“Say What?!” – Sermon on Sept 9, 2012
September 9, 2012
Scripture: Mark 7: 24-37
Jesus set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice. 25A woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. 26Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
28But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” 29Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” 30So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
31Then he returned from the region of Tyre, towards the Sea of Galilee. 32They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. 33He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. 34Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.”
35And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. 36Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. 37They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”
Sermon: Say What?!
By Rev Doreen Oughton
Sermon
Will you be with me in the spirit of prayer? May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, O God who is the ground of my being.
Every week I pray that the words that come out of my mouth when I preach are acceptable in God’s sight. I probably ought to pray that all the words that come out of my mouth in any circumstance are acceptable in God’s sight. Because I know that they aren’t always very acceptable. Sometimes it is the words I use that are unacceptable, sometimes it is the tone I use, and sometimes it is just the message I am communicating. I can be insensitive, sometimes, causing injury with thoughtless words even if I don’t mean to. Other times, in my anger or fear or exhaustion I lash out knowing full well that someone will likely be hurt. I usually regret that, and I like to think I take responsibility and apologize. It gives me great comfort to know that God forgives, that God doesn’t love me any less because of these lapses.
But I tell you, I’m not sure how I feel about knowing that Jesus has shared with me the regret of saying things that are unacceptable. It’s sort of an embarrassing thing to have in our scripture, isn’t it? Our Lord and Savior making what amounts to a racial slur. Isn’t he supposed to be the way and the light? Isn’t he the One who is the embodiment of the ideal human being, the One we are to model ourselves on? Isn’t he God in human flesh? But here he is, a visitor to the foreign land, of Tyre, a Gentile region, trying to hide out. His cover is blown, and a woman rushes to him, desperate for help for her suffering little daughter. And did you hear what he said to her? Jesus not only rejects her plea for help, but refers to her and her daughter, perhaps “her people,” as dogs. Dogs! Even today calling someone a dog is not considered a compliment, or am I not up on current slang words?
I’m not sure what the custom was in Tyre, but in Israel, people didn’t keep dogs as pets. Dogs were scavengers, constantly prowling for food. They were mangy and had flies. They gravitated to groups of people, hanging out where food was prepared or eaten, eager to grab up any scrap of food that fell or was tossed to them. They barked incessantly at night, and did their business wherever they felt like it. Of course the Israelites considered them unclean pests. Make no mistake, calling someone a dog, even a puppy or little dog – which is the best translation of the Greek – was a big insult.
So why did he do it? How could he have been so insensitive, rude even? This woman had humbled herself – bowing at his feet and begging. If he had to turn down her request, couldn’t he have done so with kindness, leaving her some dignity? Why the insult? I don’t think there is another story in the Gospels where Jesus rejects someone’s plea for healing. So why does he reject this one at first? Some commentators say that he always intended to do the healing, but gave his response to make a point to his disciples or other witnesses. But this event seems to have happened in private, in a house where Jesus was staying. I suppose it’s possible the disciples are with him and just not mentioned. But it still seems like any teaching could have been done without the insult.
Others say he was trying to engage the woman in some verbal repartee, referring to her and hers as dogs with a twinkle in his eye and a smile on his face. He was just kidding, just playing around! We won’t get into the insensitivity of such joking with a desperate mother begging for her daughter. The scripture doesn’t tell us much about how the child was affected by this so-called unclean spirit. Was she having seizures, tourettes-like outbursts, psychotic episodes? Whatever it was, it must have been bad for this woman to rush to Jesus begging for help.
Another commentator suggested that he was trying to teach the woman the importance of being real with him. When she, a Gentile, came bowing to him, or as Matthew’s version tells it, calling him the Son of David, she was maybe trying to pass as Jewish, and Jesus didn’t like that. He wanted her to know that he was on to her, and really wanted her to speak from her desperation so she could really know that Jesus loves her in any condition. It wasn’t that the logic of her response changed his mind, it was that she persisted in her request even after the acknowledgement of her lesser status as a non-Israelite, as well as a woman. So Jesus could show how great he was to love even her, a dog.
Any of that is possible. I can’t know. But personally, I find those interpretations even more disturbing than the idea that Jesus just had a really bad moment, and when called on it, understood and repented. Remember that to repent means to turn one’s heart. In some ways, this is an example of just how challenging the idea of the incarnation is. God came and walked among us as one of us. God didn’t just put on a human costume, didn’t just pretend to be human. Jesus was human. And in some perspectives, that is the embarrassing thing that is not only in our scriptures, but is central to our faith. God came as a baby who had to learn to walk and talk and eat, a person who could be cut and bruised, would hunger and thirst, who needed rest and sleep, who had to learn and grow. Wouldn’t it follow then that he would also have to make mistakes? Isn’t that part of being truly human? We have to make mistakes because we don’t know everything, can’t feel everyone else’s feelings, can’t see with their eyes or hear with their ears. We are limited. And through the incarnation, God limited Godself to have a human experience. And so Jesus, exhausted from his ministry, needing rest, having a particular understanding of his ministry as being first for the children of Israel, maybe being influenced by the prejudices of his day and his people, reacted badly to that one-too-many request. And in doing so, he modeled for us again the way and the truth.
In this story, he does listen to her, and really hears her. In doing so, he better hears what he himself said, and recognizes the flaws in his thinking. And he lets his heart be not only turned, but opened wider. His mission moves from a primary focus on Israel, to the salvation of all humankind. Mark makes this point in his placement of this story. Just before it, Jesus fed 5000 in Israel, and after this story, Jesus stays awhile in Gentile territory and feeds 4000 people. Not only that, but he has opened himself to learn from someone that in his culture would have been dismissed on several counts. Her gender, her nationality, and religion all would have disqualified her from having any voice at all to a Jewish teacher and holy man. Jesus didn’t praise her faith as he has in other healing stories, but was struck by her argument. She changed his mind, which is a pretty unusual outcome of Jesus’ debates. He never had his mind changed by those Pharisees and scribes, and not by the disciples. Okay, so his mother got him to change his mind about the wine, but well, that was his mother.
I can’t help but make some connections between this story and some of the anti-racism work I’ve been involved in. Has anyone ever heard of a book called Black Like Me? Well in 1959 a white man, John Howard Griffin, made his skin black and travelled through the segregated Deep South. He kept a journal of his experiences and published a powerful story about 20th century racism. The experience opened his eyes, and of course the eyes of many, many across America. But you have to wonder why it is that it took the testimony of a white man to convince white people that racism was a real problem for people of color. Everything he said had been said by people who’d been experiencing it all along. But it wasn’t heard by the people who were part of the oppression force. Do you see how Jesus did it differently? He listened to this woman, this syrophoenician, he heard from her about her experience, he heard what justice meant to her. And it wasn’t much she was asking for, not even a place at the table – just the crumbs. Which of course leads me to wonder who are the syrophoenicians of our time – those people we would deny even our crumbs to – the elderly, the disabled, the unemployed, the addicts, the prisoners, the immigrants?
It’s a pretty rich passage isn’t it? Lots to think about, and it doesn’t end there. The lectionary has us continue on to another healing story. Jesus is still in Gentile territory, still trying to keep a low profile. But he doesn’t hesitate here, and I can’t help but imagine that he is still carrying his experience with the syrophoenician woman with him, almost praying for himself and his ministry as much as he is for the man with hearing and speech problems – Ephphatha, be opened. May we likewise be opened in our hearing, in our speaking, in our vision and in our hearts.
