Mark 7:24-37
Introduction
Today I am going to so something I rarely do – preach from a text, a single verse. Actually it’s really just one word from Mark 7: 34
“Ephphatha”, which means “be opened”.
This is the actual Aramaic word used by Jesus when he healed a deaf man and commanded his lips and mouth to be opened. But I want to apply it to this whole passage in Mark 7: 24 to the end of the chapter. Here we see Jesus going out into Gentile territory and breaking new ground, opening up new groups of people to the Kingdom of God. So it’s all about being open – in contrast to the closed minds of the Pharisees and Scribes. In the previous section they were criticising the disciples of Jesus for not going through the correct procedure before eating their food.
These men thought of religion as something just for the elite. Only for Jews, and only really for those Jews who were wealthy enough to be able to afford to go through elaborate time-consuming rituals. It was partly to get away from such people that Jesus went off to the territory of Tyre and Sidon. He also probably needed to get some rest and relaxation. So he left the country, he went abroad, out of Jewish territory.
Although Tyre and Sidon had originally been included in the land allotted to the tribes of Israel, the fact is that the tribe of Asher had never fully settled their territory. So Tyre and Sidon remained in the hands of the pagan Canaanites. At the time of Jesus it was a very mixed area, both ethnically and religiously. There were a few Jews around, but most people were pagans.
These were the cities of the Phoenicians who were great sailors. They were the first men to steer by the stars. They traded right across the Mediterranean, and even as far as Britain where they came to buy Cornish tin. They built cities in North Africa – most notably, Carthage. The Phoenicians who lived in Tyre and Sidon were known as Syro-phoenicians (that is Syrian Phoenicians) as opposed to the ones from North Africa who were known as the Carthaginians. They were all descendents of the ancient Canaanites and worshipped the god Baal.
(We read quite a lot about them in the Old Testament, in the story of Elijah. Jezebel was a Sidonian princess and worshipper of pagan gods.)
In Phoenicia there were also other tribes and races – Romans, Greeks and Syrians, among others. Two main languages were spoken by the common people – Aramaic (a language related to Hebrew which had been the official language of the old Persian empire) and Greek (which had been the language of the empire of Alexander the Great). Latin was the official language of the Roman authorities. The same situation existed in Palestine and it is very likely that Jesus and his disciples were bilingual in Aramaic and Greek.
Moving out
Mark tells us that Jesus and his disciples went to the vicinity of Tyre and stayed in a lodging place there. Jesus wanted to be on his own – but soon people heard who he was and started flocking to him. A woman came to him and begged that he would save her daughter from the power of an unclean spirit. We don’t know anything else about the girl. What was her name? How old was she? What form did the demon possession take? How had she come under this evil power? How long had she been in this state? We don’t know these things but we do know that her mother was desperate. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.
She was desperate enough to come to this Jewish healer, even though she was just a gentile. “Gentile dogs” is what they were called by most Jews. And to the Jewish way of thinking dogs were unclean animals.
Now we come to the part of the story that causes most problems to modern commentators. It’s just so politically incorrect! Jesus refers to this woman and her daughter as dogs!
“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.”
It seems so harsh. It makes it appear that Jesus was as narrow minded and judgmental as the Pharisees. But we notice one thing, which is not apparent in the English versions of the Bible.
When he speaks to her, Jesus doesn’t use the normal Greek word for dog, KUON, which just means a cur, any old dog roaming the streets. Instead he uses the diminutive form, KUNARION, a little dog, a pet dog. It’s almost a term of affection.
It is surely significant that Jesus used this word for dog. (By the way, if you are wondering why Jesus should have been speaking Greek, it was because this woman was a Greek-speaker. Although she was Syro-phoenician she didn’t speak Aramaic. Just as you can be of Welsh birth and nationality and yet not be able to speak Welsh. Jesus apparently was bilingual, so he spoke to her in Greek.)
“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.”
The little pet dogs that lie under the table waiting for the children to drop scraps of food for them. Of course, no orthodox Jew would have such an arrangement in his household. The dogs, if there were any, would have been kept outside. But Jesus is talking to a Gentile woman, and Gentiles didn’t necessarily regard all dogs as unclean.
Jesus is saying, in effect, that he had come to bring God’s help to the Jews first. His mission was to show to the Jews that he was their Messiah. Only after that had happened would the Gentiles be included. Jesus is not excluding the Gentiles, he is just stressing that he is, first and foremost, the Messiah of the Jews.
Also he seems to be testing this woman to see if she really wants to allow God to work in her life. Or is she just looking for a miracle cure for her daughter? There are several other occasions in the gospels when Jesus seemed to go out of his way to put people off following him. He often needed to test their intentions.
But this woman rises to the test:
“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.” “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.”
It wasn’t just because of her clever repartee, it was because she showed faith in the God of Israel. She acknowledged that Jesus had come to the Jews first but she also wanted some crumbs to fall for the Gentiles. It’s an amazing combination of humility, boldness and faith.
And because of that faith Jesus performed an amazing miracle. He drove out the demon at a distance, without even meeting the girl. No words of power, no ceremony of exorcism, not even a command to the demon to go. He simply said, “The demon has left your daughter” – and it was so! She went home and found her child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
Moving back
Jesus stayed in the region of Tyre and Sidon for some time. (One commentator suggests about six months.) Then he returned home to Galilee. On the way home he went into the region of the Decapolis which was on the Gentile shore of Lake Galilee.
The people of this area were also pagan – a mixed population of Syrians and Greeks. But the area was close to Jesus’ home in Caphernaum and the people spoke Aramaic, just as he did.
In one of the villages they brought to him a man who was deaf and who had a speech impediment. Once again, we don’t know anything about this man. We don’t know his name or his age, or how long he had been deaf. Was it from birth? Was he indeed totally deaf or just profoundly deaf? Was his speech impediment a consequence of his being deaf? We don’t know.
This man lived at a time when there was no provision at all for deaf people. No one had yet devised a sign language for the deaf. There was no support, and no cure for his condition. This man was in a desperate plight. The people begged Jesus to lay hands on him, in the hope that it might effect a cure.
So there was this crowds of excited people all around the man – jostling and gesticulating. They grabbed hold of the man and propelled him toward Jesus. The deaf man must have been completely bemused. He didn’t know what was going on, or why they were pushing him toward this stranger! Immediately Jesus grasped the situation. He saw that the man was bewildered. So he led him away from the crowd, to a quiet place.
Now Jesus could have just laid hands on this man and cured him. But he wanted the man first to know what was happening – so that he would have faith in Jesus. So Jesus spoke to the man with signs and gestures:
- He placed his fingers in the mans ears, as if to say, “Your hearing will be made whole.”
- He touched the man’s tongue with saliva, as if to say, “Your speech will be made perfect.” (In ancient times saliva was believed to have healing properties.)
- · He looked up to heaven and sighed deeply, as if to say, “God sympathises with your plight. He is going to heal you.”
- · And then Jesus said the word “Ephphatha”, which means, “Be opened”.
Why does Mark record the actual Aramaic word Jesus used? I don’t know, but I can’t think of a better word to use. Just think of these three syllables:
Eph – Pha – Tha.
Each syllable requires moving the lips and the teeth. It must be just about the easiest word in the world to lip-read! So the man saw the word with his eyes. He knew he was being healed, and the next moment he could hear and speak.
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.”
Conclusion
“Ephphatha: be opened.”
This word seems to me to be the key to the whole passage. It’s all about openness.
- Jesus went to Phoenicia and spent time among the Gentiles. He saw them as human beings, with human needs. Despite his words to the women he did not see them as dogs. He was open to them. “Ephphatha: be opened.”
- He delivered the little girl from an unclean spirit. Her life was suddenly opened up to all that was good and pure. “Ephphatha: be opened.”
- His conversation with the Syro-phoenician woman indicated that the saving power of God was going to be made available to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews. Not yet, but after the Resurrection, and after the Day of Pentecost, the Good News was going to go out to every nation. The doors of salvation were going to be opened up to all. “Ephphatha: be opened.”
- In the Decapolis, once again Jesus ministered to a Gentile person. He opened up a new life for this man even as his ears and mouth were opened. “Ephphatha: be opened.”
And what about us? do we need to open up too?
- Surely we need to be open to the fact that God can work in ways we can not imagine, outside our institutional religious structures. That’s just what Jesus was doing in that Gentile territory.
- We also need to open up to God himself. We can’t hide anything from him anyway. But he yearns for us to open our hearts to him – to receive the blessings of his Spirit.
- Then at last our ears will be open and we will listen to his word. Our mouths will be open and we will proclaim the glory of his name. We will tell others about this Jesus who “has done all things well”.
