Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 18B)

September 8, 2024

Text: Mark 7:24-37

            Lord God, heavenly Father, hear now our prayer, and free us from bondage to the devil.  Open our ears that we may hear Your saving Word, and our lips that we may praise You, and confess Your Word aright.

            In our Holy Gospel this day, God answers our prayer in the Person of His Son, Jesus Christ.  And that, bodily, in the flesh.  He invades all the places where demons haunt.  He meets us right we are broken, in all the vital parts that must be healed if we are to be His own, if we are to be Christians. 

            This is evident in our Holy Gospel.  It is astonishing… and you should be astonished!... He goes to the last place we would expect the Jewish Messiah to go…  Gentile territory.  Pagan territory.  Tyre and Sidon.  The Decapolis.  North of the Sea of Galilee.  And He interacts with the last people we would expect the Jewish Messiah to interact with… Gentiles!  A woman.  A Syrophoenician (dogs, we Jews call them!).  A deaf and mute man. 

            And He doesn’t just interact with them.  He cares for them.  He has compassion on them.  Even touches them.  And the results are: Answered prayer, release from bondage to demons, the opening of the ears, and the ability (the freedom!) to speak clearly. 

            This is what Jesus has come to do.  To invade and take possession.  To release what is bound, and to heal what is broken.  And what He does in our Gospel for the woman and her daughter, and for the deaf and dumb man, He does for us in the reading and proclamation of this Scripture.  That is, He is doing it for you at this very moment.

            It is hard for us to admit… In fact, we resist confessing it… we hate to acknowledge it…  We are born, every last one of us, in bondage to the devil.  Well, our first parents sold us for a bite of forbidden fruit, and that would be enough, yet we’ve been selling our own selves ever since.  And we’re deaf.  Some of us physically, to one degree or another, like the man in our text.  But here we are speaking of a deafness to God, to His Word, to His Voice.  We are born without ears to hear.  And we are dumb.  That doesn’t mean stupid, as it has come to mean in common parlance, but unable to speak.  There are people who are physically unable to speak, like the man in our text.  That often goes along with congenital deafness.  The ear and the mouth work together, and we must not underestimate the bondage of these physical afflictions, nor the miracle of the physical healing bestowed upon the man in our text.  But note this: You must be able to hear if you are to speak clearly.  We learn to speak from hearing, and saying back the things we hear.  And so, if we cannot hear the Word of God… if we are deaf to Him… neither can we make a faithful and true confession.  Confession of faith comes from hearing the Word. 

            Well, what is God to do with us, born as we are in demonic bondage, deaf and dumb?  He comes to us.  That is what He does.  The Father sends His Son.  Jesus.  God in our flesh.  To deliver us.  To rescue us.  To heal us.  To make us whole.

            Now, He doesn’t do it the way we would have Him do it.  We have our ways, but He has His ways.  And, to be honest, it’s a bit of an embarrassment how He goes about the whole business.  Sometimes He plays with us.  He tests us.  As with the woman in our text.  She comes, begging Him, falling down at His feet.  She’s heard about Him.  She’s heard the Word.  Please, Lord, cast out the demon from my precious daughter.  I’ve heard about You, and I know You can do it.  What is His answer?  A seeming refusal.  And a belittling racial slur.  “Let the children be fed first,” that is, the Israelites, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs” (Mark 7:27; ESV).  The dogs!  To be sure, the word is a diminutive form, probably indicating a pet dog, but note the implication.  The Israelites are humans, the Gentiles are not.  The Israelites are entitled to the Lord’s help.   The Gentiles are not.

            Now, you know the rest of the story.  The woman, on the basis of the Lord’s own character, which she knows by what she’s heard of Him, grabs hold of the Promise inherent in Jesus’ response.  “Yes, Lord,” it is true, I am an unworthy dog, but I am at the feet of my Master, where I belong, and “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs” (v. 28).  It is a tremendous statement of faith, and we should emulate it.  The Lord commends it, and gives the woman what she asks.  Faith receives.  The little girl is freed from the demon’s possession. 

            But isn’t it true that God often plays with you in this way?  You pray.  You beg.  You fall on your face before Him.  And He seems as though He doesn’t care.  Callous.  Aloof.  Perhaps even annoyed at your petitions.  What does He want from you when He does this?  He wants you to grab hold of His Promises.  Take your place as a dog at your Master’s feet.  Acknowledge your unworthiness.  Agree with Him, and confess it.  Gratefully licking up the crumbs from the Table.  That is enough, Lord.  That is enough. 

            It’s embarrassing how He delivers the man, too.  Fingers in his ears?  Spitting and touching His tongue?  But then, how else are you supposed to communicate with a man who is deaf and dumb?  It’s all so earthy, so fleshy.  The physical nature of it offends our spiritualistic sensibilities.  But there must be no spiritualistic barrier between the man of dust and the Lord’s touch.  This is an act of re-creation.  Looking up to heaven, a prayer.  A sigh.  God’s Son breathing forth His Spirit, the Spirit of life.  Now the ears are open to hear, and the tongue loosed to speak.

            Is this not what He does for us?  He pokes Himself into our ears, in Scripture, in preaching, that we may hear Him.  The spittle of His mouth, His Word, looses our tongues, that we may speak clearly, confessing Him, and all that He says.  His touch… the Sacraments.  Baptism.  The Supper.  His real, substantial, bodily presence.  No barrier.  The real touch of the real Lord for real release and real healing. 

            The bodily Jesus is God’s answer to our prayer.  We pray for deliverance, and God sends a Man from Nazareth.  And it seems like He must be playing with us.  But, in fact, this Man from Nazareth is God’s invasion of creation, to overthrow the old wicked tyrant.  He gives Himself over to the devil’s hordes, bodily, to be tortured and killed.  But the serpent bites off more than he can chew.  The Man from Nazareth is risen from the dead.  And it is He who rescues you, He who touches you, He who heals you, and infuses you with His resurrection life.

            And so, you do now have ears to hear, and lips open to confess.

            And to pray.  Don’t miss that about this Gospel.  The woman prays to Jesus for her little daughter.  Jesus hears and answers her prayer.  Those from the crowd beg Jesus to help the deaf and dumb man.  Jesus hears and answers their prayer.  So now… what do you know He will do for you?  When you pray for your children?  When you pray for your friends?  When you place a need… your own, or that of another… before Him, begging Him to help?  He may test you.  He may play with you.  He will drive you to cling to His Promises.  But so also, He will come down to you.  He will get down into the gutters with you, all the way down into flesh and blood with you, even into pagan territory with you, to hear you, and answer you… to answer your prayers.  To be the answer to your prayers.

            Even you, a Gentile sinner.  He has come to deliver you.  He has come to heal you.  He invades all the dark places in your life, your mind, your heart, your soul.  With His presence.  To touch you.  To create you anew.  To make you whole.

            O God, deliver us from demonic bondage.  Open our ears and our lips to your Word.  His answer is yes.  He is doing it now.  His answer is Jesus fulfilling this Gospel in your hearing.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.