On Crossing Lines
September 8, 2024
Traceymay Kalvaitis

Mark 7: 24-30

From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. 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.
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Today’s sermon is titled On Crossing Lines.

When I was much younger I imagined myself as a world traveler, but there are only two places off the North American Continent I have traveled to, the Caribbean island of Anguilla for a mission trip when I was 14, and the islands of Hawai’i. Honestly, I think I am losing my desire to travel but I find such delight in the travels of my children. The two oldest have both traveled internationally, crossing the lines of geography, language, religion and custom. It was not easy for either of them, but I see how their experiences redefined who they were as the lines that used to serve as their boundaries were radically rearranged.

This morning we meet up with Jesus as he embarks on a journey to a foreign land. His journey is recorded similarly in the gospels of Matthew and Mark. Jesus and his disciples travel to the north along the edge of the Mediterranean Sea, crossing over from Jewish territory to the region of Tyre, an island city in present-day Lebanon. In Tyre, at that time, the population was an eclectic mix of cultures and religions. There is a sordid history between the Jewish populace in the south and Gentile populace in the north. The tribes of Israel had previously fought for control of the northern region and lost, so it had become a stronghold for the Roman Empire. Having such strongholds so close to the border meant that cultural and religious influences had been creeping their way into the Jewish “Promised Land” for centuries. This northern region and its inhabitants were seen as a threat, both politically and culturally.
So when we follow Jesus across this particular border, he is not just ambling across the countryside, guided by the breezes that blow. It’s a pretty big deal for him to venture into these northern regions. It appears that he is seeking refuge, a break in the action. He does not want anyone to know he is there. Jesus has been badgered by the Pharisees, as we heard last week, and it seems like he just wants to get away from it all. The scriptures have this short and very telling sentence that follows, “He could not escape notice.”

To fully appreciate the levity of what happens next, keep in mind that this is 2000 years ago and there are many lines that are about to be crossed. Jesus and his disciples are on a sabbatical of sorts inside this house when someone appears, begging for a favor. This person is a woman and she is not a woman of the Jewish faith; she is a Gentile woman addressing a group of Jewish men; apparently, that just did not happen, ever. In the account of this story in the book of Matthew, the woman is insistent to the point of being really annoying and the disciples ask Jesus to send her away. In both accounts, though, Jesus turns to her and says something shocking, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
This statement does not fit with the image of Jesus that I have carefully constructed for myself. In fact, on Monday morning, when I opened up the lectionary and read this scripture we are given, my mind simply refused to believe that Jesus was actually referring to this Gentile woman and her people as “dogs.” I spent a couple of days this week researching this passage with one aim in mind: to find something, anything, to realign Jesus’s statement with the image I hold of him as a kind, loving, open-minded, and willing servant of God. I found plenty of other sources of information that supported the such a realignment and, up until about Thursday, I was thinking that I might just be able to stand here and convince you that it’s not as bad as it sounds, really, because the word Jesus used for “dog” translates to “little pet dog” and the Greek philosophers of the day were known as “dogs” so perhaps Jesus isn’t really being mean, after all.
Do you see, Friends, how very convoluted it becomes to force Jesus’s words into alignment with our image of who we think he is? The modern theologian, Frederich Buechner, warns of about turning away from such insights into Jesus’s nature that we would just as soon avoid; he writes, “The danger is that we hold on only to the moments that one way or another heal us and bless us and neglect the others. Woe to the preachers and to all of us who stay only in the bright uplands of the Gospels and avoid like death, avoid like life, the dark ravines, the cave under the hill.” * Friends, there is a gift we find if we do not avoid this difficult passage. For me, it is a most precious gift because I can see something in Jesus that reminds me of myself. In his moment of poor judgment I find hope that I will not, in the end, be defined by my own poor judgements.
For most of the week, I really struggled with this passage and how to lay it out for you today. On Thursday, I gave up. I decided to just sit with my little miniature crisis of faith, sit right there in the breach until I could manage not to squirm away from it anymore. So let’s just take the words of Jesus as they come to us and accept that he crossed the line; he insulted this woman for reasons we can not fully comprehend. At this point, she could have stormed off, she could have broken down in a crying, desperate mess, but she doesn’t. She responds, addressing Jesus directly with a title of respect, she says “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” This woman is completely focused on obtaining help for her child and her response is apparently what changes Jesus’s mind. What happens next and next and next, though, proves even more significant.
Jesus heals the child, sight unseen, and instead of going back home, now that his cover is blown, he travels hundreds of miles through foreign lands up and over in a huge arc into what is now Syria and the next thing we know he is healing another Gentile who is deaf and dumb. In the very next chapter of Mark, while still in this foreign land, Jesus is teaching a crowd of 4,000 and he feeds them with only seven loaves of bread, and collects seven baskets full of leftovers. This is not the famous loaves and fishes, feeding; that was old news already.
What we see here, when we look at the longer arc of Jesus’s ministry is that his encounter with the woman in Tyre is a pivotal point when Jesus intentionally extends his ministry to those beyond the Jewish sector. It seems to me as if Jesus experienced a fundamental shift in his awareness of the scope of his ministry, a shift that led him further away from his land of origin and deep into foreign territory, and a shift that likely opened up the way for the spread of Christianity for centuries to come.
Traveling to distant lands, being far from home and the familiar, and among people who are so alike in so many ways and yet so very different in others, has a peculiar way of redefining who we are. I propose that in this confrontation with this foreign woman in this foreign land, Jesus went through a process of redefining who he was and, as a result, we can actually see by his subsequent actions that he became so much more than who he had been before. He crossed line after line after line to widen his sphere of influence and to reach people that were, heretofore, unreachable.
In closing, I am aware that there are so many lines that box us in. There are lines that we draw around ourselves to define who we are, and there are lines that we draw around others, too. I hope to remember this story of Jesus and the woman who challenged him. I hope to remember how the lines could have held either or both of them back, but in the end they crossed over, both of them, and in the wake of their crossing came healing, and sharing of a love so vast and immeasurable that it touches us here, right now and forevermore. So be it. Amen.

*https://www.thewords.com/articles/buech.htm
Pastoral Prayer
Limitless source of love we call God, I thank you for the life of Jesus and the stories we have that show not only his divinity, but also his humanity. Help us, Lord, to see ourselves and others beyond the lines that define who we are, what we know, what we can and can not do, and how much we have or do not have. In this stillness, we lift our prayers to a place beyond us, where the unfathomable divine workings of God are all there are. May peace replace anxiety, may love replace fear, and may assurance replace uncertainty in all we are facing in our lives. Help us, Holy Spirit, to look for the best in ourselves and in one another and yet foster in us a spirit of forgiveness, tolerance and understanding. Please be with those of us in need, those enduring illness and those in recovery. Guide us with the light of your loving presence, we pray in Jesus’s name. Amen.

Benediction

I leave you with these words from Ephesians 3:16:

“May you experience the love of Christ, and be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God.”