Leading Like Jesus: Focus on Mission

Scripture: Mark 7:24-37

Mark 7:24–37 NRSV

From there he 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, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He 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.” But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone. Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”

Leading Like Jesus: Focus on Mission

The Big WHY for the Hebrew people, the reason for the Ten Commandments, and every other law that followed are found in Exodus 19:4-6. It says this:

4 You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. 5 Now, therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, 6 but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the Israelites.”

The whole world belongs to God, but the whole land of Israel was to be God's Temple and all its people were to be His priests. That might be where the Pharisees got the notion that they should always act as if they were in the Temple of God. They were doing their best to stay focused on that mission and to avoid distractions. However, sometimes the exception to the rule ends up proving the rule.

When we get so focused on what we think the mission is, we sometimes miss the true target God has right in front of us.

Thesis: Sometimes God uses distractions to put us back on the right track.

The Foreign Woman

What was the mission of Jesus?

In Matthew 10, Matthew describes the mission Jesus passes on to the Twelve disciples as:

5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, 6 but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7 As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ 8 Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment. - Matthew 10:5–8 (NRSV)

and Mark has a similar passage in 6:7-13.

Mark leaves out that bit about avoiding Gentiles and Samaritans, perhaps very intentionally. In this part of the story, in Mark's gospel, Jesus spent a lot of time on the borders of Jewish culture, often walking right up next to gentile pig farms, graveyards, and other places that faithful Jews were taught to avoid. To put it in geographical perspective, Jesus was not doing his mission work in the holy cities of Atlanta, Nashville, or Wilmore. He was in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and it would not be surprising to run into some Canadians up that way.

Yes, this foreign woman was from the North, part of the ancient Canaanite people along the Mediterranean Coast. She would have been raised in the culture of Assyria, the empire that conquered northern Israel before the Romans. You may remember them from King Xerxes, and the story of Esther. Jesus was venturing into the edge of that empire, looking for the lost sheep of Israel to call back to the flock. She was not of that flock, but she knew a good shepherd when she saw one. While she may not have been willing to follow him herself, she knew that an evil spirit had come into her house and was tormenting her daughter, and for her daughter's sake, she came seeking the one that could set them free.

The big questions we find in her story are:

Why did Jesus deny her healing first?

Why did He compare her to a dog?

Why did He grant her the freedom she requested from her daughter after her smart reply back to Jesus?

All three of these questions have a common thread running between them. As Jesus preaches, teaches, heals, and cleanses from sin, what kind of relationship is He establishing with us? Tissues cleanse us from uncleanness, help keep us from getting sick, clean up our injuries, and sometimes we use them to squish some of those unclean bugs that come after us. Once we use them though, we throw them away. Is Jesus our tissue? Is that the relationship we are supposed to have with Him?

No. If Jesus went out to heal all the gentiles, only to have them return to worship, and perhaps even give their thanks to their false gods, they would be using Him like a tissue.

Dogs, as Jesus referred to this woman, were not treated like pets in the same way we treat them today. They were not dressed up, allowed to sleep in beds, and put on social media for the entertainment of all of us. They were used to keep out vermin, much as barn cats keep out the mice, and to help guard the family and livestock by sounding an alarm when predators or intruders approached. They were loyal only as long as they were fed, and many were wild and might run from one neighbor to another. I served a community like this here in Kentucky some years back, where there were more dogs in town than people, and the dogs moved from house to house, "belonging" to whoever fed them best that day.

Jesus is meant to be our Lord and King, not for a day, a week, or a year, but for eternity. Our salvation, our healing, our life comes from being in that right relationship with Him, not just in something Jesus has done to or for us. This woman humbly, and maybe wisely, recognized that she was not a Jew, she did not worship their God, she did not deserve anything from Jesus. Yet she embraced that role of household animal and in her reply, "...even the dogs get to lick the crumbs off the floor." she moves toward relationship as a member of the household of Jesus, even if it as a family pet or service animal. In a world that expected people to become Jews first before they could follow Jesus, this woman may not have been able to make it. Yet she had faith enough to reach out for an impossible relationship with Jesus that she knew she did not deserve and probably could not maintain. Jesus met her right there.

She is an exception that proves the rule. It is not about what you have done or are able to do. The test of faith is whether you are willing to come to Jesus with nothing to offer but yourself and to allow Him to assign you any role Jesus chooses for you, rather than trying to acquire a role you think or feel suits you best. Is Jesus your Lord or is He your tissue?

The Deaf-Mute

The foreign woman from the North who was called a dog by Jesus gets all the attention, and folks barely notice the deaf-mute man they picked up on their way home. Without the ability to communicate with others, this man may have been treated like a family pet by his own people. He was probably used to living off the crumbs. From the passage, he may not have even been the person looking to Jesus for healing. It's not as if he could hear the stories of what Jesus had done. Jesus was just a strange man drawing a crowd and getting people excited. What was the big deal?

Well, the disciples and following crowd had seen healing, including that of gentiles, so why not test and see what Jesus could do for this deaf-mute? What does Jesus do for him? He takes the man away to deal with him in private.

Once again, Jesus is not going to be used as the cure-all to fix everyone's problems. Like the Father of the prodigal sons, Jesus is more than happy to share all the power of heaven with this man... if he wants to submit himself to be a child (and servant) of God's household. Jesus is not going to allow the crowds to throw people at Him when those victims have no idea what they are getting into with Jesus. Everyone gets to make their own choice.

Oh, it is tempting to take that idea of freedom of choice and run a hundred miles off course, claiming that Jesus advocates for our freedom of choice in every aspect of our lives. We would be sorely mistaken though. That is not the message in this story. When we compare the story of this deaf-mute man receiving healing, with the story of the foreign woman, we see that the choice that Jesus is advocating for... is His own. He chooses who is invited in and who is not. He chooses the timing. He chooses what each of us is offered... and let me tell you what that does. It makes Jesus appear unfair. It makes it look like He plays favorites. It makes Him unpopular.

It also makes Him in charge. No one gets to the Father unless they go through Him. Those disciples tried so hard to make Jesus popular. Jesus, don't go healing gentiles. At the very least, if you do, make it big and flashy, so everyone knows what happened. Don't just tell the lady to go home, that her daughter is well. We want a show! We want an amazing story to tell everyone! And we want you to do it again tomorrow night! That's the leadership we want. Someone who can deal with any problem we throw at them.

But to Jesus, these people aren't problems. They are marred creations that have all the potential to be His children if He chooses to adopt them. The first words that deaf-mute man will hear are the voice of Jesus speaking to His ears, "Be opened." Jesus invested in that man and He became an open vessel for the Word of God from that day forth.

Some people needed to be healed to follow Jesus. Others did not get that healing. The Apostle Paul lived with an affliction for his entire Christian life. Jesus still invested in Paul and worked through his life in incredible ways. Paul did not receive healing. Paul tells us, instead he received grace that carried him despite his affliction.

Jesus took these two people, which appear in the story as distractions from His mission, and made them people He invested in. Without making a public spectacle of what He did for them, Jesus prepared the way for an eternal relationship with them. He invested in them in ways that may not have born fruit until the days of Pentecost when the church surged north, into and past the homeland of the foreign woman, sweeping through communities of the poor, sick, and wounded, as the disciples of Jesus took up His mission to make disciples of the world. We are vessels bearing water from the everlasting fountain of grace out into a dry and thirsty land. And for us, it is not about watering fairly. It is about watering faithfully. It is about watering well.

Distraction or Investment

The true target of God’s mission begins with ourselves.

Are you a distraction for Jesus or one of His investments?

Harry Prince was an investment of God.

From his obituary:

“Immediately following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Harry enlisted in the Army, in the 25th Armored Engineering Battalion of the 6th Armor Division, and was the Captain of a bridge-building company of 120 men who bridged the Rhine three times. They were close to enemy lines at all times and sometimes the enemy even crossed over their bridges in retreat. He survived the Battle of the Bulge and was discharged, with the rank of Major, on December 26, 1945. Of all his adventures during the war years, the thing that he was most proud of was the number of "boys" that he was able to bring through safely, including the German boys who either surrendered to his unit or were able to retreat to their homes over bridges that Harry's unit had built.”

It is always a dangerous thing to try to make deals with God, but as in the story of the Syrophoenician woman, the exception often proves the rule. I was in church with Harry about 15 years ago and he told me that he prayed to God during one of those first major battles. He told God that if He would get Harry and all his men home safely, Harry would spend the rest of his life serving God. All his men made it home safely, and the Rev. Harry Prince was serving in Methodist churches the rest of his life, well into his 80s. Harry was not just a distraction. Jesus invested in Harry and Harry invested his life in Jesus.

Are you a distraction for Jesus or one of His investments?"

If Jesus is investing in you, how are you investing in Him?

Communion