What Great Faith Looks Like

Mark 7:24-30

In his book, Who Gets to Narrate the World? Robert Webber tells this story:

I was traveling on a plane from San Francisco to Los Angeles a few years ago. I was sitting next to the window, reading a Christian book. The man next to me, obviously from the Eastern hemisphere, asked, “Are you a religious man?” “Well, yes,” I said. “I am too,” he responded. We began talking about religion. In the middle of the conversation I asked, “Can you give me a one-liner that captures the essence of your faith?” “Well, yes,” he said. “We are all part of the problem, and we are all part of the solution.”

We talked about his one-liner, a statement I felt was very helpful. After a while I said, “Would you like a one-liner that captures the Christian faith?”

“Sure,” he responded.

“We are all part of the problem, but there is only one man who is the solution. His name is Jesus.”[i]

As we continue our journey through Mark’s gospel and our sermon series “Jesus – His Life, His Mission,” we meet a woman who comes to Jesus in desperation, asking for his help. And his initial response is puzzling. Turn with me to Mark 7:24-30.

Jesus and his friends have been in Gennesaret, in the Jewish region of Galilee, located on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee. And because of his teaching, things have gotten kind of tense between him and the religious leaders in the area. So they make the 50 mile or so journey northwest to a non-Jewish territory, the Phoenician territory near the wealthy cities of Tyre and Sidon. Seems like they just want to get away for a bit and let things settle down some in Palestine.

And when they get there, a woman – Mark tells us she is a Syrophoenician woman, comes to Jesus, and she’s desperate. They’re in non-Jewish territory, but I’m sure some Jews lived in the area. They were only about 50 miles from Gennesaret. The fact that this woman was from near Tyre and Sidon is significant. Jews tended to view all non-Jews with suspicion, outside of the necessary business relationships. Many believed that Gentiles could defile you just by touch, even if they were perfectly healthy. They were viewed as innately unclean; unclean simply because they weren’t Jews.

Now, I want to explore something here with you briefly, because it’s really easy to read through the gospels and come out with a negative view of the Jewish people, and that has certainly happened in the past. We have to remember that Jesus WAS a Jew, and three of the four gospel writers were Jews too. They were God’s elect, his chosen people, and he loved them dearly. Jesus wept bitterly as his people hardened their hearts against him.

So put yourself in their shoes for a minute. Your worldview – the lens through which you viewed and interpreted, well, everything, has been shaped by the history of your people, who went from being slaves in Egypt to a nomadic people without a home to a people with land and a mighty city and a magnificent temple and a special relationship with God. And then by conquest and exile and then return to the homeland by some, but things were never the same. And now, you are a conquered people, allowed and encouraged to live and prosper, but always under the yoke of Roman taxes and authority. And your worldview was shaped by the law of God as given to your ancestor, Moses. And the centuries of interpretation, and sometimes misinterpretation, by scribes and priests and rabbis. And then a poor carpenter turned rabbi and miracle-worker from the armpit of nowhere comes along and challenges your worldview, your identity, everything you thought was right and true.

Think about us here in America. We don’t take kindly to having our worldview challenged either, do we? When theologians and Biblical scholars point out the truth that the rugged individualism celebrated in the United States almost since the beginning is completely foreign to a biblical worldview. We are much more closely connected and responsible to and for one another than most of us, as Americans, are comfortable with. Or when someone comes along and points out some very real blemishes on our record, our history of slavery and the racism and greed that led to it, and our treatment of the natives on whose land we reside, we get very upset. Why? Because our narrative, our worldview, the lens through which we view ourselves and everyone and everything around us, is being challenged.

That isn’t easy for anyone to handle. And changing a worldview? That is something that is incredibly, incredibly hard. So let’s give the disciples some credit for not getting it completely right away. They were able to push through their discomfort and the difficulty and allow Jesus to reshape their worldview into a Kingdom of God worldview. And let’s give the bulk of the Jews some grace for pushing back against Jesus. Yes, they were wrong, as are we. But let’s remember how we tend to react when our worldview is challenged, even if it is being challenged by Jesus. More often than not, we need to see a little bit, or a lot, of ourselves in Jesus’ opposition, and a little bit, or a lot, of that opposition, in ourselves. Prejudice of any kind has absolutely no place in the Kingdom of God. And we all have prejudices.

So this woman is a gentile pagan by birth and by culture. She worshipped the false Greek and Roman gods. She likely held an anti-Jewish sentiment, just as Jesus’ disciples held an anti-her sentiment. Tyre was on the coast of the Mediterranean, a part of the original land God had given to his people, Israel. But Israel had never been able to possess the land around Tyre.

At times, she was an ally to Israel, at other times, an enemy. As time went on, though, she came to be a very wealthy and godless oppressor of Israel. Even in Jesus’ day, most of the agricultural product produced in Galilee – which abutted the region of Tyre, and was where Jesus was from – went north to Tyre and Sidon while Gentile farmers often went hungry. Some of the strongest Old Testament prophetic denunciations written were written against Tyre. The prophet Ezekiel compared her treachery against Israel to Satan’s pride and rebellion against God!

In his telling of this story, Matthew calls her a Canaanite woman. “Canaanite” was a word reserved for Israel’s enemies. She wasn’t just an unclean Gentile. She was the oppressor and enemy. Her approaching Jesus, daring to ask for help, was akin to a wealthy, privileged Brahman in India coming to Mother Teresa’s orphanage, asking her to leave her abjectly poor and diseased orphan “untouchables” (that’s what the culture of India refers to them as), to come and heal his sick but privileged child. It’s unthinkable.

But she is desperate. Mark tells us that her daughter “had an unclean spirit.” She was severely oppressed and possessed by the demonic. We don’t know specifically what the demon was doing to her, but her behavior was a serious problem. This is a dire situation. So, anticipating full well that she will be turned away, she comes to Jesus with her problem anyway.

The Christian rock band Third Day released a song called “Cry Out To Jesus.” The song says,

To everyone who’s lost someone they love,

Long before it was their time.

You feel like the days you had were not enough.

When you said goodbye.

And to all of the people with burdens and pains,

Keeping you back from your life

You believe that there’s nothing and there is no one,

Who can make it right.

There is hope for the helpless.

Rest for the weary.

And love for the broken heart.

And there is grace and forgiveness.

Mercy and healing.

He’ll meet you wherever you are.

Cry out to Jesus. Cry out to Jesus.

For the marriage that’s struggling just to hang on.

They’ve lost all of their faith in love.

And they’ve done all they can

to make it right again,

still it’s not enough.

For the ones who can’t break the addictions and chains.

You try to give up but you come back again.

Just remember that you’re not alone in your shame.

And your suffering.

When you’re lonely.

And it feels like the whole world is falling on you.

You just reach out, you just cry out to Jesus

Cry to Jesus.

To the widow who suffers from being alone.

Wiping the tears from her eyes.

And for the children around the world without a home.

Say a prayer tonight.

So often we feel like we can’t bring our problems and our challenges and our concerns to Jesus. We think he doesn’t care, or that we’ve earned the trouble we’re in (and for that one, SOMETIMES it’s true!). But that doesn’t mean he won’t continue to care for us. We’re afraid, like this woman was, that Jesus will send us away, or ignore us.

Here’s the thing – at first glance, it looks like that’s EXACTLY what Jesus does to her. Look at Vv. 26-27. Now that’s not the Jesus we’ve come to expect, is it? The Jesus who never turns a person in need away, even when he and his disciples are exhausted and looking for rest. Certainly Jesus CAN help this woman. He’s delivered countless people oppressed by demons. One of them, also a gentile in gentile territory, was so full of demons that they destroyed an entire village’s herd of pigs when they came out of him. Jesus CAN help this woman. The question is, will he?

The disciples wonder the same thing. Mark doesn’t mention them, but Matthew tells us that they were there, and that they begged Jesus to send her away. Mark doesn’t mention the disciples and their inherited, worldview prejudices. He shines the spotlight tightly and brightly on this woman and Jesus. So for Matthew, Jesus plays into his disciples prejudices for just a second, forcing their internal prejudices to come out.

I mean, this woman isn’t just any old gentile. She’s from rich, oppressive, hated Tyre. She’s among the worst of the worst – a people known for looking down their noses at the Jewish people, arrogant and untrustworthy. He’s saying, “Okay, this is what you think about her. Let’s play this out to it’s logical conclusion for a minute.”

But he is at the same time testing her faith. His purposes are multilayered. He is doing more than one thing here. And he is doing it to teach all of us a lesson about faith. The thing is, she isn’t at all fazed by his words. She fully expects to be treated this way by him, relations between her people and his people being what they were. Jesus and his disciples weren’t just any old Jews. They were Galilean Jews. They lived in the territory that abutted her territory. They had more reason than most to dislike, even hate, one another.

So she knows that Jesus CAN help her. The question is, will he? And that is the question most of us ask. It isn’t “CAN God.” It is “but will he?” And she just isn’t sure, but she’s desperate enough to try. And when she comes, she bows low, and she begs. The people of Tyre were known for their pride and arrogance. But when she comes to Jesus, she comes in humility, asking for something that she knows she has no right to ask for, and that he has no obligation to provide. But she doesn’t come full of herself. She comes full only of her need – her love for her daughter, who desperately needs help.

Dwight Moody is credited with saying, “The only people Jesus sent away empty were those who were already full of themselves.” In this woman, we see great faith, and the first characteristic of great faith is that it is a humble faith.

Now, in her case, Jesus’ initial words to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs,” those words don’t stop her. And Jesus is actually stating a biblical truth that even St. Paul gives voice to. He’s just doing it in what appears to be a VERY insensitive way. In Romans 1:16, Paul says, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, TO THE JEW FIRST and also to the Greek.”

Jesus’ words to this woman may cause us to squirm, but they don’t bother her at all. She was expecting to hear words like this. What may have surprised her, and her disciples, is that when she persists, accepting his little riddle and taking it a step further, Jesus heals her daughter. Look at V. 28-30. Not only is her faith in Jesus humble, it is also persistent. That’s the second characteristic of great faith. It is persistent. Not because God is a grudging God who only helps if we pester him enough, but because great faith refuses to allow anything to keep us from the loving arms of our heavenly Father.

Sometimes we face “Heartbreak Hill.” In the Boston Marathon, there is a legendary obstacle called Heartbreak Hill. Starting at mile thirteen of the Boston race course, there are a number of hills, climaxing at mile nineteen with Heartbreak Hill. It’s the longest, steepest hill in the race. What makes this hill even worse is that world-class runners “hit the wall” around mile eighteen or nineteen. That means their bodies have depleted the glycogen stored in the muscles. That glycogen has been replaced with lactic acid.

The muscles are screaming for oxygen. And when you hit the wall, you just feel like you’re going to die. Like you can’t go on. Heartbreak Hill tests runners to the very core of their determination and their strength. It tests their persistence and perseverance.

There are Heartbreak Hills in life. Life is not on a level grade. We have problems. We have bigger problems. And at times we face Heartbreak Hill.[ii]

With this woman, his disciples got a lesson about their prejudices. Yes, Jesus had done some incredible things among the gentiles. He had healed and delivered and proclaimed the kingdom of God to them too. But this particular gentile was from Tyre. She represented a rich, arrogant, oppressive, pride-filled people who took every chance to put the Jews in their place. And yet, Jesus healed her daughter too. This is Jesus loving both the Israelis AND the Palestinians, for that is what she was.

Jesus didn’t actually put up a barrier between himself and her. He DID call out the barrier that existed in his disciples minds and in this woman’s own mind, and then he smashed through it. He didn’t get up and go. He didn’t even speak to the demons in her daughter. He simply pronounced her deliverance, and it was so. Her great faith, persistent and humble, was honored by Jesus.

Great faith is both humble and persistent. But there are some things it is not. Great faith is does not presume. This woman does not presume, but she does ask. Sometimes God says “No” or “Wait.” But even in his no or wait, God is acting in our eternal best interest, even if it doesn’t seem like it to us in our hurt and in our pain. Presumption is the core of the “name it and claim it” faith movement within the church. It isn’t so much about asking God as it is about telling God what you want and demanding it from him. It is an attempt to control God, to bend God to our will rather than bending our will to God’s will.

Great faith is also not superstitious or magical. “If I can just say the right prayer, with the right amount of intensity and conviction, God will answer my prayer.”

When the prayer made in faith is not answered, and the healing for which many have sought does not come, we are not to look for someone to accuse of failure in faith. Rather we are to remember that besides faith there is hope. Hope has to do with God’s promises that are still future and hidden, just as faith has to do with God’s promises that are here and now. To the person who has believed for today but has not seen the answer come today, there comes the call to hope. Hope says, “Tomorrow also is God’s. Enough has happened already to assure you that the rest is on the way.”[iii] God isn’t done yet.

Friends, I cannot tell you what God will do for you when you pray. I cannot guarantee your physical healing in this life, or that you will always succeed and prosper. I cannot guarantee that your prayer will always be answered the way you want it to be answered. I CAN tell you to bring your great need to God with humble and persistent great faith. I CAN tell you that God is your loving heavenly Father who sees you, who loves you, and who, if you must suffer, will join you in your suffering, and who will always act in your eternal best interest, even when it hurts. Let’s pray.

[i] Robert Webber, Who Gets to Narrate the World? (IVP, 2008), p. 26

[ii] Craig Brian Larson, “Strong to the Finish,” Preaching Today, Tape No. 155.

[iii] Thomas Smail, quoted in Ken Blue’s Authority to Heal (InterVarsity Press), p. 49