The Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost - The Rev. Colette Hammesfahr

 Mark 7:24-37 

“There is nothing worse than having a sick child.” This is what the pediatric surgeon at Memorial Hospital said to Kurt and me one morning when he stopped in our room as he was making his rounds. We told him about how rude the nurse had been to us the previous night. Rude, as we sat next to the bed where our one-week-old son lay after just having major abdominal surgery. Our son who we thought was going to die. “I’m sorry for the way you were treated,” the surgeon said, “there is nothing worse than having a sick child.”  

If you have had a sick child or know a family who has had a sick child, you know how true that statement is. New to this world and just getting started out in life, parents, relatives, and friends will go to any lengths to care for and heal a sick child, whether it be a cold or a major health issue.  

The Syrophoenician woman in today’s Gospel reading has a sick child. Her daughter is filled with an unclean spirit. She is willing to go to any lengths to have her daughter healed.  

This is a difficult text to read and to understand. It’s another one of those texts where after you read it you say, “Did Jesus really say that?” Yes, he did really say that.  

There are quite a few explanations as to what Jesus said and why Jesus said the things he did that I could talk about today. Instead of focusing on Jesus’ actions today, I want to focus on the actions of the Syrophoenician woman. This woman comes to Jesus in desperation. There is no place else for her to go. She comes to Jesus begging him to cast out the demons from her daughter. Jesus tries to turn her away, but she is not budging. She is powerless but will still do anything for her suffering child. She is respectful in her words, but she is also bold and persistent. She doesn’t apologize for her words or her actions or how she comes back at Jesus when he tries to turn her away. What she says and what she is doing is to protect and heal her child. She is someone who today, we might call a “mama bear.” The Urban Dictionary defines a mama bear as, “a mom who can be cuddly and lovable but also has a ferocious side when it's necessary to protect her cubs.”i 

In one of his sermons for the Second Sunday in Lent, Martin Luther says this of the Syrophoenician woman’s response to Jesus, “Now, what does the poor woman do? She turns her eyes from all this unfriendly treatment of Christ; all this does not lead her astray, neither does she take it to heart, but she continues immediately and firmly to cling in her confidence to the good news she had heard and embraced concerning him, and never gives up.”ii The good news she had heard was about the healing powers of Jesus.  

Martin Luther says that this woman is an example of how we should pray. This woman came directly to Jesus and begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. When he replied, she came right back at him. She begged. Hers was a request of lament, a passionate plea that expressed frustration and fear.  

As children, we are taught that at night, before we go to bed, to get on our knees, fold our hands and say our prayers. To thank God for the day, to thank God for our family, to ask God to care for those who are sick and for those who have died. There’s nothing wrong with those prayers. But, I wonder, how often do we come to God with raw honesty of our thoughts and emotions as this woman did?   

In her book, You Can Talk to God Like That: The Surprising Power of Lament to Save Your Faith, author Abby Norman writes about the importance of lament in our prayers. The importance of telling God exactly how we feel. She uses an example of going to the doctor. What if you went to the doctor and instead of saying what is wrong with you, you instead said that everything was fine. If the doctor does not know your pain, how can the doctor help you? It’s the same with God. Life has it’s challenges and there are times when it’s hard to see how we will make it through to the next day. In our prayers, “God invites us to complain, to whine, to lament.”iii Lament is an invitation to bring all of our emotions before God -- our deepest struggles and our unanswered questions.  

Lament often involves continuing to cry out to God, even when God seems distant or silent. Lament is an act of faith where we keep praying and seeking God’s presence when answers are not immediate. When answers are not immediate, our persistence and honesty in a lament are a sign of our faith in who God is in our lives and in the true nature of God. We don’t give up on God because God does not give up on us. Lament can be a path to healing, as it allows us to process our grief and pain in the presence of God, who can either transform our situations or give us the strength to endure. 

How do you feel about talking to God in anger and desperation? Does it feel uncomfortable to you? I promise you that God can take your anger and your desperation. Jesus, cried out to God in desperation on the cross. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The cries of Jesus were not because Jesus did not trust God. The cries were cries to let God know the pain he was feeling.  

In the end, the desperation of the Syrophoenician, her “back talk” to Jesus, pays off and her child is healed. Jesus tells her that she has great faith. She had heard the good news of Jesus, his power and his healing, and she was not giving up. We know that good news too. That’s why we go to God in prayer and in lament.  

There is nothing worse than a sick child. You know what? That’s my story...what is your story? Every one of us sitting here has a different way to end that sentence. What is your “there is nothing worse than?” For the man in the second part of Mark’s Gospel, his was, “There is nothing worse than being deaf.”  

In her book, Abby Norman challenges her readers to write a letter to God and then email it to her. I will ask the same of you this week – write a letter to God (but you don’t need to send it to me...unless you really want to.). What is your “there is nothing worse than?” Answer the questions she asks of her readers: “What can you not take any more? What feels so unfair? How exhausted and angry are you?”iv Through this exercise, I pray that you will feel a deeper connection with God, who has always desired our full, authentic selves. 

Here is the prayer Abby leaves with her readers:  

“I know this can be scary. Not all of us have had a lot of practice talking back to God. As you embark on this exercise I pray that you land in the arms of a God who is good and holy and big enough to handle every single bit of your sorrow and rage. I pray that you would not be afraid of the strength of your own sorrow. I pray that you would land in strong arms.”v Amen