PROPER 18, YEAR B

Sunday 5 September 2021

St. Uriel’s, Sea Girt

Mark 7:31-37

In our excellent congregational discernment meeting a week ago today, a question that came up repeatedly was what we can do as a parish to grow attendance and membership. Many of us are clearly hoping that the next rector will facilitate parish growth: by preaching, by worship, and by working with the lay leadership to implement programs attractive to visitors and newcomers, especially young families. 

Those comments brought to my mind a conversation several years ago with the bishop of the diocese where I was then serving. He’d been elected bishop partly because he was one of those priests with a track record of doubling or even tripling the attendance of every parish he’d ever led. When I asked him for his insights on this, he said that the first thing to do, before anything else, is to get on your knees and pray. Ask God every day to show you what your parish needs to be doing to fulfill its mission; and then ask God to send you the new people you need to help you do it.

In the days and weeks that followed, I gave his recommendation serious thought. In addition to my own personal prayers, I decided at length to add to the intercessions at the daily Mass a prayer intention for growth in attendance and membership. To my surprise – even though I shouldn’t have been surprised – within six months seven new people were attending the parish, including one family with three kids, and an adult confirmation class was under way. 

What impressed me about my bishop’s recommendation was his underlying conviction concerning the power and efficacy of intercessory prayer. He had all kinds of ideas for practical initiatives to publicize parish life and attract newcomers. But he knew that no matter what elements a strategy for church growth might involve, the essential foundation would always be prayer.

The point of intercessory prayer is not that God needs to be told anything that he doesn’t already know. God doesn’t need us to change his mind about what he does or doesn’t intend to do. But, to use a tried-and-true metaphor, God is a gentleman, and in most circumstances, gentlemen wait to be asked. Our prayer needs always to be that that God’s will be done. Yet the wonder of intercessory prayer is that God gives us the incomparable privilege of envisioning for ourselves what a future conforming to his will might look like – in a world where his will is done on earth as it is in heaven – and of then bringing him those requests that are nearest and dearest to our hearts.

The Judeo-Christian tradition is unanimous that God is pleased when we’re honest enough to tell him what’s really on our mind – whatever it is that we want more than anything else. And while it’s entirely legitimate to ask for what we want for ourselves, it’s especially pleasing to God when we reach out beyond ourselves and pray for others.

Today’s Gospel affords a case study in intercessory prayer. A Syro-Phoenician woman begs Jesus to cast out a demon from her daughter; and a little further down the road an unspecified group of people bring a deaf-mute and beseech Jesus to lay his hand upon him. Both incidents occur in Gentile territory and involve Gentiles. But the point I want to dwell on today is that while many of the Gospel stories do feature individuals asking Jesus for healing on their own behalf, what stands out here are people approaching Jesus on behalf of others – the very model of intercessory prayer. Indeed, both the demon-possessed girl and the deaf-mute are incapable of approaching Jesus themselves and so must rely on others to do so for them.

Commentators offer different interpretations of the encounter between our Lord and the Syro-Phoenician woman—which many people today find somewhat troubling and even disturbing. What does Jesus mean by not giving the children’s bread to the dogs—seemingly an insult to both the woman and her daughter by calling them dogs along with all other Gentiles? Some commentators suggest that he’s tired, grumpy, and having a bad day. Others suggest that he really means what he says but the woman’s quick-witted response teaches him to be more open-minded and inclusive. Others suggest that he’s playing a rabbinical game of verbal repartee, knowing all along what he intends to do, but first testing her to see whether she has the faith not to give up and go away when he initially rebuffs her. Still others suggest that he’s being ironic, not at all meaning what he says, but rather making fun of his critics who might really say and mean such a thing.

In the end, the answer to this question eludes us, because all we really have is the text itself. But whatever the historically accurate interpretation may be, the crucial point to my mind is her perseverance. She doesn’t give up in asking for what she wants. Just as she perseveres in her prayer, so we need to persevere in our prayers as well.

Another key point in both encounters is the setting. The Syro-Phoenician woman comes to the house where Jesus is staying. Even though he doesn’t want anyone to know he’s there, we can be sure that he’s not alone in the house but rather in the company of his hosts and probably also an entourage of his disciples. The encounter takes place not in private but in the presence of those gathered around Jesus. Likewise, we know that the request to heal the deaf-mute is made in the presence of a multitude, because Jesus then takes him aside from the crowd privately to perform the actual healing.

The implication is that while we can indeed pray in any place at any time, it’s nonetheless particularly powerful and effective to bring our prayers to Church and offer them up in the context of the Mass. Just as the Syro-Phoenician woman went to the house where Jesus was staying, so we come to this house set apart for worship and prayer. Just as the deaf-mute’s friends brought him to the place where the multitudes had gathered around Jesus, so we bring in our hearts those for whom we pray to this gathering of God’s people in the Eucharistic Assembly.

Here then is a good reason for coming regularly to Mass. We’re here not just for what we get out of it ourselves but also for those who need our prayers. Intercessory prayer for the living and the departed is a vital part of the work we’ve been given to do as Christians. When someone we love is seriously ill, or is in dire straits, or has died, then no matter how helpless we might feel to do anything else, the one thing we can always do is pray for them. And there’s no more effective way to do so than coming to Church and offering up our participation in the Mass on their behalf.