Our themes in this week’s Scripture passages speak about the importance of healing as central to God’s plan for our world. From the passage in Isaiah to Mark’s Gospel, we are reminded yet again that God is near to us as a compassionate and healing presence. At points in our lives, we all find ourselves in need of healing and hope. Whether our wounds are of the mind, the body or the spirit, they cause us pain and suffering and when we suffer, we may cry out to God to take the pain away. And sometimes, our wounds may never fully heal or they heal in unexpected ways. This morning, we hear of the desperate plea of a mother on behalf of her child seeking healing from Jesus. The prophet Isaiah tells us to be strong and not be afraid, for God comes near and “ the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be opened, the lame shall leap and those who have not been able to speak will now sing”
Let us pray, we come this morning in search of a word of hope, inspiration, perhaps healing. Be with us now and help us to be open to the healing that has been and continues to be part of our lives through your presence of love. Amen.
Many of you probably watched some of the Olympic games in Paris in early August. Hopefully some have also been able to catch some of the coverage of the paralympics that are now underway. Personally, I wish those games were featured more widely because the stories of these athletes are truly remarkable. There are countless stories of healing and overcoming incredible obstacles among all of the athletes in both games and often, those are what stay with us. For some of the parathletes, their real healing began in some sense, when they discovered the sport in which they now compete. They will never fully regain what has been lost physically, but the healing of their minds and hearts, as well as their bodies, often began in earnest when they discovered new reasons for living.
If you watched the Olympics, you may have seen the inspiring story of couple Tara Davis Woodhall and her husband Hunter Woodhall. Tara Davis-Woodhall won the gold medal in the long jump this summer in Paris. Her husband, Hunter, whom she met in high school, has been competing in the Paralympics in track and field as well. He just won a gold medal in recent days for the 400 meters after having won bronze and silver in 2020. His story is one of many which continue to inspire and provide hope for those living with physical challenges.
Hunter Woodhall was born in Georgia and underwent the amputation of both of his legs when he was 11 months old due to a medical condition. He was homeschooled until the fifth grade, and sadly, when he entered public school he was bullied for his disability. Although he was initially given prosthetic legs, Woodhall eventually switched to carbon fiber “blades” for running and joined a track team.
By his senior year, Woodhall was ranked 20th across America in the 400meters. He became the first double-amputee track and field athlete to earn a Division I athletic scholarship and attended the University of Arkansas. Track and field has been a central part of his healing journey and an essential part of his life.
In this morning’s Gospel, we hear about important healing stories from the ministry of Jesus. The geographical locales provide an important clue for interpreting this passage. In Mark chapters 5 and 6, while Jesus was traveling in what was considered largely Jewish territory, he healed a desperate woman and then went on to feed a crowd of five thousand; and in Mark 7 and 8, as Jesus made his way in an area known at the time as primarily Gentile territory, he heals a desperate woman’s daughter as we heard today.. The overall dynamic in Mark, whose audience was primarily Gentile, is the saving, healing, and liberating work of God expanding in scope from Jewish circles outward, eventually including all people. And though Jesus has interacted with Gentiles before in Mark, this week’s story is a decisive pivot point in this larger narrative of widening inclusion.
The areas of Tyre and Sidon were both coastal cities in the Roman province of Syria, as well as historic centers of the Phoenician naval empire, an ancient nemesis of Israel and so, for Mark’s early audience, these cities simultaneously evoked not just foreign but also hostile territory.
Jesus is exhausted. Seeking solitude for rest, he quietly retreats to a house in Tyre — but soon enough, word gets out. A Syrophoenician woman, desperate because her young daughter is possessed by an unclean spirit, hears about where Jesus is, and comes to see him, and importantly, as one commentator notes, she does not knock. She does not wait and plead her case from outside on the street. She enters the house on her own — and throws herself at Jesus’ feet. Her sheer audacity, which reminds us of the audacity of the woman living with a hemorrhage (Mark 5:25-34), is nothing short of scandalous in its first-century context. She is not related to Jesus or even known to him, and yet, she enters the house and boldly makes her plea. What’s more, she thereby defies barriers set not only by patriarchy and other cultural norms, but also by religion, ethnicity, and longstanding enmity between peoples. For she is a Syrophoenician (a Gentile), and he is a Jew.
Jesus’ initial reaction is hard to make sense of as he seems to rebuke the woman. What? Did Jesus just call this woman — a dog?
As one commentator offers, “There are at least two ways of interpreting this story. One is that Jesus articulates this proverbial animosity not in order to endorse it, but rather in order to dramatize it, to bring it center stage precisely so it can be overturned.
And sure enough, the woman turns the metaphor on its head: even the dogs gather the table’s crumbs, and the logic of abundance implies that God’s grace is for all people, right here and right now. Jesus immediately concedes the point (this is the only verbal fencing match in Mark that Jesus doesn’t win), which establishes the woman as an exemplar of faith, an outsider who understands better than the insiders do. And then, as if transformed himself by this surprising reversal, Jesus goes on to heal another Gentile in Sidon, and then miraculously feed a large crowd of mostly Gentiles (Mark 8). The Syrophoenician woman is a pivotal hero in the story, the tenacious mother who helps Jesus open up the circle of salvation to the wider world.
A second possible interpretation is that Jesus is initially limited by the conventional thinking of his day and ends up learning from his encounter with the Syrophoenician woman. Like every human being, Jesus learns and evolves. Like Jacob, this woman was not afraid to wrestle with God and insist on a blessing (“Israel” literally means “struggles/strives with God”).
Despite these striking events, Jesus’ disciples don’t get it. After healings and a miraculous meal in Jewish territory, Jesus expands the circle to include healings and a miraculous meal in Gentile territory. As we listen to the language Jesus uses in Sidon (ephphatha, “be opened”), Mark portrays salvation as continuously being opened up, always moving outward, beyond all attempts to contain it. “Do you have eyes,” Jesus asks the disciples just a few verses later, “and fail to see? Do you have ears and fail to hear?” (Mark 8:18) When Jesus says to the man in Sidon, “Be opened!” could it be that Jesus only does so because the Syrophoenician woman has already done the same for him? Perhaps…
Do we have eyes to see, ears to hear? Perhaps we do. Be opened, she says, be opened…
Have we found healing in unexpected ways in our own lives? As we age, we certainly carry the memory, and perhaps the scars, from injuries in our lives-to our bodies yes, but often to our hearts as well. I imagine God has met us in our pain and invited us to healing in new ways. Be opened, Jesus says. Be opened! Perhaps we too may be open to the important ways we have been healed or ways in which we yet may find healing.
Resources: SALT Commentary