Sunday 8th September 2024 Pentecost 15
James 2:1-10 & 14-17 & Mark 7:24-37
Open Up!
One of the criteria considered by our Immigration Service when consideration is being given as to whether a person can reside in New Zealand on a permanent basis is the state of their health. If there is a possibility that they may require expensive hospital treatment, funded by the Health System of this country, then entry is usually denied.
This compliance criterion is applied without fear or favour to all people. When Sakura, our son Mark’s wife, applied for New Zealand Residency she had to have a very thorough health check certified by a Doctor here in New Zealand. She passed with flying colours and after two years living in the New Zealand was granted her NZ residency. She can’t become an NZ citizen for to do this she has to renounce her Japanese citizenship, for Japan does not allow dual citizenship.
For Sakura and those applying to enter New Zealand from countries which have very good health care, state of health is not usually a ground for declining entry. Other factors may, but not usually health. Yet when people apply from third world countries then state of heath is a major consideration for New Zealand Immigration.
As we all know, the current state of the NZ Health care system and the amount which it costs the Tax payer is almost daily in the Media and debated in Parliament. Some refer to our Health care system as being “third world.”
Today, issues of health and who may receive “free treatment” from the Jesus Medical Centre are very much to the fore in our reading from Mark’s Gospel. Jesus, it would seem had taken a holiday to Tyre on the Mediterranean coast because many in his home country were abusing him.
Tyre was a famous Phoenician city (part of Syria) whose name meant The Rock. It was located on an Island until Alexander the Great connected it to the mainland by a causeway. It was a city famous for its maritime activities and trade by sea as well as for its fortress. It is mentioned 48 times in the Old Testament and twelve in the New Testament but has never been part of the nation of Israel simply because even though it was apportioned to the tribe of Asher Israel was never able to conquer it. But because Phoenicia lay between Galilee and the sea the people used to frequently either pass through it to go to another place, or to spend time by the sea, or to trade
The significance of Jesus being in the region of Tyre and Sidon is that he is outside his home land of Galilee and Israel. Last week our Gospel reading was to do with Jesus wiping out the distinction between clean and unclean foods. In other words, he was saying that all food provided by God for our sustenance is fit for consumption. We shouldn’t follow tradition simply because others tell us we should.
A good righteous Jew would never contaminate their body by eating forbidden food and a good righteous Jew would not soil their life by having contact with people who were not Jews. As we can see self righteous, holier than thou attitudes have been part of our human makeup for a long time!!
Somehow the woman must have heard of Jesus’ healing ability and found out where he was staying. So concerned was she for the health of her daughter that she came to the Jesus Medical Centre even though it was closed and only treated people who were registered on its books – ie Jewish people.
The story, from our perspective, doesn’t seem to reflect well on Jesus. Here, he has a woman with an ill daughter whom he basically abuses calling her by a term of contempt even though the word used is that of a little house dog and not that of a homeless street mongrel.
In those days people did not eat with knifes and forks. They used their hands and then wiped them on bread. That bread they then flung to the house dogs to eat. Jesus and the woman knew this and I suspect that Jesus was also checking to see how much the woman trusted him. Not that Jesus usually put people’s faith to the test by pushing them to see just how far they would go.
Jesus reply to her request was basically, “Sorry, don’t you realise that my Medical clinic is closed and anyway you are not one of my patients.” In other words, “You don’t meet the criteria for me to treat you.”
When she replied, “I know the children are fed first, but can’t I even get the scraps the children throw away?” Jesus must have smiled. Here was a woman who would not take No for an answer! Her prayer was answered.
What are we to make of this? How may this apply to us in our day?
We know that initially Jesus saw his mission as being to ‘the lost sheep of Israel’ but at this point compassion for a fellow human being in need seems to overcome his sense of who God had called him to serve. Here, also, he meets a woman not of his own people who seems to have greater faith in his medical ability than even his own ‘patients.’ This is a mother at the end of her tether and she is not going to be put off by any bloke saying No to her.
Too often, even today, we can be trapped without knowing it by what we perceive to be the expectations of our society or attitudes we have inherited from our parents. Too often the prevailing criteria by which need is judged is one of “how much is it going to cost me” rather than “How can I help you.” Too often the criterion is “We have limited resources and these should be kept for those who have made a contribution to the system. To share the resource with others, who have not contributed, is to put at risk those who have contributed.” This reasoning is just and rational. A free for all often becomes a none for all as scarce resources are quickly used up by needy people from countries other than our own.
But somewhere in this, as Jesus found, there has also to be compassion and concern for the desperate need of the other who does not have the resources to help themself.
Are people left in ill health or to die simply because they cannot afford health care, or because they have not made a contribution through taxation, or because they are not of the right ethnicity, or because they are poverty stricken?
Jesus responded to the need of a woman who did not meet the criteria to be treated at his medical clinic and in doing so had a wonderful insight into what God was doing through his ministry. Later he would say to another man in need “Eph’phatha” which is a strange word meaning “Open up.”
Maybe that is what Jesus is still saying to us today when we look at the tremendous needs of people in our society and world.