All Are Welcome

We are in the second week of a sermon series that I have now changed the name to “Who Are You Following?” We are allowing the Gospel of Mark to help us focus on various attributes that we should consider as individuals and as the church if we are following the ways of Jesus.

This week we focus on that “All Are Welcome.” Our scripture comes from Mark 7:24-37.

24 Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre. w He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it; yet he could not keep his presence secret. 25 In fact, as soon as she heard about him, a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an impure spirit came and fell at his feet. 26 The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.

27 “First let the children eat all they want,” he told her, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

28 “Lord,” she replied, “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

29 Then he told her, “For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter.”

30 She went home and found her child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

31 Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis. a 32 There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged Jesus to place his hand on him.

33 After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. 34 He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, “Ephphatha!” (which means “Be opened!”). 35 At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.

36 Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it. 37 People were overwhelmed with amazement. “He has done everything well,” they said. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

Please pray with me…

Who you are following can in many ways dictate the way that you treat or in some cases possibly mistreat those around you. Scripture makes it very clear to me that we are to treat all people equally. We are to show the love of God to those that are around us.

What this means is that all people, each individual, should feel welcome to enter into a church. They should enter into a congregation with no guilt or shame for what they have done in their past. They should be able to feel the love of God to those that are around them.

We have the example of Jesus and later his disciples to show us that there is no one who does not deserve to hear about God or to be a follower of Jesus. We are blessed to have a God that cares about even those that don’t believe in him to the point that he loves them and awaits their decision to join the family of God.

That understanding of God and of scripture is what can make the first part of today’s text so difficult to understand. We seem to have Jesus acting very UN-Christlike in his treatment of this woman who is not asking anything for herself.

She has a daughter who the scripture tells us is “possessed by an impure spirit.” There was something wrong and we can assume that she has heard that Jesus would be able to heal her daughter.

Her question leads to Jesus making her seem like she is not equal to him. Not because he is a Rabbi or as we know the Christ, the Savior of the world. He doesn’t even seem to be bothered that she is a woman.

His only problem with her seems to be that she is not Jewish. He considers her at the same level as a dog. This may seem negative to us but that was an even greater insult during that time. Dogs were not pets.

They were considered unclean by all people groups. They, as is pointed out in the text, scrounged around looking for scraps. They were a nuisance that people didn’t want to deal with.

That is what Jesus is saying to this woman. He is saying “leave me be, you are not worthy of talking to me. You are wasting my time.” This is so different than the Jesus we see through most of the scriptures. This part of our scripture offers an “us versus them” situation.

Those that were not Jewish were considered less than by those that were Jewish. They were considered unclean. A Jewish person was not supposed to enter the house of someone who was not Jewish. They were considered unworthy of interaction with the followers of the Jewish God.

There was an area called Samaria. This area consisted of conquered religious Jews who were left in the area after a majority of their Jewish counterparts were put into slavery in Babylon. In order to survive they interacted and intermarried those who were not Jewish.

When the Jewish people returned to this area, they in many ways mistreated these individuals. The Jewish people were not to enter Samaria if possible. Many would walk around that area instead of having the possibility of having to interact with a Samaritan.

We can find ourselves making people feel less than or not worthy through the ways that we interact with those around us. We can end up ignoring them or not listening to them. We can be like Jesus in today’s scripture.

Our first reading tells us that acting this way is a sin. It points out to us that we are not to decide how we are to treat others by how wealthy they may seem or how they may agree with us politically, or socially. Or if they look and act like us.

James continues by explaining why. We are to treat all people the same because the Bible tells us so. We are to follow what he calls the “royal law in scripture,” love your neighbor as yourself. Treat people as you would want to be treated.

What is missing from this? We will often find associated with this the first part of what is called in scripture the greatest commandment. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.”

That is followed by the second part “love your neighbor as yourself.” It seems that James may be saying to us it is through how you treat those around you that shows your love for God.

There is a story of a man who seemed homeless sitting on the steps of a church on a Sunday morning. Those that were attending the church ignored him and walked around him with no one asking how they could help him.

The people sat in their pews waiting for the service to start when this homeless looking man walked down the aisle. He took off some of his layers of clothes and the congregants found out that the man had on a suit and that he was their pastor.

We have to be careful that we do not become desensitized to those around us. We have to make sure that we show the love of God to all people no matter how well off or how downtrodden that they may seem.

Let me give you a local example. My wife would help out some of the homeless downtown. One of those that she helped was named An-dray-uh. One Saturday she went to work in her University of Findlay sweatshirt. An-dray-uh saw it and said I went to school there.

What she found out was that this lady didn’t only attend Findlay but was a nuclear medicine major who due to some medical issues now lived on the streets of Columbus. The point is that we never know what has led someone towards the situation that they are in.

Jesus seems to not treat this woman as a neighbor in today’s scripture. It is my hope that Jesus didn’t just get out on the wrong side of the bed that morning. He did what he did to make a point to his audience. He wanted the Jewish people to get a glimpse at what they looked like when they treated people this way.

This becomes a feasible point because of the way Jesus seemed to treat people in need throughout scripture. He would interact with the Gentiles. He would enter into Samaria. In fact, we have him in scripture have an interaction with a Samaritan woman. We have him making a Samaritan man a hero in a story on who is are neighbor and how we are to treat other people.

Jesus is trying to point out the absurdity of the law of the Pharisees. Jesus is given the chance to heal this woman’s daughter, but he shouldn’t because she is not Jewish. He wants them to understand how silly this is and show them that all people deserve the love of God.

This woman does not back down. She believes in the healing power of Jesus. She believes that this is the only chance for her daughter to be healed. She is willing to be considered less than by Jesus if he would still be willing to heal her daughter.

One aspect that can often be missed within these stories is that Jesus is not in a Jewish area but yet he is known for his ability to heal. This should point out to us that our actions and reactions can impact our ability to speak to others about Jesus.

We never know when we are being watched or when the word will get passed onto others concerning our actions. We should choose to always attempt to act in such a way that would be pleasing to God.

Our positiveactions may lead others to ask us about Jesus and the relationship that we have with him. It is through showing others that we welcome all people into our midst as equals to us and that we love all people that will show that we are a disciple of Jesus.

The second part of our main scripture is a better example of how we usually find Jesus interacting with those that he meets that are in need. We have Jesus still in a non-Jewish area. We should assume that a man who is not Jewish is brought to Jesus for him to heal.

The scripture points out that this man was deaf and could hardly speak. This would mean that he would have been looked at negatively by a majority of the community. He would have been viewed as possibly having offended the god that he worshipped even if it was not the Jewish God.

Jesus throughhealing brought people back into community. Those that were Jewish would not have been allowed to worship in the community without being healed because they would have been considered unclean.

What we can also recognize from our scripture is that “some people brought the man to Jesus. This may point out that the man didn’t believe that he could be healed but those around him believed. Their belief leads to the man being healed.

We take time within the church to pray for those around us that we know are sick or hurting. We callthis intercessory prayer. This is us stepping up in their place asking for them to be healed or asking God to lead them into a relationship with him.

The man may not have come to Jesus, but he allowed Jesus to put his spit into his mouth. Not the most sanitary way to heal someone. This points out to us that we have to give ourselves over to God to be healed by God.

We have to trust God and have the faith that what he is doing to us is what we need. We have to attempt to have the faith that the trials that we are facing will eventually lead to us being healed and having a better relationship with God and those around us.

So, what does this mean to us. We have a God that wants us to make the decision that we are going to be welcoming to all people. What does that mean. This is my weekly election reminder. If Kamala Harris and Donald Trump both walked into the church, would we treat them both the same?

We can disagree with people. We can even not like people for their beliefs. But we are still supposed to welcome them. We are still supposed to show all people that we are Christians by our love.

How do we do this? We accept people as they are. Psychologist, Brene’ Brown says it this way, what would happen if we assumed everyone we meet is doing the best they can? Can you imagine what would happen in our society if each one of us lived out that mantra?

We seek common ground with those around us. We seek to unify instead of divide. We choose to be in community with those we meet. We acknowledge our differences but still love those around us because God first loved us.

Let us choose to use Jesus as our example. Jesus didn’t care who he meant. He treated them the same from the chief pries at the Temple to the tax collector. We are to decide that we are going to show the love of God to those around us.

Let us pray…