On Being Relevant Mark 7:24-8:26
Sermon by Pastor Dennis Gleason -- April 2, 2006
On a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occur there was once a crude life saving station. The building was just a hut, and there was on ly one boat, but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea, and with no thought for themselves, went out day and night tirelessly searching for the lost. Many lives were saved by this wonderful little station, so that it became famous. Some of those who were saved and various others in the surrounding area, wanted to become associated with the station and give of their time and money and effort for the support of its work. New boats were bought and new crews trained. The little life saving station grew.
Some of the members of the lifesaving station were unhappy that the building was so crude and poorly equipped. They felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea. So they replaced the emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in the enlarged building. Now the lifesaving station became a popular gathering place for its members, and they decorated it beautifully and furnished it exquisitely, because they used it as sort of club. Fewer members were now interested in going to sea on lifesaving missions, so they hired lifeboat crews to do this work.
The lifesaving motif still prevailed in this club’s decoration, and there was a liturgical lifeboat in the room where the club initiations were held. About this time a larg ship was wrecked off the coast, and the hired crews brought in boatloads of cold, wet, and half-drowned people. They were dirty and sick, and some of them had black skin and some had yellow skin. The beautiful club was in chaos. So the property committee immediately had a shower house built outside the club where victims of shipwreck could be cleaned up before coming inside.
At the next meeting, there was a split in the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club’s lifesaving activities as being unpleasant and a hindrance to the normal social life of the club. Some members insisted upon lifesaving as their primary purpose and pointed out that they were still called a lifesaving station. But they were finally voted down and told that if they wanted to save the lives of all the various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters, they could begin their own lifesaving station down the coast. They did.
As the years went by, the new station experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old. It evolved into a club, and yet another lifesaving station was founded. History continued to repeat itself, and if you visit that sea coast today, you will find a number of exclusive clubs along that shore. Shipwrecks are frequent in those waters, but most of the people drown.
In this parable, Theodore Wedel depicts the danger that always confronts the church – irrelevance. The only relevance that matters is relevance to the deep needs of people – relevance to the places in their lives where they hurt and hope, curse and pray, hunger for meaning and for significant relationships.
Our text for today is found in Mark 7:24-8:26. It is a rather lengthy section of Mark’s Gospel in which he writes about Jesus’ Gentile ministry.
What we find in this section are five pictures drawn for us of people in need.
Jesus goes north as far as Tyre and there he meets the Syrophonecian woman whose daughter is demon possessed. From there he goes to Sidon and then down South into the Decapolis (10 cities). All the while he ministers to the Gentiles in much the same way as he has been to the Jews.
And then they bring to him a man who was deaf and unable to speak. His friends entreat Jesus to lay his hands on him and heal him.
And then there is the story of the 4000 people who begin following him and stay with Jesus and his for three days. And they are hungry and he felt compassion for them for they had nothing to eat. He was concerned about sending them away hungry. They had seven loaves of bread and a few fish. He broke the bread and gave it to the people. When all had eaten they collected seven baskets full of pieces.
And then in the second section verses 8:10-16 he crosses over to Dalmanutha where he is immediately met by the Sadducees and the Pharisees, who begin arguing with him. We have seen that the Pharisees were the conservative, puritans of their day. Well, the Sadducees were the liberals of their day. They viewed Judaism as only an ethical religion. They did not believe in the “supernatural” which included belief in the resurrection from the dead or angels and such. The Pharisees did believe in what we would call the “supernatural” and it is interesting that they have formed some kind of alliance to discredit or remove Jesus completely. The come seeking a sign from Jesus.
As he travels, Jesus heals the eyes of a blind man who happens to be a Gentile.
Jesus is concerned about the needs of people. When he heals the blind man, he touches him twice for he sees men as trees walking.
Now lets go back and look at these five stories and see what we can about them in relationship to Jesus and the needs of people.
The woman is a gentile. She is in all reality a Canaanite woman. According to the Old Testament she is a member of a condemned race of people. Her daughter is possessed by a demonic spirit that has caused her great harm. She fell at his feet and kept asking him to cast the demon out of her daughter.
At first he said nothing in response. He is silent. So she kept on asking him to help. When he spoke, he told her “Let the children be satisfied first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” (vs 27) Her response, was to say, “Yes Lord, but even the dogs under the table feed on the children’s crumbs.” To which he says, “Because of this answer go your way; the demon has gone out of your daughter.”
How are we to understand this very difficult exchange between the woman and Jesus? What Jesus really said was: “Let the children be satisfied first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the doggies.” Hear those words with tenderness in His voice. We tend to hear harshness because of who she is. She has viewed him as the Hebrew Messiah but asks him for help. “Lord help me…for even the doggies eat of the crumbs which fall from their master’s table.” And he heals the child. What happens here is that Jesus treats her as a child. Notice that the children (the Jews) are to be served first. That means there will be a time for the Gentiles. But for her, that time is now. He brings to her the privilege of a child in the family of God and meets her need.
In dealing with the deaf man who could not speak and the blind man he does something different than he has done before. Look at our text and see what it says Jesus did: He took the deaf man aside, put his fingers in his ears, put his spit on the man’s tongue, said “Ephphatha”, and the man’s ears were opened and he could speak. Note also, that the faith expressed was that of the man’s friends and not himself. His friends brought him to Jesus and entreated Jesus to heal him.
The blind man’s healing is a process; it is gradual. He spits on the man’s eyes and placed his hands on him. And the healing comes in stages. It could have been immediate, but because of the needs of this man, it is progressive. He touched his eyes a second time and then the man could see clearly.
There was no necessity to keep the woman waiting, or to delay the healing of the deaf man. He could do it any way he wanted. It just happened that because of their individual situations and needs he did the healing immediately. For the Blind man it was appropriate for Jesus to do it in stages. God never does everything in exactly the same way. There are as many ways that God responds to human needs as there are human needs.
Perhaps, that tells us something important about reaching out to meet the needs of people. People are different and their needs are different. We need to be ready to respond to them and their needs; but not with a cookie cutter approach. Jesus deals with men one on one and so should we.
Jesus provided for the needs the 4000 because they had been with him for three days. And he cared about them. But note this: Jesus did not feed them in order that they would listen to him. No! They had listened to him for three days because they wanted to hear him and to see him. He fed them because he loved them and had compassion for them in their hunger.
I think that leads us to consider another principle here: If I feed the hungry to get them to listen to my story about Jesus it will basically come to nothing. If we honestly evaluate those situations in which we feed people to gain a hearing, we will admit that they are by and large failures. People come back for the food, but not for Jesus.
On the other hand, if I feed them because in their need I have compassion on them because they are hungry and cloth them because they need it, I may gain a hearing when I want to talk about Jesus. My care and compassion will draw men to Jesus. Why? Because he cares and they will make the connection at some point.
What of the Pharisees and the Sadducees? They were people who had seen his miracles and had heard the testimony about him. What they had not seen they had heard people say about his ministry of healing, teaching and preaching. And they come seeking a sign. They want to see a sign.
Jesus won’t give them one. He met the need of the Canaanite woman whose daughter was demon possessed. He met the needs of the deaf man and the blind man. He fed the multitudes because he cared about them and their hunger. In the presence of the needs of these Gentiles he responded and provided for them what they needed. But the Pharisees and Sadducees want a sign and he won’t give them one. Why? They are Jews, members of the chosen people of God, those who are the sons of Abraham. Why? It is because they have had ample opportunity to believe. And their motive was wrong and no sign would have convinced them. They had already seen signs and they were willfully blind.
Let’s wrap this up: What should we take with us from these stories in Mark 7 and 8?
- Jesus had perfect understanding of every case as it came before him.
- Jesus was quick to show sympathy for those in need. He was sensitive to their need and he responded immediately to the needs he with which he was confronted.
- We are told two times that Jesus “sighed”. When he was about to open the ears of the deaf man…he “sighed”. When the Sadducees and the Pharisees demanded a sign, he “sighed deeply in his spirit.”
- Jesus cares. He is compassionate. He responds quickly to the needs of those in need.
That tells me something important about my relationship with Jesus and through Jesus to God our Heavenly Father:
He cares about us and our need.
He will respond to our need because he has compassion for us and loves us deeply.
He will respond to our need quickly.
All I need to do is call on him. Present my need to him. and He will respond because he cares. He has love for us and will show us his compassion.
While much of the church struggles with irrelevance, the real relevance is the need of those around us who need the touch of Jesus in their lives in those areas of deep need.
May he find in us, those who are willing to man the life saving boats so that none are lost that we could help. If we do that, we will never be irrelevant in the lives of those around us.
--Dennis Gleason
