“LOOSENING THE LID”

The healing power of Jesus Christ is so wonderful, so magnificent, and so awesome, it cannot be contained it must be shared. News of Jesus will not be kept quiet.

It is that simple, yet overwhelming truth which connects these seemingly disparate and disconnected healing stories from Mark’s gospel account. Indeed, while the lectionary guide for scripture reading clumps these two different stories together as a single reading, they don’t appear to share much in common with one another beyond the fact that they involve healing.

In the first story a Syro-phoenician women (that is to say a Greek woman, a gentile, a non-Jew) hears of Jesus’ presence in her town. She has a daughter who is possessed by a demon. The woman and her daughter need help. So, she approaches Jesus and pleads her cause. At first, Jesus is not inclined to help and actually refers to the woman as a dog. His reaction to her request is not the one we would expect from Jesus. The text explains his reaction in that Jesus understood his mission as primarily to the Jews. Nonetheless, the woman is not deterred. She reminds Jesus that even dogs are allowed the scraps which fall from the master’s table. Clearly, Jesus is moved by her faith. He tells her, “For saying that, you may go – the demon has left your daughter.”

In the second story Jesus has returned from his trip to the beach in the region of Tyre to the region of Galilee in the area of the Decapolis; an area of ten towns or cities clustered along the southeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee which was inhabited mostly by Gentiles. This man had a speech impediment. Jesus takes the man aside and goes through an elaborate process of touching the man’s ears and tongue. After Jesus touches him the man can now speak clearly.

The circumstances of these healing stories are so very different from one another. With the little girl Jesus heals from afar, never even having seen the little girl. With the man Jesus takes him into a private setting where it was likely just the two of them.

With the little girl Jesus does nothing other than to inform the mother that her daughter is healed. With the man Jesus sticks his fingers into his ears and spits on his tongue to effect a healing while vocalizing a strange word – a strange word even for Mark’s first readers – ephphatatha. It is an Aramaic word meaning “be opened”.

In circumstance and in methodology these two stories are quite distinct from one another. However, there are at least two very good reasons for reading these stories together as a unified whole. First, let us note that they follow immediately from Jesus’ teachings about what is clean and what is unclean. Moreover, both the little girl and the man would have been considered by an observant Jew as “unclean”. They were foreigners. They were not part of the covenant. They certainly would not have been considered worthy of receiving God’s healing grace. Yet that is exactly what Jesus does, he extends to these “unclean” people God’s unparalleled grace and power. Part of the message from this text is, then, what right do we have to call something unclean when God has clearly called it clean and accepted it? So, in a very real sense these healing stories continue Jesus’ teaching concerning what is clean and unclean.

Whether it be a matter of what food you eat, or whether it is a matter of a person’s ethnic heritage, Jesus’ point is that God has called all of creation good – that is ritually clean. Therefore on what basis can we call something unclean or unworthy simply because it is different? Scripture is clear, Jesus was more concerned with what a person believed and what a person did than with what a person ate or who a person’s parents may have been. Our spiritual purity is a matter of personal accountability, not pedigree or circumstance.

Based on her mother’s astounding faith Jesus extended God’s grace even to the ritually impure and ritually unclean little girl. In the final analysis Jesus cared less that she was a Gentile than he did that she genuinely believed he had the power to heal her daughter.

The Gentile man was brought to Jesus for healing, and his friends begged Jesus to heal him. Again, Jesus disregarded the man’s unclean status and extended God’s healing grace to him. The man’s friends were absolutely convinced that Jesus had the power to heal their friend. It was their unwavering belief which drew Jesus’ attention to their friend.

As powerful a message as Jesus calling all people clean in God’s sight may be, and make no mistake it is a powerful message, there is another aspect of these healing accounts which tie them into a unity that is also a very powerful message. In both instances the news about Jesus could not be contained. The healing power of Jesus Christ is so great that it cannot be kept silent. The power of Jesus Christ to extend God’s grace into our lives loosens the figurative lid on our jar of customary reserve.

In verse 24, before Jesus is even introduced to the Syrophoenician woman, it reads, “Yet he could not escape notice”. You see, it is entirely plausible that Jesus had gone to the sea coast at Tyre for a quiet vacation, but God’s word always creates a stir in the world. In any case, the text tells us he did not want to be noticed. However, it was not to be. Word spread. Jesus had come to town. The one who could heal had arrived. The one who could restore had arrived. The one who spoke of God’s love and care for all of God’s people had come near. Such good news could not be kept quiet. God’s word always creates a stir.

In verse 36, after Jesus had healed the man of his speech impediment, Jesus instructed the people to stay silent but they could not contain themselves. The more he told them to be quiet, the more they spoke out. In verse 37, the evangelist Mark adds his own interpretive gloss on this phenomenon of God’s good news spreading uncontained. Mark tells us the people were astounded beyond measure at Jesus’ power to heal. God’s word always creates a stir.

Without question part of the message the evangelist Mark wanted his readers to grasp was that it is impossible to keep the good news of Jesus to your self. It must be shared. The witness of this text tells us that people who experience the healing power of Jesus Christ find it impossible to remain silent about the experience. God’s grace loosens the lid on our normally reserved personalities. Grace loosens the lid we put on ourselves and allows the Holy Spirit to flow into and out of our lives.

As we read and interpret this text let us ask ourselves this question, when was the last time we let the lid fly off and really celebrate the grace God has given us? As baptized children of God we have been given the promise of eternal life with God, is there anything more exciting than that promise?

As recipients of God’s grace through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ we have been forgiven our sin. If we actually believe this, then let us ask ourselves this question, Is there anything for which we can be more grateful than to be restored to a proper relationship with the one who has given us life, and life abundantly? Really, what can compare?

In both the case of the little girl, and in the case of the Gentile man from the Decapolis, they suffered from physical aliments which effectively estranged them from others. In their respective ways, they both were separated from those who loved and cared for them. By healing them, Jesus restored them to a rightful relationship with those around them. The little girl no longer had the demon between her and her mother. The Gentile man could now clearly communicate with his friends. In a similar way, the grace Jesus shares with us restores us to a right relationship to our creator; to the one who loves us without ceasing.

Nonetheless, most of us are uncomfortable with emotional exuberance. It makes us nervous. Emotional exuberance is unpredictable, and most of us find comfort in predictability. Yet predictability is not always in accord with God’s will.

In thinking about the Syrophoenician woman coming to Jesus, it would have been predictable to say that Jesus would turn her down. He was a Jew. She was a Greek. Jews and Greeks were not religiously compatible. Yet the Holy Spirit loosened the lid on Jesus and allowed him to see that extending God’s grace to this woman’s daughter was in accord with God’s will.

As the friends of the man from the Decapolis were bringing their friend to Jesus while he was surrounded by a huge crowd, they likely predicted that they would never actually get close to Jesus. They were all Gentiles, and there was already a crowd of Jews gathered around Jesus listening to him teach. It was not likely that they would reach him. Yet, the Holy Spirit opened the way close to Jesus, and loosened the lid so that Jesus could invite this “unclean” man aside to a private space where they could be one on one with each other. The Holy Spirit loosened the lid for Jesus to see that healing this man was in accord with God’s will.

God wants to do the same with you and me. As we have been healed, as we have been forgiven, as we have been restored to a right relationship with God, the figurative lids on us are loosed to allow the Holy Spirit to flow out into the world. When you feel you are about to burst with the Spirit, scripture encourages us to let it fly. So may it be for us. Amen.

Reverend Marc V. Mason

September 10, 2006

Trinity Presbyterian Church

Travelers Rest, SC