Is Jesus really refusing to help someone with a sick kid? That doesn’t seem right.
He’s even pretty rude and forceful about it, and I don’t like that. I may be tempted to imagine Jesus would be mad at all the same people on the internet and cable news that I’m mad at, but when it comes right down to seeing Jesus deny a healing… That’s not the Jesus I want to see.
It’s as if he’s denying or resisting the mission of God, the healing and reconciliation that’s the whole reason of God-among-us.
And then, too, there’s this other healing he’s trying to keep quiet. Jesus not only takes the man away from the community that brought him, in order to heal him in private. Then Jesus tries to suppress the news of the miracle, to keep a bunch of volunteer evangelists from proclaiming how good he is.
It’s as if he almost doesn’t want the gospel to spread. Doesn’t want more followers.
That can’t be right, can it?
None of this fits the image of Jesus I have in my head.
But it’s all been part of the story of Jesus for about as long as there’s been a story of Jesus. There must be a reason we tell these.
In the story of the woman with a sick child, Mark wants us to notice that Jesus is focusing on priorities.
“Let the children be fed first. It’s not fair to take food from the children and give it to the dogs.”
Mark wants us to remember that Jesus’ job on earth, at this point in the story, is primarily to renew the relationship of the children of Israel with God.
God’s care encompasses all people, yes. But as long as Jesus is fully human, Jesus’s fully divine self works with human limits.
Not everything is possible all at once.
Right at this moment, in this incarnation, Jesus’ priority is work with the people of Israel.
Maybe Jesus tries to keep that other healing private and quiet, because his priority isn’t fame – the publicity and attraction of doing all things well – but rather faith – the trust and commitment to Jesus – whatever he does – that allows us to see all that God is up to in our world and lives.
And priorities are a good thing.
Some of us, this week, may be able to bring non-perishable food for Cathedral Kitchen, and diapers for baby refugees to church,
and pour out our compassion and help toward flood- or tornado-devastated neighbors in towns nearby,
and Haitians devastated by the recent earthquake
and Afghan allies who couldn’t leave Kabul and now fear for their lives
and folks facing eviction right now because Covid cost them their jobs or income,
and countless other humanitarian crises all at once.
Maybe.
But most of us have to choose: to find one or two humanitarian priorities, while we also help our families and workplaces and church navigate whatever COVID means this week, respond to a friend terrified at a new diagnosis, do the work in front of us, dream and work for a stronger future, and manage to eat something healthy along the way.
We can’t do everything, so in order to do something, we have to set priorities.
And we watch Jesus make that clear today.
In very strong language.
(I can’t excuse the rudeness of calling another human being a dog, but it’s possible that’s meant to shock us – you and me, the observers of the story – into knowing something is out of place, more than it’s meant to insult the Gentile woman who wants her child healed.)
We watch Jesus make priorities clear.
And then we watch God at work.
Because God can do everything, and this woman says so.
The dogs eat the crumbs the children drop.
You can feed the children first, and see the dogs fed at the same time.
And Jesus responds not by changing his priority, but by affirming that while Jesus stays focused on one thing, God has healed. I think he might even be saying that God has healed through the woman – “by your word” – rather than through Jesus.
I think that may happen for us, too. When there is a part of God’s work that is beyond your scope, or my scope – God gets it done, and invites us to recognize the work of God being done through someone else.
And there always is – always will be – a lot of the work of God that’s beyond your scope, and mine. So it’s good news that God makes a way.
Good news that makes it possible for us to do more, freed of the burden of trying to do all the things. Good news that helps us recognize the miracles God does through others, and that makes us stronger together.
A friend recently shared with me some advice she’d gotten from another friend.
When we ask ourselves if something is the right thing to do, we should also be asking the questions
Am I the right person? and
Is this the right time?
Say you wonder if it’s the right thing to sign up to sponsor a refugee family. And you may see it as the right thing to do to welcome the stranger as Jesus teaches; a patriotic thing to do, in welcoming an ally; a good thing to bring the community together.
Then you also ask:
Am I the person who can commit to generous friendship even when it’s awkward and tedious helping someone navigate a new culture, grocery shopping, travel and transit? Am I good at receiving a gift of a strange-to-me home-cooked meal with gratitude, learning about myself as I help others?
Some of us may recognize that part or all of that is beyond our capabilities.
For others of us, there’s joy in that question, in that work we could do. Curiosity, courage or a sense of conviction that empowers our commitment.
And you ask: Is this the right time?
Maybe the urgency is compelling, and there’s no time like the present. Maybe another commitment just ended, or you’ve been looking for a way to grow and learn.
Or maybe you see instead that another commitment this year means you should explore how to be ready next year.
The right thing to do, the right person, the right time.
Those questions work for ministries at church, for choices in our families, even for decisions at work and school. Even the most secular of jobs has opportunities to love and serve our neighbors, and to share in God’s mission of healing and renewal.
Those holy priority questions can not only show us what God is calling and empowering you to do by showing you the joy or confidence or love or talent that helps you embrace God’s compassionate, healing, transformative work.
Those questions can also show you when you’re not called to something who it is who is doing the work of God you aren’t called to do.
And seeing that, recognizing and affirming that:
telling a friend you see how his persistence in speaking the truth, or caring for a lonely, cranky neighbor, is building a channel for God’s healing;
or telling a lawmaker that the bills she is sponsoring are making a difference;
or telling the world the good news of a miracle-enabling doctor, a heart-healing author’s work –
all these ways of recognizing God’s work in someone else and proclaiming it is an important gift and task.
Freedom from the burden of doing all the things makes all things possible.
Holy priorities keep us out of God’s way, when God has others to do the work.
In today’s story, Jesus could embrace the limits of his full humanity, bound by time and physics, could share that experience we have, and proclaim God’s healing work through someone else.
Freedom from the burden of all things empowers us to do more in some things.
The Gentile woman with the sick child knew she didn’t have to worry about how Jesus’ mission to the children of Israel was going. So she could see the power of the crumbs under the table and claim that healing for her child.
In Mark’s story today, in our own stories, yours and mine, Jesus is making a way for God to work with and through you and me.
And that is his first priority. Ours, too.
Thanks be to God.
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