Mark 7:24-37 [NLTse]
24 Then Jesus left Galilee and went north to the region of Tyre. He didn’t want anyone to know which house He was staying in, but He couldn’t keep it a secret. 25 Right away a woman who had heard about Him came and fell at His feet. Her little girl was possessed by an evil spirit, 26 and she begged Him to cast out the demon from her daughter.
Since she was a Gentile, born in Syrian Phoenicia, 27 Jesus told her, “First I should feed the children—My Own family, the Jews. It isn’t right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs.”

28 She replied, “That’s true, Lord, but even the dogs under the table are allowed to eat the scraps from the children’s plates.” 29 “Good answer!” He said. “Now go home, for the demon has left your daughter.” 30 And when she arrived home, she found her little girl lying quietly in bed, and the demon was gone.

31 Jesus left Tyre and went up to Sidon before going back to the Sea of Galilee and the region of the Ten Towns. 32 A deaf man with a speech impediment was brought to Him, and the people begged Jesus to lay His hands on the man to heal him. 33 Jesus led him away from the crowd so they could be alone. He put His fingers into the man’s ears. Then, spitting on His Own fingers, He touched the man’s tongue. 34 Looking up to Heaven, He sighed and said, “Ephphatha,” which means, “Be opened!” 35 Instantly the man could hear perfectly, and his tongue was freed so he could speak plainly!
36 Jesus told the crowd not to tell anyone, but the more He told them not to, the more they spread the news. 37 They were completely amazed and said again and again, “Everything He does is wonderful. He even makes the deaf to hear and gives speech to those who cannot speak.”

Sermon
Anybody here have a dog that you love?

I grew up with Baggie (named after the Jungle Book’s Bagheera the Panther). He was a black lab who was so very faithful! We went everywhere with Baggie, and as long as we were with him, my parents felt we were safe.

A bunch of years went by after Baggie’s death, and we got Brandy (short for “Brandywine”), a golden retriever. Brandy had a ferocious-sounding bark, but we always joked that if a burglar ever knew to call Brandy by name that he would take the burglar and show him where the silver was. ?

As our reading begins, the Lord seems to be trying to get away from all the crowds and paparazzi.
When He’d heard that John the Baptist had been killed, He tried to take the disciples away to a quiet place where they could all get some rest. But some 5,000 men – not including women and children – had gotten to the place ahead of Jesus and been there waiting. After teaching and serving them all in that secluded place, the Lord tried again to get away with His disciples. Sailing across the Sea of Galilee, He landed in Bethsaida. But when He arrived everybody recognized Him, and He attracted the attention of a bunch of Torah-teachers and Pharisees, who were Jewish religious leaders in those days.
In our reading from Mark 7:24-37, the Lord Jesus is fleeing from the crowds and from the hard-heartedness of the Torah-teachers and Pharisees, so He and His disciples have trekked 50 miles to the entirely-Gentile port-city of Tyre, on the Mediterranean Sea.

Although the Lord is trying to keep a low profile, some lady some-how finds out that He is in town. Her daughter was being demonized by an evil spirit, so she immediately went to get the Lord Jesus’ help. And she falls at His feet and starts begging Him to drive the demon from her daughter.

Now, the Torah-teachers and Pharisees Jesus had just traveled so far to get away from looked upon Gentiles as “dogs”, and they called them “dogs” – kuon. The idea of “mongrel”, “stray”, “mutt”, or “junkyard dog” was in mind, since loose dogs – wild kuon – were seen as scavengers and trouble-makers and dangerous and needing-to-be-put-down in ancient times.

So, it’s unfortunate that most translations of this verse have the Lord Jesus calling this woman a “dog”, when He says, “It isn’t right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs,” (v. 27) because the Lord doesn’t use the word for “mongrel” or “mutt” here. He doesn’t call this Gentile mom a kuon. No. The Lord Jesus calls her a kunarion.
When He tells this concerned mother that He shouldn’t be “taking food from the children and throwing it to the dogs,” He’s speaking of her and her fellow-Gentiles – these dogs – most literally as doggies, little dogs, puppies, treasured household pets. The Lord says, “No,” to this woman, but not because He sees her as some kind of mutt – a kuon –He says “no” to her using a picture of giggling young children sitting around the dinner table with their playful pups – their kunarion – lapping and nipping at their dangling feet.

Even so, this woman might have responded in all sorts of ways. I mean, “beloved pup” is better than “stray mutt”, but some might argue that it’s not much better. But the desperate mom chooses to humble herself to the Lord and God’s order of things: “To the Jew first, then to the Gentile.” (Romans 1:16) And she takes this picture the Lord has offered her – she accepts it – and then shares the reality that, because of the love that exists between children and their pets, that little dogs always get to eat the little bits that the little children feed them from their plates. “Okay, so I may be a pet in your eyes,” she seems to be saying, “but throw me a scrap, Lord. I’ll be satisfied with a scrap of Your mercy.”
And the Lord Jesus responds – on account of this woman’s attitude and her answer – the Lord tells her that He had, in that moment, cast the demon out of her daughter. When she goes home she will find the child well.

How does this connect with us today? As I’ve already said, this woman could have taken offense at Jesus’ words, labels, the truth as He saw it and put it forth. But she didn’t. She knew Who Jesus was. (Even if she didn’t completely recognize His deity, she clearly recognized the Almighty God’s hand of power upon Him!) And she doesn’t respond to Him in the trite ways so many across our culture want to come to Jesus: Demanding their own way, like they have a right to come before Him; forcing their own agendas, as though what’s important to them ought to set the schedule for God Almighty’s day; … Western people tend to make God out to be some sort of warm-fuzzy, sickly-sweet deity who should do whatever we want whenever we want it done; a god who’s concept of life and love should be exactly the same as ours; and who is pushed around and influenced by us, as though He were some kind of eternal people-pleaser.

But He is not! He is God Almighty! The Most High God! He is wonderful and terrible in His love and wrath! (As C. S. Lewis has so famously written of the Lord when asked if God was safe. “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course He isn’t safe. But He’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.” [The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe])

And this woman, without perhaps fully recognizing Jesus to be this awesome One in the flesh, at least recognizes the hand of that awesome One upon Him. And she does not get upset with Him or argue with Him that He has spoken to her as though she were a little dog or called her by such name. She accepts His description. She embraces His depiction. The Lord Jesus spoke and she didn’t try to rebuke Him (the way Simon Peter did when the Lord first spoke about His crucifixion), she didn’t try to correct Him (the way we can sometimes edit what the Bible says to make it better fit what we think is right about God or what we think is more true or more reasonable about God). No. She accepts His Word and humbles herself to the order of things as He stated them: “To the Jew first.” (Romans 1:16) And yet, in that humbled place she was still able to see the grace of God offered to her and her fellow non-Jews. She basically says to Jesus, “It’s okay if God has chosen to deal with the Jews first, but surely God has enough for all the rest of us, too?”
As a mother she trusted that God must love human beings at least as much as she loved her little girl!

The first step to a new life in Christ is knowing and accepting the truth about our life apart from Christ. Without Jesus – apart from the cross – we are sinners, separated from God by our sins.

Religion is such a huge part of human life – no matter our culture, no matter our status, no matter our language or our education – religion is a huge part of life for every people, for every person. Even atheists, whose religion is all about denying religion.

The science of Sociology shows human beings to be religious creatures – even defines us as religious creatures. Humans seem to be uniquely aware that there is some universal, ultimate, eternal standard of behavior – of morality – and we all seem to be aware that we are not living up to it, and longing for a way to, somehow, be at peace with the One who established it. (Or the ones who established it, for peoples who believe there to be many gods.)

Sinners, missing the mark of perfection, that’s who human beings are apart from Christ. People are not basically good. People are basically bad. And our basic “badness” separates us from God because He is perfectly and completely good. The apostle Paul describes this in Ephesians 2: “Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins. You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil—the commander of the powers in the unseen world. (He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God.) All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone else.” (Vv. 1-3)

And that’s why I love this Gentile mom: She knows who she is, and she knows Who God is. She doesn’t make herself out to be better than she is and she doesn’t make herself out to be worse. The Lord Jesus tells her what she is. She accepts His assessment. And that brings her into that place where she can cry out to the Lord for a miracle and be heard, and have her miracle be granted!

What about us? Do you hear the Lord Jesus telling you that you are a sinner but respond saying, “No, not me. I’m not so bad.” Or do you hear the Lord Jesus telling you that you are sinner and respond, “I’m worse than that, Lord. I’m horrid! And I know You hate me and want to have nothing to do with me because I’m such a miserable wretch!” Too often we make ourselves out to be better than Jesus says we are, on the one hand, or make ourselves to be worse than He says we are, on the other.

The Lord Jesus is telling you and me that we are sinners, today. And He is telling us that our sins have separated us from God. But Jesus goes on to say that He has come to repair the breach between us and God Almighty. He has taken our sins to the cross with Him and put them to death when He died there. Because of that, He can invite us back to God. There’s plenty of Him for the children and for the puppies at their feet! Plenty of Jesus – plenty of grace – for you and for me, for one and for all!

Will you accept who Jesus says you are so that you might become who Jesus has died to make you to be? He calls us to come to Him as the doggies we are because He wants to make us sons and daughters in the family!