Pentecost 14B
Mark 7.24-37
September 5/6, 2009
How many of you have ever had this experience? It’s morning, you’re not quite awake, you open the cupboard door, pull out the bowl, get the milk out of the refrigerator, open the box of cereal, turn it over and-------CRUMBS!! There’s nothing there but the fragments of frosted flakes lying on the bottom of the box. So sad.
Or, it’s been weeks since there have been potato chips in the house. You go to the grocery store. Chips are on sale! You buy one, stick it in the way, way back of the cupboard. One night you quietly tiptoe into the kitchen, no one else is around, grab your stash, stick your hand in the bag and------------CRUMBS! So irritating.
You’re leaving worship. Some delightful, wonderful person has made brownies. You just love brownies. But you got held up talking and when you finally get to the big lovely platter---------------CRUMBS!! So frustrating.
We don’t want crumbs. We want the new box of crispy, sugary cereal. We want the new bag of chips, perfectly formed and salted. We want the moist, sweet, chocolately (preferably the chewy corner piece) brownie. We don’t want the crumbs! Nobody wants the crumbs.
I even disagree with our friend, the Syrophonecian woman. I don’t even think the dogs want the crumbs. Some of you have met my dog. He’ll steal a sandwich right out of your hand, eat the potato salad off your plate, he’s even been known to down an entire cake in a single gulp. If he’s sitting by the table not a single vegetable or crust of bread will ever hit the floor. But crumbs. Nope. He can’t be bothered. Little crumbs hold no interest for him. Not even the dogs want the crumbs that fall from the children’s plates.
So, what is all this nonsense about feeding children and leaving the crumbs for the dogs? When did Jesus start being so stingy with food? Isn’t this the Jesus who allowed his disciples to pick grain on the Sabbath to quench their hunger? This goes completely against everything we know about Jesus. Isn’t this the man who spread out a delightful picnic of bread and fish for thousands of complete strangers at a moment’s notice? Isn’t this the Jesus who, immediately after raising a little girl from the dead, tells her mother to give her something to eat? Isn’t this the man we find constantly at table with outcasts and sinners? Isn’t this the Jesus who provides a smorgasbord of sensory experience for the crowds? So what’s he talking about throwing food to the dogs?
To refuse to feed people isn’t even Biblical. When the Israelites were whining and hungry in the desert—bam—quail practically landed in their stew pots. Manna miraculously fell from the sky each night to feed the wandering Hebrews. When Israel was in exile, the promise that kept them going was that when they returned to Jerusalem it would be to a banquet brimming with the richest foods, the finest wine.
Did Jesus REALLY mean to say “no” to this woman? Was that his intent? She isn’t the first Gentile to ever approach him. She isn’t the first woman to approach him. She isn’t the first person to interrupt a dinner party between Jesus and the disciples. She did assume the proper posture of respect. She did call him by the proper title. She is no more out of line than anyone else who’s ever approached Jesus asking for help. Argh. What are we to make of this conversation?
ESPECIALLY, especially when it’s held in tension with the story that follows about a deaf man who had to be carried to Jesus. What’s with that? Why does a deaf man have to be carried? Deaf people can walk, there’s nothing wrong with their legs. But there he is, being carried, dragged-kicking and screaming by his friends to Jesus. And once he’s in position, he sits there, shuts his eyes to block out the world and refuses to ask Jesus for a thing. Not a blasted thing does he request! His friends beg for his health. His friends ask for him to be restored. He communicates nothing—and surely a man deaf from birth has worked out some way to communicate.
Jesus gives this man the whole works. He takes him off alone. He pulls out the whole bag of tricks. Jesus responds by touching him. Jesus places the powerful healing salve of spit on him. Jesus speaks to him. Everything he doesn’t want, Jesus does. Everything the woman wants, Jesus argues about. Ahhhhhh.
Perhaps the Gospel isn’t based on us receiving from the hand of the Lord what we want, but rather what we need. And Jesus is so very good at giving people what they need.
The man didn’t want a thing to do with Jesus. He didn’t recognize Jesus as teacher or healer. That man was willing to spend his entire life closed up in his own silent, lonely world. Jesus recognized in the man the need to be opened to healing, to relationships, to receiving. And so Jesus didn’t tell him to speak, but Jesus commanded him to “Be Opened.”
The woman, she was already opened. She was open to whatever Jesus was willing to throw her way. She didn’t need bells or whistles, spit or fancy word. She just needed one word of life and she was open to receiving it through engaging him, challenging him or confronting him. She was open to his healing and to heading back home at the end of that day with the sweet satisfaction that she would find her daughter walking and talking and in her right mind.
The man, he got what he needed. He was opened. Once Jesus wrestled him to the ground and got him opened up, he wouldn’t shut up. He just kept praising the living God. He refused to stop telling people what God had done for him.
Sometimes it seems that all we get are crumbs. And most of the time we want something more. We want the whole box of cereal, the whole bag of chips, the whole plate of brownies. We want all that we can get. Instead, we get stuck with crumbs. We want healing and instead we get pills. We want to be fed and someone makes us liver and brussel sprouts. We want rest and we get a phone that won’t stop ringing. None of it seems fair.
Who knows, maybe when it’s all said and done we’re getting exactly what we need. Maybe in those bottles of pills there is some healing. Maybe in that liver we get the iron our bodies need. Maybe in that phone call we find the excuse to get outside of ourselves. Maybe in the next crumb there is a new opportunity for community, for fellowship; to find the face of the savior in our neighbors.
One thing I do know? Those crumbs in the bottom of the cereal box? There’s more sugar in there than in a candy bar! The bottom of the chip bag? That’s where all the salt and seasonings hide! The bottom of the brownie pan? All the crunchy, chocolaty goodness and none of the calories!!
That woman lying at Jesus feet? She was brilliant. She knew that in the crumbs we find the very best stuff, especially when those crumbs are tossed our way by the risen Lord.
Don’t be surprised when in the crumbs life throws your way, you find everything you need and more. Amen
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