Sermon: Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Mark 7:24-37

September 8, 2024 

Faith-La Fe Lutheran Church
Pastor Jonathan Linman

People are drawn to knowing where they belong, to knowing their place. Yes, we like our freedoms, but we also like knowing limits, too. Which is to say, we humans erect and maintain boundaries of all kinds. We build fences at the limits of our property lines. There are national and state boundaries and city limits. And within cities there are distinct neighborhoods. Here in Phoenix, I have the palpable sense that my neighborhood is bounded by Glendale Avenue on the south, Northern Avenue on the north, 16th Street on the west, and state route 51 on the east. Home for me is within those boundaries.

Of course, boundaries are not just geographic in terms of places where we live, and fences we erect. There are any number of categories of boundary keeping. Being Lutheran or Catholic or Pentecostal is another set of boundaries. Then there’s being a Republican or Democratic. There are racial and ethnic distinctions and boundaries. We make economic distinctions and create classes of people, many aspiring to be middle class. And on and on and on. You get the point. Boundaries take many forms. They define our lives in so many ways.

A sense of place, of knowing where we belong and with whom, makes us feel safe. Boundary distinctions give us our identities, a sense of our uniqueness. I think it’s true that the greatest experience of freedom exists within known boundaries. Absolute freedom without boundaries or limits can be terrifying. Known boundaries between places and people are needed for healthy relationships. We clergy are required to take boundary training periodically so that we can maintain appropriate boundaries with others. That’s the good news about boundaries. 

But, of course, as with all things human, there’s bad news. Boundaries of various sorts can be violated and such trespasses cause enormous harm, like clergy sexual abuse scandals. 

In our sin and brokenness, we also build unnecessary walls around people and places and keep people out and excluded and ourselves secluded. So, it’s not just Republican and Democrat, but Republican vs. Democrat in conflict and opposition to each other. In the sad history of the church, we brand others as heretics and sometimes excommunicate them. And on that list goes. You get that point, too. Thus, it can be healing to cross the boundaries that we erect which isolate us from each other and cause fear and mistrust and mistreatment.

In today’s gospel reading, we see Jesus crossing a number of boundaries. There were the geographical boundaries that he crossed going from territory belonging to his own people of Israel into the gentile territory of Tyre and Sidon. One did not make that kind of trip casually. 

But it wasn’t only geographical boundaries that Jesus crossed. In his encounter with the Syrophoenician woman, Jesus also ended up crossing boundaries of gender, ethnicity, and religion because of the woman’s insistence, pleading for her daughter’s release from bondage to a demon. Desperation can lead us to go where we usually don’t go. So, there’s a lot of boundary crossing in one encounter. And Jewish men of Jesus’ day and age just would not do what Jesus did. She was a woman and a different ethnicity with a different set of religious beliefs. 

Which is to say, the encounter between Jesus and the woman was not without its rough edges. It was a scrappy meeting. When the woman begged Jesus to free her daughter from demon possession, Jesus essentially insulted 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 Jesus came around when he recognized that the woman retorted with a valid point: “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Thus, in an edgy encounter full of chutzpah on the part of the woman, her daughter found liberation from her bondage to the demon. Crossing difficult boundaries made for freedom and healing in this case.

Thus, when the harmful and needless boundaries we erect are crossed in healthy ways, it’s as if the prophecy we heard from Isaiah this morning is fulfilled: “Say to those who are of a fearful heart, ‘Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God… God will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be opened; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.” (Isaiah 35:4-6)

And so it was, when Jesus crossed the boundary into another territory, a deaf man with a speech impediment was cured in the encounter with Jesus, who, again, as a religious man may well have been within his rights to have ignored the man, lest Jesus would become unclean in the encounter. 

Yet, Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears and touched his tongue – talk about crossing boundaries we don’t usually cross! And what happened is that this crossing over, even touching his tongue (who does that?) made for healing and freeing the man’s tongue for speech.

In short, when boundaries are crossed in healthy and appropriate ways, as was the case with Jesus in the two stories we heard today in Mark, then the wisdom we heard in the letter of James rings with truth: “mercy triumphs over judgment.” (James 213b)

Mercy triumphs over judgment! Amen. Would that it would be so, more and more!

Jesus’ whole ministry was all about the triumph of merciful boundary crossings, overcoming the separation between people and including them and welcoming them. 

Of course, the ultimate boundary crossing, in fact, happened on the cross and in the empty tomb. On the cross, Jesus crossed the boundary from life to death. And in the empty tomb he crossed a boundary nobody had ever crossed from death to life in being raised from the grave. And what happened because of Jesus’ death and resurrection? These ultimate boundary crossings made for our new life and salvation. Jesus’ boundary-crossing, outstretched arms ended up welcoming all. Thanks be to God.

And Jesus still manages to cross boundaries with us even today, bridging the chasm of millennia, from ancient times to this day. Jesus’ ministry extends to us across time in the ministries of the church. 

Jesus crosses over to us in the Word of scripture as his own words from centuries ago echo in our ears. Thus, we hear even today his command in his own native tongue of Aramaic: “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And by the Spirit working in the power of his word, our minds and hearts are opened to truly hearing the good news of God’s love for us that makes for our healing and freedom. 

And boundaries between life and death, sin and salvation, are transcended when we cross over our own version of the River Jordan in baptism. On the other side of our baptismal river, we discover that “waters break forth in the wilderness of our lives and streams flow in the desert places all around us; and burning sand becomes a pool and thirsty ground springs of water” (cf. Isaiah 6b-7a). 

Jesus crosses still more boundaries to visit us in Holy Communion, in the breaking of bread when our eyes are opened to recognize him. And Jesus thereby brings all the gifts and blessings of his living presence – forgiveness of sin, life, and salvation – in this simple meal of bread and the fruit of the vine. 

In short, when Jesus crosses boundaries through these means of grace, good things happen to us. And our faith is ignited, reignited, renewed and strengthened. 

And then like the man whose tongue was released along with the tongues of those in the crowds around him who were astonished, our tongues are released in praise as well. We cannot keep silent; we cannot be kept from telling the story with the punchline expression of faith and praise: “[Jesus] has done everything well.” (cf. Mark 7:37a) Amen? 

And when we offer our praise and thanksgiving, and confess our faith in Jesus, then Jesus empowers us to take up the cross to make our own boundary crossings in reaching out in love and service even to those people we may not initially deem to be our neighbors. Thus, we come to obey the command we heard in today’s reading from James to not show partiality and to not make distinctions among ourselves (cf. James 2:1-4ff.) Simply put: all are welcome; we welcome all.

And we go on our missionary journeys, crossing all sorts of boundaries that otherwise isolate us from each other and cause so much hostility as seen in our nation and world today. And we can do this because we have been set free by Jesus’ own grace-filled, loving boundary crossing from death to life. We, thus, do God’s work with our hands according to the law of liberty (cf. James 2:12) loving our neighbors as ourselves (cf. James 2:8b) in merciful gospel freedom. 

And in the end, when we do God’s work with our hands, mercy triumphs over judgment, making it abundantly clear that through these merciful works, our faith is by no means dead, but very much alive! (cf. James 2:17)

Thanks be to God. Amen.