and begs and we can marvel at her boldness even after Jesus tries to ward off her request with an ethnic insult. To attempt to soften the insult misses the point. Even if his statement is a familiar Jewish saying, or even if “dogs” really means “household pets,” Jesus nevertheless is bluntly confronting the woman with the priority of feeding the Jews first, or the priority of salvation for the Jews as first in God’s plan. Her reply to Jesus makes her a model of persistent faith. She does not argue the question of Jewish priority or the ritual purity of clean and unclean foods, she reminds Jesus of the inclusion of everyone Jew and Gentile and she receives the gift she desperately wants
The healing of the deaf man found in all three lectionary years is another example of the healing of an outsider. This is one of the few stories of a healing in which Jesus seems to practice something like ancient medicine. The elaborate steps taken by Jesus to restore hearing and speech, makes it clear that the story, like many other miracle stories, affirms God’s presence, and God’s divine power at work in Jesus, the Messiah who “has done everything well”. Testifying to this power, as Isaiah did to the fact that one day God will make all things new, James today continues to build on this idea. The book of James has been called a collection of “Christian wisdom,” and in that way is comparable to the book of Proverbs.
James, thought to be one of Jesus’ half-brother’s, explores the relationship between faith and deeds, which is the subject of the whole chapter. It begins with criticism of the mistreatment of the poor in favor of the wealthy and then shows how such favoritism violates the whole of the law and goes against godly living. He is concerned about the class distinctions that Christians make among themselves in the faith community. He calls Christians to a higher standard, the standard of agape or divine love. This divine love brings a radical call to unconditional justice wherever the economic gap between poverty and wealth is great. He calls all to show no partiality and to merge our differing understandings into a new, richer unity of identity as faithful followers of “our Lord Jesus Christ.”
His question “Can faith save you?” is the distinction he makes between a dead faith or faith without works and a living faith that is always accompanied by works. We are saved by our faith alone, this is grace but faith without works is not really faith. Faith without works is dead James says. Faith with works helps us see the work of God’s hand among us: it lifts us beyond the conflicts of our time and helps us in building the kingdom of God that is yet to be. The new age of the kingdom will bring healing or salvation to all of God’s creation.
The “eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped, the lame will leap like a deer, and the voiceless will sing. The desert of the wilderness will be watered finally with streams and the thirsty ground will bubble with springs of living water for all. There will be no walls separating us, love and mercy will flow unfettered and all are deemed equal. No one is outside of God’s invitation to saving grace. Asking someone ‘are you saved’ is a good question? But maybe the better question to ask ourselves is how can we cooperate in the Spirit’s saving work to annoy a few people? “The Lord reigns forever, your God, O Zion, for all generations. Praise the Lord”.