The Geography of the Heart--September 10, 2024

The Geography of the Heart--September 10, 2024    

"Then [Jesus] returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon toward the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, 'Ephphatha,' that is, 'Be opened.' And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly." [Mark 7:31-35]

Look, there's no getting around it: the way of Jesus will lead us outside of our comfort zones.  That's not a flaw or a failing on Jesus' part, but rather it is intentional. It is, as they say, a feature, not a bug.  Jesus is going to take us among the unfamiliar and unknown, not only in terms of the markings on a map, but in terms of the geography of the heart.

This scene from Mark's Gospel, which many of us heard this past Sunday in worship, is a case in point.  Now, in the event that you haven't committed the places-names of first century Palestine to your memory, or in case you got lost in the flurry of cities and locations Mark rattled off in that opening verse, the unmistakable common trait in all of those places are Gentile (non-Jewish) locations.  Jesus has gone outside the boundaries of his own home "turf" in Galilee and Judea, beyond the familiar circles of his fellow Jewish brothers and sisters, and embarked on a trip among "those people"--you know, the ones everyone in Jesus' hometown would have sworn up and down were no good, ungodly, wicked, and decadent.  In a time like Jesus' day, when few people traveled more than a hundred miles from the place where they were born (and if you did, you went on foot, on horseback, or on a boat--no turnpikes or non-stop flights), Jesus makes a conscious, deliberate choice to go outside the lines where "our kind of people" lived, and to become the stranger himself, a foreigner attracting suspicious looks and furrowed brows from the locals.  The way of Jesus goes through "outsider" territory, with the result that Jesus and his disciples are now the "outsiders."

And to be clear, this isn't just a matter of Jesus sticking a toe across a line and then running back to the safe and the familiar.  As Mark gives the itinerary, after Jesus first ventured to Tyre (where he has that well-known conversation with a local Syrophoenician woman whose daughter is troubled), he doesn't turn around and go back home.  He goes further away from his Jewish homeland, north to Sidon and even further beyond his "home-base," and then when he does turn back south, he goes around the far side of the Sea of Galilee to "the region of the Decapolis"--that is to say, to Greek-speaking, Gentile-majority cities and towns. (The name "Decapolis" is Greek , not Hebrew or Aramaic, for "ten cities"--which tells you that these were Greek-founded communities populated largely with non-Jewish residents.)  All of this is to say that Jesus doubles down on his venturing beyond his comfort zone and into the kinds of places where other people look at him like he's the stranger.  And, of course, he's brought all of his disciples along on the trip so that they, too, will know how it feels to be the outsiders and foreigners.

With that as the setting for this scene, it's a HUGE deal that when Jesus comes face to face with a man who can neither hear or speak clearly and is asked to help, he doesn't hold back.  Jesus heals the man--and not just with a magic word spoken at a distance (with the Syrophoenician woman, Jesus doesn't even go to her house or meet the daughter!), but with touch.  Jesus puts his fingers into the (presumably Gentile?) man's ears, and touches his tongue as well--this is personal, earthy, messy, and real. Jesus has broken all the taboos about not touching "those people" or sharing their space, even though of course Jesus certainly could have kept things neat and sterile with an efficiently worded prayer and a nod of his head.  Jesus chooses to let touch be the way he heals.  Jesus chooses to go further into the strange land.  Jesus chooses to show compassion to people that all too many others had told him were unacceptable and unworthy outsiders.  Jesus doesn't just rack up miles on the road, but pushes the boundaries in the geography of the heart.

So here we are, all these centuries later, reading these stories and finding ourselves taken along for the journey and carried off where Jesus leads us.  Like those first disciples, heading into uncharted and unfamiliar territory with their rabbi, we find Jesus leading us beyond our old prejudices and bigotries (even the ones that came with their own supposed religious rationalizations) to see the faces and needs of other people who are still beloved to God.  And Jesus has it in mind to change us in the encounter.  He goes into Gentile territory to take a public, on-the-record stance that he has come for their sake as well as his own "insider" community. And that speaks both a word of welcome and hope for those "outsiders" who are in need of what Jesus can offer, and a word of challenge to disciples like us who are tempted to think that Jesus' compassion and help are our private possessions, subject to our control.

All of this is just fair warning, I suppose, for the reality we are in for if we are going to be disciples of Jesus who are learning to walk and live in his way: Jesus is going to take us beyond the familiar places we know and people "like us," in order for us to be channels, like him, through whom God's love and healing flow for ALL.  If that's not what you signed up for (or if you were hoping to just do a bit of "spiritual tourism" and call it a "mission trip" to condescend or look down on the people you visit), then you might as well find a different Messiah to follow, because Jesus is bound and determined to stretch our compassion wide and take us into new places... maybe even a few new places in our own hearts.

Lord Jesus, even if it seems unfamiliar and scary for us, lead us where you will, among the people whom you love.