Sermon for the 15th Sunday after Pentecost Year B | Mark 7:24-37 and Psalm 146| by Beth A. Schlegel |
24[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. Yet he could not escape notice,25but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. 26Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27He 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.” 28But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” 29Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” 30So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
31Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. 32They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. 33He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. 34Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” 35And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. 36Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. 37They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”
If you go to seminary, one of the basic lessons you learn is that there are two kinds of faith: faith that, and faith in.
Imagine yourself standing on the bank of a river flowing swiftly and teeming with deadly piranhas. You need to get across the river, but there is no bridge and it is too wide to jump. There is a large tree with a long rope.
As you look at the rope, you have faith that it is long enough to get you to the other side.
But you need to have faith in the strength of the rope to hold your weight and carry you safely to the other side.
To have faith that something is true is based on observable evidence or the evidence of witnesses.
To have faith in something or someone is to have first-hand experience of it.
As you stand on the riverbank, you can see that the rope is long enough, but you cannot know for certain if the rope will hold you unless you experiment or test it.
When it comes to God, we want to grow our faith in God…
Notice that when we confess the creed, we do not say, “I believe that God is the Father and creator.”
We say, I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth; I believe in Jesus Christ, his Son; I believe in the Holy Spirit.
If God is the rope at the riverbank, we want our faith to be such that we grasp that rope firmly, take a good running start, and trust it to carry us safely over the deadly flesh-eating fish and land us on the other side of the river.
Fortunately, neither the Codorus nor the Susquehanna have piranhas, so we won’t need to make that exact test of faith.
But we have other challenges that help us grow our faith in God.
As we read the story of God’s people in the Bible, we discover that human leaders were often substituted for God – with disastrous results.
When faith is placed in human beings to provide for us and keep us safe– be it kings, presidents, governors, legislators, or others – such faith is subject to corruption, disappointment, and failure.
When human beings are the rope at the riverside, it is often too short to get us across, or too thin, or frayed to the point of breaking, or rotten at the core.
Human beings are like that.
As Psalm 146 says:
Don’t put your confidence in powerful people;
there is no help for you there.
4 When they breathe their last, they return to the earth,
and all their plans die with them.
There is a difference between accepting someone’s leadership and putting our faith in them.
We put our faith in God who works through human beings to accomplish God’s will.
And we pray for our leaders to be people who seek the will of God as they lead.
But we do not have faith in them – we have faith in God.
We learn more about this distinction from the people who encounter Jesus.
The Gentile woman had heard that Jesus was doing works of God.
Such works include healing the sick, casting out evil spirits, and raising the dead.
Her daughter had an uncontrollable spirit that possessed her.
Such affliction was beyond the reach of human doctors or healers. Only God could change this situation.
This woman had heard of Jesus acting with the power of God for others. And she went to Jesus with faith in God to do for her what had been done for others.
Her faith was not disappointed.
Even though she was an outsider, a foreigner, Jesus was the presence of God for her – accepting her faith in God.
Jesus left there for another area of Gentile influence and gave hearing and speech to a man afflicted.
In so doing, Jesus not only did works attributed to God, showing himself to be acting with divine power,
but he showed himself to be the embodiment of the God whose coming was described clearly:
5Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
6then the lame shall leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.
Even though these were Gentile people, they recognized the connection to the Word of God spoken by the prophets.
These healings happened for those who had faith in God and faith that Jesus was acting with the power of God.
This led to people growing faith in Jesus as the Savior. They had first-hand experience with his divine power to transform lives.
So, what about us?
How do we see first-hand the activity of God, that we might grow our faith in God?
The key lies in the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The same power and life that Jesus demonstrated in healing the sick and teaching the disciples was poured out on the church.
That power is now present among us just as surely and tangibly as if the 1st century Jewish rabbi were standing here before us.
We experience first-hand the faithfulness of God in our lives
- whenever we hear “your sins are forgiven”;
- when we are baptized
- whenever we receive the body and blood of Jesus, hearing him say “given and shed for you”
- whenever we are part of the community praying in faith;
- whenever we receive the peace of the Lord from someone who has received it from Jesus.
We experience first-hand the faithfulness of God in our lives
- Whenever we can share a word of hope and encouragement with someone else;
- Whenever we hear such hope from others
- Whenever we hear of healing and restoration
- Whenever we see justice done and the blind seeing the truth
- Whenever we hear others tell of the ways God has been active in their lives.
Whenever God’s Word is spoken into our ears.
This is the God who opens the eyes of the blind and makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.
The work of the Holy Spirit in and through us and others grows our faith in Jesus as the Son of God, our Savior.
The Spirit assures us that the rope to carry us over the deadly river of sin is not only long enough, but also strong enough
– for it is anchored in the cross of Jesus and the rock of his empty tomb.
May our tongues be loosened by faith in Jesus to speak of such great things!
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
—
The Rev. Beth A. Schlegel, STS
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