Retreat is a time to step back, survey the field and listen for God’s whisper. Pilgrimage is a “call of the wild,” to be open to discomfort, challenge and the rough wild path of change. Spiritual seekers need both.
In our text for this week,* Jesus wants retreat. He’s gone to the beach in Phoenicia, to get away from pressing crowds. Mark says he didn’t want anyone to know he was there. But then a local woman comes to beg a favor. She wants Jesus to heal her daughter.
Haven’t we all been there? Sick to death of demands on our time and energy? Longing for a break? Some time alone? A soothing afternoon by wind and water? Cellphones left behind and nothing scheduled? Our culture gives us a double message about that. We both “deserve” it and can’t have it. The very idea of being cut off from our network of friends and family has somehow become anathema. And yet we know our very lives depend on it. Like breathing in, we need time alone to pause, reflect and connect at a deeper level, to gather energy for the work that’s waiting for us.
But no, this foreign woman breaks in to ask for a miracle, what she’s heard Jesus can provide. He tries to protect his privacy. He’s snippy and cold, using language close to a racial slur: “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
She swats back: “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
With that slap in the face, Jesus himself is changed. His world expands. He’s on the rough wild way of a pilgrimage now, suddenly seeing with new eyes, hearing with fresh ears. He drops an old view, accepts a new reality: “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” He’s not giving her crumbs any more. He has been changed on the way.
To confirm his new understanding, Jesus walks into the Decapolis region, south-east of Galilee, mainly inhabited by Greeks. There, without resistance, he heals a deaf-mute man. He’s on the road to a new and broader ministry, beyond to borders of his Jewish world. Pilgrimage will do that. Shift focus. Explode prejudice. Reveal God in a new way.
*Mark 7:24-37
1) What are your favorite spots for retreat? When do you seek retreat?
2) What is your pilgrimage experience? How has it changed you?
-Marjory Bankson, Seekers Church
