"Be Opened" September 10, 2006 Proper 18

(First, read the text for this sermon: Mark 7:24-37)

“Be opened.” That’s what Jesus says to the man who cannot hear and cannot speak, in this morning’s story from the gospel of Mark. “Be opened. Be opened from deafness. Be opened from the inability to speak.”

But, of course, the meaning of the story goes far beyond the specific encounter between Jesus and this person in need – because the story is included by the writer in this persuasive narrative he’s put together, that’s called a “gospel.” The gospel of Mark (as well as the other three gospels) are intended to persuade you and me that Jesus the Christ is the light of the world, the path of salvation. That is the point of the stories that are told.

And so, as we read this story from Mark this morning, it is directed towards you and me: “Be opened. Be opened to how God is moving within you and among us. Be opened to how God broadens your vision and sharpens your awareness of the work God gives you to do. And be opened to how God restores your energy when you are worn out, because you have been working too hard.”

How does that happen for you? How are you opened? Perhaps, instead, I should first ask: What is it that closes you off?

Is it fatigue? How often is it that, at the end of the day, you are so tuckered out that all you want to do is to cocoon at home? “Stop the world! I want to get off!”

In fact, that’s how Jesus feels, as this morning’s gospel story begins. Did you notice that? It’s easy to miss – unless you pause to dwell on the very first verse of the passage. Listen again: From there [Jesus] set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there.

It’s something that might not enter into your conception of who Jesus was, and what he was like. But Jesus is fully human, and, as this morning’s story begins, he is fully exhausted. In the gospel of Mark, the action is happening fast and furious – one healing following another, one teaching following another – and it is all a heavy burden for Jesus because he is provoking great hostility by what he’s doing and saying. Barely into the third chapter of Mark, Jesus’ opponents already begin plotting how to kill him. What’s just happened, in the sixth and seventh chapters of Mark’s story, has been a nasty confrontation. Jesus has called the leaders of God’s people hypocrites, calling attention to how their rules about purity and cleanliness have led people to lose sight of God’s simple command: that we are to love God and love our neighbor.

Emotionally, physically, and, I’ll bet, spiritually drained, [Jesus] entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. And here’s what we read: 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.

Emotionally, physically and spiritually worn out by the hostility he is provoking, and by incessant demands of people in need, Jesus tries to hide away in a safe house, to rest, to recover, to recuperate. But yet another person in desperate need finds him, and begs him to do just one more healing. Here’s how I interpret this difficult passage: it is out of his fatigue that Jesus treats the woman in a shocking manner. She is not one of God’s chosen people. She is not a Jew. She is a Gentile. And Jesus compares Gentiles to dogs! Do you remember what Jesus says? 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."

Biblical scholars say that this is a reminder that the early Jesus people were Jews, and that there was conflict in the early church over whether God even offered grace to people who were not Jews, to people like you and me, Gentiles. We do need to remember that. But that doesn’t interest me nearly as much as what this passage reveals about Jesus – because his actions are so un-Jesus like. In his exhaustion and frustration, Jesus calls the woman a dog, unworthy of his favors! (Have you ever said something you’ve regretted, because you’ve been so tired and worn out?)

Now. Remember how the woman responds? Is it because of her faith? Is it because she is truly humble? Is it because she is simply so nakedly desperate that her daughter be healed? She says to Jesus, "Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." In other words, if that’s all Jesus is going to offer, then she is open to receive the crumbs of his attention!

Here’s what happens. This remarkable woman and those remarkable words of faith penetrate even into Jesus’ fatigue – and these words open Jesus himself to the constant, unrelenting, unceasing movement of God’s grace! 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.

Does weariness close you off, as well, to God’s grace? Be opened. Be opened to how God is moving within you and among us. Be opened to how God broadens your vision and sharpens your awareness of the work God gives you to do. And be opened to how God restores your energy when you are worn out, because you have been working too hard.

Sabbath time opens us to all of that. Sabbath time is time when you are free from the compulsion to be productive, to be “doing something constructive.” Sabbath time is when you rest in the presence of God. Indeed, God uses sabbath time to open you up to God’s presence.

Something important occurred during my early-morning period of sabbath time, this past Monday. Let me tell you that I am rarely in a spirit of openness first thing, upon waking, as I begin these moments of sabbath early each morning. I first have to simply rest in God’s presence, to see what it is that I will receive. So, I was sitting out on my screened porch, and it was raining. There was just beginning to be daylight. I was reading in the daily lectionary, and the lectionary had gotten to John chapter three, and the passage about God sending the Son purely because God loves us. And I sat with that. God loves us. God loves me. And it was raining. (It was pouring! I was surrounded by water coming from the sky, with only my little roof keeping me dry.) And I received anew this realization from God: that we are immersed in love, just as the earth was being immersed in water on that morning. (There’s great baptismal imagery in all that!) Indeed, it is often true that nature reveals God so clearly, when we are opened, (and when we’re not entombed 24/7 behind closed windows, in air conditioning).

Christianity is so physical, anyway! There is the bread and the wine, which is the body and blood of Jesus. There is the finger of Jesus poking into the ear of the man who cannot hear, to open him to the movement of the Holy Spirit. There is the spit and Jesus’ touching the man’s tongue, to open his ability to speak of the movement of the Holy Spirit.
In all things physical, we are immersed in God’s presence and love and grace.

Be opened. Be opened to how God is moving within you and among us. Be opened to how God broadens your vision and sharpens your awareness of the work God gives you to do. And be opened to how God restores your energy when you are worn out, because you have been working too hard.

In the name of God, who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.


Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia