St Oswald’s Rugby Tuesday 10th September 2024
Mark 7:24-37
The last time I led Tuesday Morning Worship was on the 13th August and we were reflecting on John chapter 6 and Jesus as the bread of life.
And today, although it may not seem so at first, we are
back with bread, we are back with the miraculous provision of food that led to
Jesus’ pronouncement in John 6, “Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life.
Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never
be thirsty.
Today we are looking at Mark 7.24-37 – but please take a
Bible and open it at Mark 7.
Now look at Mark 6 – and you will see the Feeding of the
5,000. Now look at Mark 8 and you will see the Feeding of the 4,000.
This is the framework in which we are to read and make
sense of today’s reading from Mark 7.
This all leads up to the pivotal point in Mark’s Gospel,
chapter 8:27-29. This is where Peter declares Jesus to be the Christ, the
Anointed One, sent from God, long promised and hoped for. From here the tone of the Gospel begins to
move towards the Cross and Jesus’ death.
It is also important to note that the feeding of the 5,000
was in a Jewish context and the feeding of the 4,000 was in a Gentile context.
Now she was a Greek woman of Syrophoenician
origin, and she kept asking Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.
“First let the children have their fill,” He said. “For it is not right to take
the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “even
the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” …
Do you struggle with this grumpy, dismissive Jesus, being
rude to this woman begging him to help her daughter?
You are not alone and there are various ways that people
have tried to soften this and to interpret this apparent rebuttal by Jesus.
If this is Jesus a bit tired, frustrated and grumpy – is that such a bad thing! We have other instances of him showing frustration at the lack of his disciples understanding something he was trying to say.
For me however, once put it into the framework of the two
feedings it begins to make more sense.
Some have suggested that the women helped Jesus understand
that the Gentiles are to be included. That somehow this was a learning curve
for Jesus and emphasizes Jesus’ humanity.
Remembering that Mark was possibly Peter’s recollections
written by Mark for the largely Gentile Christians in Rome.
But that won’t do – look back in your Bible to Mark 5
where we find Jesus healing a demon-possessed man in the region of the
Gerasenes.
Jesus has done this before – healed a Gentile man of demon
possession in Gentile territory.
I am deeply attracted to the idea that Jesus was Jewish
Rabbi, and that this is a very Jewish way of seeking to bring more from the
woman.
(And let’s not lose sight of that – Jesus is in discourse
with a Gentile woman.)
Jesus lays down a bit of a riddle, a saying, that may well
have been something that was already being said. It has been suggested that the
Gentile community where exploiting the small Jewish community in the region,
these Gentile dogs were stealing Jewish bread!
But even outside of Jewish context we are used to a verbal
exchange.
Worth noting where Jesus was, Tyre and Sidon, way up on
the far northwest. (Modern day Lebanon) Two important cosmopolitan seaports
with Phoenician traders conducting trade from around the world. Could Mark by
placing this story here, be saying, this Gospel message is going to go out to
all the known world. Well beyond its Jewish confines in every respect,
geographically, culturally, ethnically.
And here let us go back to the Bible and look at the
beginning of Chapter 7 which comes before Jesus’ long trip up to the far
northwest coast. (And according to Matthew’s account he went with the
disciples)
We have Jesus in heated debate about ritual purity, who’s
in and whose out, what’s right and what’s wrong. (And as we read this type of
discourse, let’s not make Pharisees out to be a pantomime baddy.)
Is this Syrophoenician women in or out? Remembering that the Jews had a long and antagonistic animosity for the Syrophoenicians. And Sidon was Jezebel’s hometown!
There is a lot more I would love to explore with you about
Mark chapters 6, 7 and 8, but time is against us.
Trying to pull all the various threads together and going
back to the journey from the feeding of the 5,000 in a Jewish context, through
to the feeding of the 4,000 in a Gentile context, I am left with a question for
us to ponder on. Well, several questions, but I will land on just one, but one
that also leads onto further questions for reflection.
“Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes
to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
Question – who is allowed to
get this bread from the bakery?
From the answer to that question flows a raft of other
questions we might consider, such as…
Is there such a thing as an exclusive bakery and to get
this bread you must abide by certain rules, customs and regulation?
Who have we told recently about this bread of life?
Are we sustained daily by this bread of life – ‘give is
this our daily bread’
And are we only offering crumbs from the table?
Above all we note that there is a widenss in God's mercy...
https://youtu.be/l5LN1ZvwWfs?si=x-RYN8FDVOMaTUhG
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