Who’s up for a fifteen hour walk?  It’s about fifty miles from the Sea of Galilee to the city of Tyre, going northwest.  That’s almost to Eagle Lake.  The walk could take the better part of a week.  Tyre was no village: it was a major commercial seaport.  It was a pagan city with very old ties to Israel—David and Solomon had enjoyed good relations with the kings of Tyre; prophets had condemned the city for pagan arrogance: cosmopolitans sometimes live by the conviction that they’re rather more intelligent than most other people, particularly those ignorant, religious types.  There was almost certainly a significant Jewish population in Tyre, engaged in trade.  Did Jesus go to the house of one of these Jews in Tyre?  Perhaps, or perhaps it was a Gentile home; Jesus has not been opposed to mixing with Gentiles.  Mark doesn’t tell us whose house it was; I suppose we’re not meant to concern ourselves with that question.  Jesus found a house where he was welcome.

I imagine Jesus arrived tired with his disciples, hungry and thirsty, grimy from the days of dusty walking.  The chance to sit, rest, to wash, eat and drink—this is perhaps uppermost on all their minds.  “He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it” (7:24).  Have you ever just sat down to dinner, the fork almost to your mouth, only for your phone to ring, or someone to knock at the door?  Just a few hours, a few minutes not to be disturbed.  At my new faculty orientation in Charleston, there was a colleague who taught ancient Greek; we had all just come back from lunch, and at once someone went right over to her about some matter of business, and it was clear that she needed a minute to regroup and refocus—Give me a moment, please; please!  I can almost hear Jesus, and I wouldn’t blame him.  He’s got a lot on his mind, beloved.  Jesus always has a lot on his mind, and his heart.

“[H]e could not keep his presence secret” (7:24).  Couldn’t he just, you know, clap his hands or snap his fingers, and keep his presence secret, like Harry Potter under his cloak of invisibility, the invisible man?  Could not.  Not possible.  When Jesus is present, news gets around.  Beloved, that’s an encouraging thought!  When Jesus is in a place, news gets around; that news can’t be kept secret.  He could not keep his presence secret.  Can we?  Churches talk about being just one generation away from closing.  I’ve seen some do just that.  Eagle Lake closed, not so long ago.  Little Bethel, in Angleton, is effectively closed.  Bay City as I hear has loads of money but not many people.  Even in a town of 30,000, the church in Rosenberg is very much at risk of closing.

We don’t actively try to keep Jesus a secret from anybody; we don’t want to.  At the same time, we don’t often exert ourselves to show and tell.  Here’s the “mainline” trouble.  Really, it’s the perennial Christian trouble.  In our time-honored way of being church, as a denomination along with others in our category, the church grew, if it grew at all, by adults returning to church with their young children, or by parents having children—for you old timers, think of the Hipp family—lots of children!  There aren’t that many in the child-bearing group, here—give them a moment, please, please!—and even those who might just still be able to pull it off, well, forget it.

But the encouragement, the point, so far: if Jesus is in a place, this cannot be kept hidden.  People will find out; word will get out.  Some will even come.  Some will even stay.  The Spirit is always at work, beloved; praise the Lord.  Pray to be part of that work, at work, at school, at home and everywhere.  You might just find someone who needs Jesus.  Everyone needs Jesus—yes.  And not everyone knows it; not everyone is ready or willing to hear that, consider it, or take it to heart.  Committing to Jesus means something, and people know it.

There was a woman in Tyre who knew she needed Jesus, not for herself, you understand, but for her little girl, who was afflicted, suffering.  Would you help her?  All that woman needed was to hear that Jesus was in town, to hear what Jesus could do—had done already.  In her desperation, she knew she needed Jesus, and she went to him.

What we don’t consider enough are the barriers.  She was a foreigner to him: to Jews—and Jesus was a Jew—foreigners, Gentiles, were best kept at arm’s length, even further.  Jesus was a stranger to this woman.  She had no claim on him and no connection.  She may have considered all this, felt the anxious weight of it all, but none of it stopped her.  Her need, her child’s need, impelled her through every barrier.  No apostle helped her, no neighbor or friend, except for one friend, one friend she didn’t know she had, the friend of us all: the Holy Spirit.  When we do something for blessing that we hadn’t believed possible until we did it, when we say something for blessing we had never before believed ourselves capable of saying, when we stand surprised at the good thing we have just done, pause for a moment and reflect: the Spirit has moved you, beloved.  You know the power of the Spirit of God.

That woman came “as soon as she heard about him” (7:25).  Spirit.  She “came and fell at his feet” (7:25).  So much for pride.  What would you do?  Fall at his feet?  There on the ground, in the dust and dirt, in your good clothes?  Crying, pleading, begging?  I like that story, but it’s a tough sell, beloved.  We are a proud people.  Perhaps she was a proud woman, but she was also a mother, and her little child was afflicted, suffering, and here was a man who could do something about that when no one else could.  Jesus offers us help that no one else can.  Other people can offer comfort.  Others can help as we heal.  People can help us out of a tough situation.  But no one can offer the help Jesus offers.  There is no substitute for Jesus.  What is this help?  The woman didn’t know exactly, but she sensed, somehow, that Jesus could give it.  Spirit.

What Mark tells us is that the trouble with her daughter was spiritual: she “was possessed by an impure spirit” (7:25).  In our postmodern, materialist, empirical times, people have a strong desire to explain that away—oh, she was epileptic or schizophrenic—we diagnose people who lived two thousand years ago based upon a single sentence in Scripture!  Let Scripture tell us and contemplate that: “an impure spirit.”  But we don’t like to contemplate that, because we don’t understand.  Or maybe we do, all too well.

Mark reminds us that the woman, the mother, was not a Jew, not of the people of Jesus (7:26).  Most of those who first gathered around Mark were Gentiles.  We forget just how astounding it is that God extends His covenant promises to those who are not of His covenant people.  He sees us.  He wants us, too!  He invites us in.

The woman begged.  Have you ever begged?  It’s shameful, disgraceful, humiliating, but in the moment, we don’t care about any of that; we don’t care, in that moment, who is watching, or what they’re thinking.  Desperation.  How many desperate people come to Jesus, beloved!  Oh, sisters and brothers, it is only desperate people who truly do come to Jesus.  Only such people, like this woman, understand that he only can help.

The Greek here is saying something our translation doesn’t entirely get across: she was continuously begging, beseeching Jesus.  She wouldn’t stop; she just kept on.  Pathetic!  The full, deep expression of hope born of desperation: she has no place else to go, no one else to whom she can go.  She knows.  She’s tried.  This is it.  If Jesus can’t help, or won’t, then there is no help.

Drive the demon out, she pleads with Jesus (7:26).  Oh, yes.  Oh, yes.  Here’s the help Jesus offers, not physical healing, though he can do that, but cleansing, beloved, spiritual healing—purification.  The ugliest wounds are inside.  It needs a strong power, stronger than a demon.  Is your demon strong, whatever name you give it?  Your demons.  Jesus is stronger.  That’s what this woman believed.  Believe that, with her.

You may remember what Jesus tells her, after she’s abased herself before him, humbled herself, made herself as the dust of the earth, there in the dust on her knees, on her face, at his feet, in front of everybody: “First let the children eat all they want [. . .] for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs” (7:27).  Can you let that sink in?  You have to hear that with Jesus looking the woman in the eye.  How does it feel?  Could Jesus ever say such a thing, our Jesus?  He just did.  Indignation.  Anger.  Hurt pride.  She made herself a fool, and Jesus treats her like one, is that it?  But that’s not how she responds.  Her pride?  Her dignity?  She didn’t come to Jesus for herself but for her child.  What would you be willing to sacrifice, to save your child?

This stranger to Jesus is wise, beloved; she thinks.  She’s quick-witted.  Spirit.  We don’t know just what she’s thinking; it might be, “Well, he didn’t say No.”  He didn’t say yes, but he didn’t say no.  Has he left an opening, for a reason?  As though he were waiting for something.  But what?  “[Yes,] Lord,” she replied, “[yet] even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs” (7:28).  Just the little crumbs, those nobody would miss or be angry about.  Because there are always crumbs, scraps, and no one forbids this.  If there are dogs, they will eat scraps, and they’re happy to have them.  The dog is part of the family, too, even if it is just the dog: I’ve seen your facebook pet posts!  The children eating at the table, the family dog eating what falls from the table, or even being fed under the table by one of the children—must be broccoli!: this is a picture of the family together, eating together, being family together.  If all get to eat, does it matter whether as a child or a dog?  Is the main thing the place in the pecking order or the food?  If you get a bigger portion than me, should I be angry?  In my hunger, shall I be envious that my portion is smaller than yours?  The woman tells Jesus she’d be happy with just a little crumb, even a mustard seed’s worth.

Humility.  Self-negation—the last shall be first; the greatest is least of all and servant of all.  I would rather be a doorkeeper—as far from the throne as can be yet still in the Temple, in the presence of God: desiring God, seeking God, knowing the presence of God, loving God.

“Then he told her, ‘For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter” (7:29).  For such a reply.  For such a reply.  You could have been offended, by what I said.  You could have resented it, resented me, resented bothering to seek me out, to call out to me, to beg me.  You could have thought of yourself, first, put yourself at the center of your life.  But you didn’t.  Instead, you considered the sacrifice of your pride no sacrifice for the sake of your pride: your child, and love for your child.  God knows this love, recognizes it.  The Father humbles Himself in the Son and glorifies Himself in the humbling.  A deep mystery, beloved, and salvation for us, as this table testifies.  Salvation in the humbling.  Humble salvation!

Jesus didn’t need to go to the little girl; he didn’t need to touch her or say anything to her.  The mother’s determined, dogged attitude, one might say her faithful attitude toward Jesus, was sufficient.  Jesus spoke, and it was already so.  That woman obtained the blessing of Jesus: healing for her child.  As she obtains what she sought for her child, she also obtains something for herself—Jesus.  Faith works a change in her.  Spirit.  And do you think she’ll tell others what happened?  And to whom do you think she, foreigner as she is, will pray?  She may not have been born of the people of Jesus, but I assure you, she is now one of the Jesus people.  He did something for her, yes, and she came to him in faith.  Come.  Eat.  Drink.  Jesus is doing something for you, too.

Now, to the One who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all we can ask or imagine, to God be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.