Proper 18, Year B 2018

Trinity Episcopal Church, Galveston
Gospel: Mark 7:24-37
9 September 2018

During his 5 ½ years in a POW camp in Vietnam, the late John McCain drew on his Episcopal roots — his great-grandfather was an Episcopal minister and McCain attended Episcopal schools including 3 years at Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virginia. In his family memoir, “Faith of My Fathers,” he recounted how, as a prisoner, he had prayed more often and more fervently than he ever had as a free man.

George “Bud” Day, a fellow prisoner of war, said McCain was among those who volunteered to preach at religious services they were eventually permitted to hold at the prison known as the “Hanoi Hilton.” “He was a very good preacher, much to my surprise,'' Day told Religion News Service in 2008. “He could remember all of the liturgy from the Episcopal services ... word for word.”

When I think of how McCain did his part to lead prayers with his fellow prisoners, 3 points come to mind:

1st point: for people living in comfort and safety...for folks who have what they want and feel quite secure, faith might seem to be optional...like something one can take or leave.  But for people who understand the future to be uncertain, for people who are poignantly aware that life can end in a heartbeat….and for those who are acutely aware that something is profoundly amiss with our world, things are different.  And taking our cue from today’s Gospel….for a mother whose daughter is under the influence of forces beyond her control and for the friends of a man who can neither hear nor speak, things are different. For all of these people, faith is not optional; it is required!

2nd point: What we learn from worship, may come back to bless us in ways we cannot imagine. Over the course of my career in Episcopal Schools, both as a student and an employee, I have seen my share of required Chapels. Morning Prayer sung back and forth with a church full of children in this very place is a cherished memory.  To be honest, though, there were some times in my career when Chapel was less than positive, when it felt as if many of the students would rather have been somewhere else. You could read it on their faces. I remember this from many years ago leading worship at an Episcopal boarding school. These high schoolers were needing to find their way...to push some boundaries and to distance themselves from authority...the very establishment which I embodied as the Dean of Students at the school.  Teenagers universally face a set of internal challenges that come with the job of growing up...so I wonder about the clergy who led worship for the teen-age John McCain and his classmates. Did those administrators and chaplains ever experience a congregation that would have rather been somewhere else? If so, this just underscores a miracle. For, as it turns out, John McCain was later able to recall enough of school chapel that he could lead a group of his fellow prisoners in worship. Even when students do not seem to be paying attention or seem barely awake...they may nevertheless be receiving something that will mean the difference between hope and despair when someday they too find that faith is not a choice but a necessity.

3rd point: There is no place so far away that God is not there.  In our Gospel reading, we have two stories of intercession and healing that are paired together side-by-side in Mark.  These stories are remarkable for what they have in common and in how they differ. What jumps off the page for me is that each story happens on foreign soil.  In the first story, Jesus, for some reason known only to God, is travelling in the region of Tyre, well northwest of Galilee, where he encounters the Syrophoenician woman.  In the second story, he is travelling, for some reason known only to God, to the southeast of Galilee in the region called the Decapolis. This is another Gentile area, a place known for ten Greek-styled towns, remnants of Hellenistic influence, and where Jesus encounters a man who was deaf and dumb.  I think that Mark’s community kept these stories together precisely because they occurred “elsewhere.” This lesson in geography makes the point that wherever we are...in Jewish lands, in Gentile lands, in no-man’s land, even in the Hanoi Hilton...wherever we are, God will hear us in that place.

OK, I’ve got some bonus points because, well, this Gospel has lots to offer. Our two stories from the Mark have something else in common. In both, the ones who are healed, the daughter of a Syrophoenician woman and a man of the Decapolis who could neither hear nor speak...these do not directly make an appeal to Jesus.  In both, a petition is made on another’s behalf. In Mark’s Gospel, faith is the critical element for healing...but it is not always the faith of the person who is in need. Sometimes what makes the difference is the faith of those who intercede. We can’t stress enough our duty to intercede for others.

Now, let’s take a moment to see something these two stories do not have in common.  One suffered from a demon.  A daughter’s life had been taken over by something from beyond her.  The other suffered from the inability to hear or speak. In the first story, Jesus seems hesitant to help, but the mother was persistent yet humble at the same time....Jesus' initial hesitation underscores the groundbreaking nature of a radical idea for the time. Jesus' actions ultimately show that God has no boundaries, that the love of God transcends tribe and nationality.  Just as the Spirit had driven him into the wilderness after his baptism, so now the Spirit moves him to travel through foreign lands...to demonstrate the universality of God’s love. In the second story, friends beg Jesus to lay his hands on a man who is deaf and dumb. These friends ask for something outward and visible, a healing sacrament, so to speak, which Jesus does with touch and with the simple phrase, “be opened.” This word, “Ephphatha,” was preserved from Jesus’ original language, a form of Hebrew known as Aramaic.  I like to think of the different way Jesus handles each healing as a sort of liturgical difference. One emphasized word alone. Jesus did nothing outward and visible other than to announce the healing. The other emphasized Jesus' action as well as word. I’m reminded that the way Christians worship, the liturgies employed... these differ from one place to another. Some ways of worship are profoundly simple while others have a rich complexity with traditions not only of word but of sacrament. In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus is present and presides over two very different liturgies of healing… Here’s the learning: one is not better than the other.  Either way, regardless of the form that liturgy takes, regardless of how we are most comfortable in worship… the main thing, is that we are blessed when we turn to Jesus for meaning, purpose, and wholeness.  And, in those moments we are aware, as was John McCain when a prisoner of war, that trust in God is not optional like some luxury we could do without, may we trust more earnestly, more persistently, and with greater humility. AMEN.