Mark 7:24-37
This is a pericope in which Jesus does not want to be found…and in which the good news is just too good to be kept secret.
This pericope begins with Jesus entering into the house in Tyre, not wanting to be found. “Yet,” writes Mark, “he could not escape notice.” And, because he cannot escape notice, the woman we know only as “The Syrophonecian Woman” finds him and engages with him in a witty conversation that ends with her daughter healed and the previously drawn boundaries expanded.
Then, at the end, after laying his hands on a man who could not hear and could not speak well, and opening his ears and releasing his tongue, Jesus orders them to tell no one; “…but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.”
The good news is just too good to be kept secret. And they don’t even have the whole story yet!
Though the people Jesus meets, particularly in the second half of this pericope, are challenged to keep the secret, part of the beauty of Mark’s Gospel is that we, Mark’s readers, are challenged to tell the good news. The good news of death and resurrection is meant to be told! Good news that involves making “the deaf to hear and the mute to speak,” yes, and more importantly for us as Christians, the good news that the tomb is empty. The good news that Christ is risen has a place in our pulpits on the second weekend of September, just as much as it does during the Easter season. Hearing this good news proclaimed boldly now—that life and resurrection are victorious—may be exactly what we all need to hear.
The good news is just too good to be kept secret. And they don’t even have the whole story yet!
Across the ELCA, many congregations mark today as “God’s Work, Our Hands” Sunday. We will engage in all kinds of acts of service, perhaps moving through our communities in those hard-to-miss bright yellow t-shirts. And while we know why we do what we do, how many of us rely a little too much on the “God’s Work, Our Hands” logo and do not or will not (or are too afraid…) to say it out loud? We do what we do because of the crucified and risen Christ! And that is really good news. The crucified and risen Christ finds each one of us and leads us to abundant life: boldly, zealously proclaim it today!
Part of the irony of Mark’s Gospel is that the good news that is supposed to be kept secret is not. But the good news proclaimed here in chapter 7 is not the whole story. We get to tell the whole story—the story of Christ’s death and resurrection and why that still matters for us, right here and now. That good news is still playing out in our midst, with resurrection and new life revealing themselves in real ways all around us.
If this pericope is one in which Jesus does not want to be found, we are charged in our proclamation to tell the story of the ways that the crucified and risen Christ finds us, leading us to font and table, to faithful service, and to bold proclamation of good news that is too good to be kept secret.
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