Mark 7: 24-30
Rooke Chapel Worship, Sunday 8.30.20
Bucknell University
I love a good, human Jesus story.
our stories of him,
are always pushing and pulling between,
the divine pole and the human pole.
Because it’s a paradox that he’s somehow both, right?
This amazing gift,
Emmanuel,
God with us.
Fully divine. Fully human.
More stories of more sorts,
as ever,
I think, help enrich our picture of him,
help us relate and connect.
But I especially like a Jesus with his feet on the ground.
I like a dusty Jesus.
And a hungry Jesus.
A Jesus who weeps once in a while over a friend.
Or gets annoyed with his disciples,
or gets mad at injustice.
A Jesus who gets tired and overwhelmed,
and needs to take a step back.
I like that emotionally honest savior.
But one thing I don’t like.
Is a mean Jesus.
A cruel Jesus.
And make no mistake,
it is cruel for Jesus to call this woman, a dog.
There are no nice stories about dogs,
from the Bible,
or the ancient near east.
This is no City Dog,
making friends with country frogs. (our children’s time for the day)
No beloved household pet,
(ours is named Grover. if you’re into such things.
and he’s real old and real slow and real lumpy these days.)
But this is an insult and a dismissal.
Of a woman with a sick child.
And I think that leaves me with two possibilities:
either a) he was teaching this woman,
and his disciples a really important lesson,
praxis based,
about persistence and welcome,
and how wide the divine circle is drawn
when we start to ask.
or b) he was tired and worn out and cranky.
far from home and frustrated,
and he said something mean,
and then changed his mind.
I’ll let you decide,
I think they both work.
I’ll just say,
I may not like it,
but I can empathize with the second.
I get tired and cranky too.
I don’t imagine that his retreat to the region of Tyre,
is meant to be a pun in the original text.
But it works in English.
He’s tired in Tyre
He’s spent the last months and weeks,
finding disciples
(who still don’t get it)
and teaching people
(same)
In Mark’s Gospel,
He tries desperately to keep everything quiet,
but everywhere he turns,
there’s a new crowd to teach and feed
a new sick person to heal
A new Pharisee –
the powerful religious leaders aligned with Empire –
to rebuke.
And his friend, cousin, and forerunner,
John the Baptist
was just killed by the tyrant.
He’s just fed 5,000 people,
escaped by boat,
only to be rushed at by more sick and tired and poor people.
and angry religious leaders.
He has to draw the line somewhere, right?
He’s only so much time and energy.
so he escapes.
Far away.
into the land of the gentiles,
where no one is supposed to care about him.
He goes into his 1st century Air BnB,
just trying to rest for a moment.
And here comes this woman,
this desperate, loud, foreign woman.
Everything is wrong about her.
She’s from the wrong place –
the place of Israel’s enemies and detractors.
She’s the wrong religion.
She’s a woman, approaching a man on her own.
Which suggests she was a widow or a divorcee.
She is as marginal as marginal can be.
And Jesus, maybe, isn’t ready to help her yet.
And he says something mean.
I think what gets me,
is that we know this woman.
If you’ve ever spent time at a hospital,
you know this woman,
watching over her child,
waiting for physicians to come.
Ready to advocate,
beg, steal,
wanting to yell but never doing so.
If you’ve ever been to a foodbank,
or a homeless shelter.
Seeing parents trying desperately to keep their kids safe,
and happy,
while waiting minute after minute,
hour after hour.
To meet their basic needs.
If you’ve ever been to a youth sporting event,
watching parents lose their minds over playing time,
or perceived unfairness,
or captainship.
You can catch a glimpse of this Syrophonecian woman.
Though perhaps not quite so noble.
If you’ve ever looked into the eyes,
of those who travel thousands of miles,
or put their families into ramshackle boats,
for the possibility of a safer, better life for their children,
across a border, you know this woman.
And I can’t help but wish,
that Jesus found kinder words.
But, of course,
that’s not the end of the story.
It’s the beginning.
Her persistence works.
It doesn’t always
but today it does.
And that’s good news.
Because of your words, he says.
your Logos,
the demon has left your daughter.
Her word penetrates the tiredness,
Her word, erases the line,
her word cuts through
all the cultural baggage that may even have affected even Jesus.
or certainly did his followers.
And something clicks.
And You can feel, in this story,
the door opening a little wider.
The circle being drawn a little wider.
The sense of who belongs becoming a little deeper.
The woman looks him in the eye,
and says don’t we at least deserve the crumbs?
Maybe it’s just what the disciples needed to see.
Or maybe Jesus’ eyes were opened just a little bit more.
his heart opening,
his sense of who he is,
and what he’s about,
becoming broader and clearer,
He says
of course you do,
and so much more.
Letetra Widman,
stood clear eyed in front of a camera this week,
the day after her brother Jacob Blake,
was shot 7 times by police,
while entering his car,
after breaking up a fight.
She said, I’m not sad, I’m angry.
Because this has been happening to my family for a long time.
Emmett Till her family.
Philando Castille, Mike Brown.
Sandra Bland is her family.
Ultimately, I don’t think the essential question,
is whether Jesus learned to draw the circle wider,
or was teaching his disciples to do so.
But rather,
whether we are learning the lesson.
Jacob Blake is our family.
Beloved. Created in the image of God,
and deserving of a chance to thrive.
And if we can see that.
Agree on it.
Believe it deep in our bones.
We may disagree about the particulars of how to proceed together.
But I don’t doubt that we will believe,
we must change together.
Because our black siblings
They are begging,
for the crumbs of justice from the table.
And we have here,
an unequivocal witness,
that it is our sacred call,
to draw the circle, ever wider and wider, together.
Not out of pity or guilt or shame.
But because,
Jacob Blake and Breonna Taylor,
Emmett Till and all the others,
are our family.
We may have, in the past spoken unkind words,
or supported racist policies.
But we can change.
It will take work.
But we are a gospel people,
following the witness of a savior,
who walked a complicated earth,
and experienced the whole messy thing.
And learned.
And opened his arms wide for us all.
Embracing us,
and sending us out into the world,
to be the church,
drawing the circle wider,
and wider still.
Amen.