Well, nobody likes to be called a dog.  We tend to be very attached to our pets, yet no one likes to be called a dog.  When will Jesus say something comforting, or do something full of grace, compassion, and love?  We’ve listened to him these past several weeks talking about the challenges involved in following him.  The challenges are so daunting that some—no, a lot—walked away.  He’s told us there is nothing that we can do to merit the forgiveness of our sins, to earn salvation.  Our Church of Christ companions, from what I’ve seen in the local newspaper week after week, would probably tell me to stop right there.  There are things we can do!, their weekly ads seem to be saying.  We can have faith.  Jesus tells us that no one can come to him unless the Father grants it (Jn 6:44, 65).  By coming to the Father, I take Jesus to mean having faith.  No one can have faith unless the Father grants it: this is part of what we mean by election.

Calvin, following St. Augustine, following St. Paul, following his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is right.  Faith is not our accomplishment, not our work, not our choice.  Faith is a miracle.  Contra these ads from our Church of Christ friends, to say that we are saved by faith and not by works is to put matters in right relation.  Faith is what God does in me.  We are saved by God, not by our efforts.  If we could by our own efforts rescue ourselves from the world, why would we need God?  One rough and ready summation of Buddhism is that you can become God (pure nothingness—oh, joy!) by what you do and refrain from doing—you; your doing; your works; your choice.

What Jesus does for this deaf man who, though he can make sounds, cannot talk, is a powerful example of what I have been saying.  Before we get to him, though, Mark introduces us to this woman whom Jesus speaks of as a dog.  Jesus does.  Our Jesus.  I guess, beloved, we must always exercise humility and wisdom when we start talking about Jesus as our Jesus.  He doesn’t belong to us.  Any picture we try to paint of him will always be incomplete.  We belong to him.  Jesus is complicated: the Bible makes no secret of that.  He does such gentle, compassionate, beautiful things that call forth great love from us, and he does and says things that sting, confuse, even shock us.  Like to this mother, asking for help for her seriously ill little girl.

“It isn’t right to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs” (7:27).  Either Jesus is being cruel, or he isn’t.  If he is, that dramatically changes how we think about Jesus!  I have heard Jesus being so candid that it hurt, heard him speaking in anger, heard him frustrated with the stubbornness of the human heart and the lack of comprehension even among those who follow him.  I cannot recall a time, though, when I have heard Jesus being cruel—unless it’s right here.

I don’t think he is being cruel.  Something else is going on.  Just as soon as she heard Jesus was in the area, this woman came.  She comes in hope, in need.  Has she come in faith?  What does faith look like?  Can we know it when we see it?  If faith comes to us from God, then, when we meet with reversal, silence, or even rebuke, faith does not push us away from God.  If faith is from God, faith seeks to return to God, to carry back to God whoever faith has taken hold of.  If this mother truly believes that Jesus can restore her little girl, then what would, what could stop her from obtaining her request?

Only one thing: her-self.  If, hearing Jesus call her a dog, the woman shot up in indignation and wounded pride, gave Jesus a look of cold contempt, and left, she may have defended her honor and upheld her pride.  She would not have obtained her heart’s desire: the health and well-being—I might even say the salvation—of her daughter.  The woman would have demonstrated that she herself was her heart’s desire: the one who mattered most.

Some point out that the word Mark records is a diminutive.  That’s a kind of word we use to “convey a sense of intimacy or endearment”[1]; often, we use diminutives when speaking to small children.  Around here, many men still go by their childhood names: Johnny rather than John.  Billy, rather than William.  Nobody who knows them calls them John or William.  The diminutive is even clearer for Spanish speakers, with its characteristic -ito/-ita ending: Juanita, for example, or Doritos.  We use the diminutive to signal that something is little, tiny, and too cute—like a kitten, or a puppy.

This is the kind of word Jesus uses.  It’s either like saying little doggies, or it refers to house pets.  If you’ve ever come across a dog that has lived on the streets, without benefit of human interest or interaction, you know there is a real difference between such a dog and a pet.  So, it may make a difference that the word Jesus uses can mean a pet.  We love our dogs.  We feed them.  We are concerned for their health.  We like to spend time with them—they like to spend time with us.  We deeply value our dogs for their loyalty, their companionship, for their playfulness and the way they want to protect and keep us safe.  We have a relationship with such dogs.  It isn’t the same as we have with our children.  Would you put your pet before your child?  We would consider it odd, even sad, if a parent put the dog before the children.

Still, nobody likes to be called a dog.  I don’t doubt this mother was shocked by what Jesus said, probably more than a little hurt.  She did not like what she heard Jesus say!  She also had faith that Jesus could do for her what she was hoping.

Patience is a spiritual virtue, so, too, meekness, though that’s not a word we like much—because we really don’t understand it.  Jesus knows this.  Another spiritual virtue is perseverance.  If we do not pray for perseverance, if we do not persevere, we aren’t going to get very far, in faith, in hope, or in life.  We need all these virtues in the face of what seems like reversal, rejection, adversity, failure.  I don’t know about you, but those are words I would use to describe my spiritual journey.  Oh, there have been bright spots: Jesus, the Holy Spirit, God’s Word, church, relationships!  But it’s not easy.  No Christian who knows anything about what it means to try to live as a Christian will tell you its’s easy.  Jesus tells us, quite openly, quite candidly, that there will be challenges: that he will be one of them.  Jesus is a challenge because we are not spiritual by nature.  We are of the earth, hearts redeemed but in a fallen structure, and the ways of this world cling to us, tenaciously, persistently, temptingly.

What Jesus promises those who have faith is himself.  I will be with you.  I will never drive you away (Jn 6:37).  I will stick with you, and, through the power of the Holy Spirit, I will make it possible for you to stick with me.  That, beloved, is called perseverance: Jesus making it possible for us to continue.

This Gentile woman shows perseverance in the face of disappointment and reversal: the very one she went to for help has, seemingly, just insulted her.  But she does not throw away her hope or her faith in order to keep her pride.  Okay, Lord, wound my pride, deflate me, only grant me my heart’s desire!  What that woman wanted was for her little girl to be healed, restored, for the grip of the powers of darkness upon her to be removed, skillfully, successfully, completely.  And this mother just knew, somehow, not just hoped, but knew, somehow, that Jesus could do this for her, just knew, somehow, that Jesus would do this for her—if she persevered; if, that is, she had faith, lived in faith, lived by faith, faith in Jesus.  Not even what seemed and felt like reversal from the mouth of Jesus himself was going to hinder her.

And you know the result.  The woman responds to what Jesus says.  Not with an insult or an angry rejoinder, but by pointing out that even house pets are allowed to have what the children don’t eat (7:28).  Jesus, hearing not only her words, but perceiving the persevering faith in which she spoke, the Spirit alive and at work in her, Jesus told her, “Because of that answer, go back home, where you will find that the demon has gone out of your daughter” (7:29).

Faith.  Persevering, patient, meek, bold, hopeful, living faith.  Faith prompted her to come, to speak.  Faith prompted her to remain, and faith obtained her prayer.  She could have done none of this if not for the Holy Spirit, that caused faith to rise up in her, blessed her with all these spiritual virtues.  Not her works, beloved, but her faith that makes all things possible.  Faith is what God does in me.  I do not will faith.  I do not choose faith.  We are saved by God, not by our own efforts.  “What gives life is God’s Spirit: man’s power is of no use at all” (Jn 6:63).

What Jesus does for this deaf man who, though he can make sounds, cannot talk, is a powerful example.  We cannot respond to Jesus if we cannot hear Jesus!  Has someone ever spoken to you, yet, just after, you could not tell them what they said?  Husbands?  Wives?  Children?  It is only Jesus (through the ministration of the Holy Spirit) who can enable us to hear him, to hear God’s Word.[2]  The locals bring this man to Jesus.  The man cannot hear.  How, then, can he ever hear the Word of God?  His condition has a physical dimension.  He is like an embodiment of the spiritual dimension: spiritual deafness.  We may not know many deaf people, but I suspect most of us know people who appear to be spiritually deaf.  If the healing Word is going to come to this man and dwell in him, he has to be able to hear it.

Hearing the word, as James tells us, is one side of the coin, while doing the Word, speaking it, sharing it, living it, is the other side.  It is by the tongue that we speak clearly.  Just try to hold your tongue motionless while talking.

The man cannot hear Jesus, cannot speak with Jesus.  Jesus takes the man aside.  One of the most powerful moments for me of hearing Jesus came years ago, when I was alone, reading the Bible.  Jesus very directly works upon this man: his fingers in the man’s ears, to open them by Jesus’ touch.  Yes, the saliva part is eeeeww, but if I were to let anyone take his finger and use it to put some of his saliva on my tongue, I guess it would be Jesus.  Speech with a parched mouth, a dry tongue, is difficult, just as trying to hold your tongue motionless while talking.

This man did not will himself to come to Jesus.  People brought him.  He did not choose Jesus: Jesus took hold of him.  How did this man more than another merit the touch of Jesus?  He did not.  We are told nothing of that man’s moral history, not because it is irrelevant, but because it is no different from our own.

At the outset, I asked when Jesus would say something comforting, do something full of grace, compassion, and love.  He has been all along.  He opens blind eyes, opens deaf ears, frees hearts and tongues to speak and bless, and grants the heart’s desire of all those who come to him in faith.  Faith, beloved, is the God-given heart’s desire for God.  W. Graham Scroggie astutely points out that “Jesus in that day told the people not to spread the news of what He had done, and they spread it.  To-day He bids us spread the good news, and how unwilling or slow we are to do so!”[3]  Let us be more eager to share the Good News, not trusting in ourselves but in faith to enable and empower us to do it.

And to Jesus Christ, who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests of his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.

                [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diminutive

                [2] This is another way of thinking about all we have been hearing from Jesus these past several Sundays, as we read through the sixth chapter of John’s account.

                [3] W. Graham Scroggie.  Gospel of Mark. Study Hour Ser. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1976.  137.