EIGHT

THE APPROACH

How do you approach God? How do you connect with him? Most of us can think of two options. There is the ancient understanding: God is a bloodthirsty tyrant who needs to be constantly appeased by good behavior if not outright sacrifice. And there’s the modern understanding of God: He’s a spiritual force we can access anytime we want, no questions asked. But Mark tells us a story showing us that approaching God might mean something else entirely:

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

(Mark 7:24–26)

The story begins with the mysterious statement that Jesus went to the vicinity of Tyre and did not want anyone to know it. What was going on? Well, Jesus had been spending all of his time ministering in Jewish provinces, and that ministry was drawing overwhelming crowds, and he was exhausted. So Jesus left the Jewish provinces and went into a Gentile territory, Tyre, in order to get some rest.

But it doesn’t work. A woman hears of his arrival and makes her way boldly to Jesus. Though she’s a Syrophoenician, because of Tyre’s proximity to Judea she would have known the Jewish customs. She knows that she has none of the religious, moral, and cultural credentials necessary to approach a Jewish rabbi—she is a Phoenician, a Gentile, a pagan, a woman, and her daughter has an unclean spirit. She knows that in every way, according to the standards of the day, she is unclean and therefore disqualified to approach any devout Jew, let alone a rabbi. But she doesn’t care. She enters the house without an invitation, falls down and begins begging Jesus to exorcise a demon from her daughter. The verb beg here is a present progressive—she keeps on begging. Nothing and no one can stop her. In Matthew’s Gospel chapter 15, the parallel account, the disciples urge Jesus to send her away. But she’s pleading with Jesus—she won’t take no for an answer.

You know why she has this burst of boldness, don’t you? There are cowards, there are regular people, there are heroes, and then there are parents. Parents are not really on the spectrum from cowardice to courage, because if your child is in jeopardy, you simply do what it takes to save her. It doesn’t matter whether you’re normally timid or brazen—your personality is irrelevant. You don’t think twice; you do what it takes. So it’s not all that surprising that this desperate mother is willing to push past all the barriers.

So what is Jesus’s response to this woman as she is down on the floor begging? The story continues:

She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter. “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 their dogs.”

(Mark 7:26–27)

On the surface, this appears to be an insult. We are a canine-loving society, but in New Testament times most dogs were scavengers—wild, dirty, uncouth in every way. Their society was not canine-loving, and to call someone a dog was a terrible insult. In Jesus’s day the Jews often called the Gentiles dogs because they were “unclean.” Is what Jesus says to her just an insult, then? No, it’s a parable. The word parable means “metaphor” or “likeness,” and that’s what this is. One key to understanding it is the very unusual word Jesus uses for “dogs” here. He uses a diminutive form, a word that really means “puppies.” Remember, the woman is a mother. Jesus is saying to her, “You know how families eat: First the children eat at the table, and afterward their pets eat too. It is not right to violate that order. The puppies must not eat food from the table before the children do.” If we go to Matthew’s account of this incident, he gives us a slightly longer version of Jesus’s answer in which Jesus explains his meaning: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” Jesus concentrated his ministry on Israel, for all sorts of reasons. He was sent to show Israel that he was the fulfillment of all Scripture’s promises, the fulfillment of all the prophets, priests, and kings, the fulfillment of the temple. But after he was resurrected, he immediately said to the disciples, “Go to all the nations.” His words, then, are not the insult they appear to be. What he’s saying to the Syrophoenician woman is, “Please understand, there’s an order here. I’m going to Israel first, then the Gentiles (the other nations) later.” However, this mother comes back at him with an astounding reply:

“Yes, Lord,” she replied, “but even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Then he told her, “For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter.” She went home and found her child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

(Mark 7:28–30)

In other words, she says, Yes, Lord, but the puppies eat from that table too, and I’m here for mine. Jesus has told her a parable in which he has given her a combination of challenge and offer, and she gets it. She responds to the challenge: “Okay, I understand. I am not from Israel, I do not worship the God that the Israelites worship. Therefore, I don’t have a place at the table. I accept that.”

Isn’t this amazing? She doesn’t take offense; she doesn’t stand on her rights. She says, “All right. I may not have a place at the table—but there’s more than enough on that table for everyone in the world, and I need mine now.” She is wrestling with Jesus in the most respectful way and she will not take no for an answer. I love what this woman is doing.

In Western cultures we don’t have anything like this kind of assertiveness. We only have assertion of our rights. We do not know how to contend unless we’re standing up for our rights, standing on our dignity and our goodness and saying, “This is what I’m owed.” But this woman is not doing that at all. This is rightless assertiveness, something we know little about. She’s not saying, “Lord, give me what I deserve on the basis of my goodness.” She’s saying, “Give me what I don’t deserve on the basis of your goodness—and I need it now.”

Accepting the Challenge

Do you see how remarkable it is that she recognizes and accepts both the challenge and the offer hidden within it?

A good translation of Jesus’s rabbinical reply to her would be “Such an answer!” Some of the translations have Jesus saying “Wonderful answer, incredible answer.” And so her plea is answered and her daughter is healed. In his study of Mark, biblical scholar James Edwards puts it wonderfully:

She appears to understand the purpose of Israel’s Messiah better than Israel does. Her pluck and persistence are a testimony to her trust in the sufficiency and surplus of Jesus: his provision for the disciples and Israel will be abundant enough to provide for one such as herself. . . . What an irony! Jesus seeks desperately to teach his chosen disciples—yet they are dull and uncomprehending; Jesus is reluctant to even speak to a walk-on pagan woman—and after one sentence she understands his mission and receives his unambiguous commendation. . . . How is this possible? The answer is that the woman is the first person in Mark to hear and understand a parable of Jesus. . . . That she answers Jesus from “within” the parable, that is, in the terms by which Jesus addressed her, indicates that she is the first person in the Gospel to hear the word of Jesus to her.39

Similarly, Martin Luther was amazed and moved by this encounter, because he saw the gospel in it. This woman saw the gospel—that you’re more wicked than you ever believed, but at the same time more loved and accepted than you ever dared to hope. On the one hand, she is not too proud to accept what the gospel says about her unworthiness. She accepts Jesus’s challenge. She doesn’t get her back up and say, “How dare you use a racial epithet about me? I don’t have to stand for this!” Can you hear yourself saying that? But on the other hand, neither does this woman insult God by being too discouraged to take up his offer. See, there are two ways to fail to let Jesus be your Savior. One is by being too proud, having a superiority complex—not to accept his challenge. But the other is through an inferiority complex—being so self-absorbed that you say, “I’m just so awful that God couldn’t love me.” That is, not to accept his offer. John Newton, a minister, once wrote a letter to a man who was very depressed. Take note of what he said:

You say you feel overwhelmed with guilt and a sense of unworthiness? Well, indeed you cannot be too aware of the evils inside of yourself, but you may be, indeed you are, improperly controlled and affected by them. You say it is hard to understand how a holy God could accept such an awful person as yourself. You then express not only a low opinion of yourself, which is right, but also too low an opinion of the person, work, and promises of the Redeemer, which is wrong. You complain about sin, but when I look at your complaints, they are so full of self-righteousness, unbelief, pride, and impatience that they are little better than the worst evils you complain of.40

It is just as much a rejection of the love of God to refuse to seek him, to refuse to come after his mercy, to refuse to accept it, to refuse to be content with it, as to say “I’m too good for it.”

One of the great prayers of the English language is the prayer of approach to the Lord’s Supper, written by Thomas Cranmer, in the first Book of Common Prayer; it’s based on this story in Mark, and over the centuries millions of people have prayed it:

We do not presume to come to this your table, merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in your manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table, but you are the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy.

Every time anyone has ever prayed that prayer, Cranmer has been inviting them to step into this woman’s shoes and approach Jesus boldly, with rightless assertiveness. To take up both the offer and challenge of God’s infinite mercy.

Accepting the Gift

The Syrophoenician woman approached Jesus boldly, under her own initiative. She knew what she wanted and was determined to get it. Sometimes, however, our approach to Jesus takes an altogether different trajectory; sometimes our first encounter with him feels almost accidental. But either way, Jesus knows us and gives us what we need. As soon as Jesus leaves Tyre, Mark records this story:

Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis. There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man. 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. He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, “Ephphatha!” (which means, “Be opened!”). At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly. Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it. People were overwhelmed with amazement. “He has done everything well,” they said. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

(Mark 7:31–37)

Jesus does a whole series of things with the deaf and mute man: He takes him away from the crowd; he points to his ears; he then touches his own tongue, takes his own saliva, and puts it on the man’s tongue; he looks up, sighs, and says, “Be opened!” You might say, “Well, Jesus is doing the rituals of a miracle worker.” Actually, no: Remember that in every miracle we have witnessed, from calming the storm to bringing Jairus’s daughter back to life to the healing of the Syrophoenician woman’s daughter, there was no arm-waving, no incantation, no mumbo-jumbo. Jesus obviously does not need to perform a ritual in order to summon his power. Which means Jesus is doing all this not because he needs it but because the man needs it.

Jesus’s response to the woman’s request to heal her daughter is enigmatic, cryptic, even astringent. With the deaf-mute he’s melt-in-your-mouth sweet. In John’s Gospel chapter 11, after Lazarus has died, he comes to be with Martha and Mary, the sisters. Martha says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died,” and Jesus rebukes her. Then Mary comes up and says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died,” and Jesus just weeps with her. Same words—by no means the same response. Why? Because Jesus always gives you what you need, and he knows better than you what that is. He’s the Wonderful Counselor.

Jesus deeply identifies with this man. All the touching of his ears, touching his mouth—it’s sign language. Jesus is saying, “Let’s go over here; don’t be afraid, I’m going to do something about that; now let’s look to God.” He comes into the man’s cognitive world and uses terms—nonverbal speech—that he can understand. Notice how he takes him away from the crowd. Why does he do that—wouldn’t he want everyone to see? Well, imagine this man as he grew up. He’s always been a spectacle. He’s deaf, and therefore he can’t produce proper speech. Just imagine the way people made fun of him all his life. Jesus knows this, and refuses to make a spectacle of him now. He is identifying with him emotionally.

But there’s a deeper identification yet, because at one point Jesus utters a deep sigh. A better translation might be “he moaned.” A moan is an expression of pain. Why would Jesus be in pain? Maybe it’s because he has emotionally connected with the man and his alienation and isolation. That’s true, but he’s about to heal him. Why isn’t Jesus grinning at the man saying, “Wait till you see what I’m going to do for you”? Because an even deeper identification is going on: There is a cost for Jesus’s healing this man. Mark deliberately signals this with the word he uses for “deaf and could hardly talk.” A single Greek word, moglilalos, is used there and no other place in the Bible except Isaiah 35:5. It’s a very rare word, and Mark would have no reason to use it unless he wanted us to cross-reference what’s happening here with Isaiah 35. The prophet Isaiah says this about the Messiah: “‘Be strong, do not fear; your God will come . . . with divine retribution . . . to save you.’ Then will the eyes of the blind be open and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy” (Isaiah 35:4–6). Mark is saying: Do you see the blind opening their eyes? Do you see the deaf hearing, do you hear the mute tongue shouting for joy? God has come, just as Isaiah 35 promised; God has come to save you. Jesus Christ is God come to save us. Jesus is the King.

There’s something else Mark wants his readers to think about. Isaiah says the Messiah will come to save us “with divine retribution.” But Jesus isn’t smiting people. He’s not taking out his sword. He’s not taking power; he’s giving it away. He’s not taking over the world; he’s serving it. Where’s the divine retribution? And the answer is, he didn’t come to bring divine retribution; he came to bear it. On the cross, Jesus would identify with us totally. On the cross, the Child of God was thrown away, cast away from the table without a crumb, so that those of us who are not children of God could be adopted and brought in. Put another way, the Child had to become a dog so that we could become sons and daughters at the table.

And because Jesus identified like that with us, now we know why we can approach him. The Son became a dog so that we dogs could be brought to the table; he became mute so that our tongues can be loosed to call him King. Don’t be too isolated to think you are beyond healing. Don’t be too proud to accept what the gospel says about your unworthiness. Don’t be too despondent to accept what the gospel says about how loved you are.