The Syrophoenician woman Rock Jesus’ World!
Sermon for September 6, 2015
Proper 18B-RCL
Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, "Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened." And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, "He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak."
If this passage for Mark does
not bother you, does not upset you, you did not hear it! The Jesus we encounter with the
Syrophoenician Woman should make the hair on the backs of our necks stand
up. We should be mad! We should be angry. But we probably are not. Our reaction is likely one that we have all too
often and that is to tame the reading.
Usually we want to tame the reading because our Incarnate God –this
Jesus – is asking us to do things that are out or our comfort zones. But this time we want to tame the reading because
Jesus is not reacting the way we expect.
We want to treat the
encounter between Jesus and this gentile woman like we do between our beloved
uncle Frank – who really is racist, or homophobic – and his reaction to black
or gay people. When Uncle Frank says
racist things at the family gathering – in front of the black wife of your
cousin - We say things like “Oh- that is just Frank. He really doesn’t mean the things he
says. He really does love
everyone.” We dismiss the words and make
excuses. It is how he was raised. He
really doesn’t understand how hurtful the “N-word” can be. We try to tame the behavior. After all we are not going to change Uncle
Frank. He just comes from another
generation.
We do the same thing with
Jesus. We try to talk away the fact that
Jesus encounters a woman in need and responds not with Love. He responds with an irritated racial
epithet. So what do preachers try to do? We try to pass it off. We try to say oh – you know Jesus used the
diminutive form for dog. So it is more
like he is using the common derogatory term in a loving way. Like instead of calling this Gentile Greek
woman a dirty dog he is taming the insult.
But that is not the case. This
incarnate Jesus who is both fully human and fully God is testy and he insults
her. It is equivalent to Jesus calling
her a little “B-word”.
To put this in perspective - Jesus
is in a house that is squarely in gentile territory. So he should be expecting an encounter with a
gentile. Yes – it says he wanted to get
away. Jesus has been surrounded by
people needing healing and teaching and he just wanted to rest. And – being fully human and a good Jew he
perhaps – at that moment – believed that his mission was only to the Jews. But instead of the compassion we hear in the
second half of the reading Jesus insults the women.
Perhaps to understand the
paradox here it is helpful to remember that this is the Jesus who has been
explaining the radical openness of the kingdom of God. Early in Mark we had the “Kingdom of Heave is
like” Parables. The kingdom of God is
like a sower who throw seed everywhere with no regard to where it lands. The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed
that grows everywhere and takes over.
This is the Jesus who stills the storm, heals on the Sabbath, and raises
the dead. All with no respect to the
religious rules of the time. This is a
Jesus we have interpreted as opening up God’s Kingdom of Love to all people. Regardless
of race. Regardless of sex. And then a tired Jesus acts all too humanly.
This should rock our world
when we hear it. Hopefully we side with
the Syrophoenician woman in this encounter.
After all she is responding to all that she had heard about this great
teacher. She is a mother with a sick
child who desperately wanted health for her daughter. She is what some might call a mama bear! So
she does not back off. She tells truth
to power. She breaks open Jesus to see
for himself what he has been preaching.
Another preacher I follow
[Caroline Lewis] said this about the encounter, “The Syrophoenician woman tells
Jesus, “Guess, what? Jesus. God said yes to me. God said yes to me when God
tore open the heavens. God said yes to me when God decided to show up in the
wilderness rather than in the temple. God said yes to me when you came here
instead of spending all your time in Jerusalem. It’s okay to be me, so get over
yourself, Jesus.”
There is really no story like
this in the Bible. Well, the one exception might be Moses getting God to change
God’s mind. But this woman does more than get Jesus to change his mind -- she
rocks Jesus’ world. She gets Jesus to admit for what and whom his ministry is
all about. She gets Jesus to see God for what and who God truly is.
The woman tells the truth.
And when the truth gets told? Worlds change. Her world changed. Same for
Jesus.”[1]
This story should make us
examine our souls. It should cause us to
shine a light into our dark places. I
know that I try not to be racist. I know
that I try to see everyone with the spark of Gods creation shining through
whatever else is going on. But it is
hard. It is still too easy to group
people into simplified caricatures of who they really are. It is easy to talk about blacks as a group –
not as humans really but as a group. It
is easy to dismiss movements like “Black Lives Matter” with the come back that
all lives matter. And all lives do
matter. But the statistics don’t
lie. In our society blacks are pulled
over more often and arrested for minor infractions more often than white people.
Homeless people need to be
seen as God’s creation as well. Not just
as a group. We can’t just feed them sack
lunches. We can’t just write a check to
Loaves and Fishes or St. Matthews to support the work they do. We really do need to say truth to power that
has created a world where people who work minimum wage Jobs still cannot afford
housing. We need stand up to politicians
who blame the homeless because they “caused” it through their choices – be it
drug and alcohol use or some other issues.
When I hear people say – “oh they really want to be homeless. If they just worked as hard as I do they
could get off the street.” It makes my
blood boil. Where are the treatment
centers and education centers for people who have been kicked out of their
homes? Where is the mental health
centers for homeless Vets who are suffering from posttraumatic stress
disorders? Where are the safe places for
kids thrown from their homes because they are gay, transgendered or just different?
Yes treatment centers and
some safe housing exists but not necessarily where the people who need it are living. Out at St. Matthews they are now hosting a
charter adult high school. Which is
fabulous. People who have not been able
to get a high school diploma can learn English and get their GED. A wonderful service in the right place. But there are not other needed services for
people in that neighborhood. There is
not a good grocery store with reasonably priced healthy foods in that zip code. There is a food dessert. You don’t read of a Trader Joes, Whole Foods,
or Rally’s going into that neighbor hood.
In my neighborhood yes. But not
in their neighborhood.
I must admit I am not all
that comfortable saying these things. I
am a white, educated privileged male.
Yes I am Gay and have faced discrimination. Yes I have been apprehensive – and at times
downright scarred – to be in parts of this country with my Husband. We have traveled in places where being gay is
not accepted and violence is a real threat. And some of those places are here
in California. But we are both white,
educated relatively affluent males and can generally “pass”.
When I walk down the street
at night and perhaps walk across the street because I see a black man who
“looks scary” I am being a racist. I am not
practicing what I preach. When I choose
to stay home after a long day and not go to city council to argue for safe
housing and a living wage I am being hypocritical. When I don’t come to vestry to argue against
fencing to keep people away when the church is closed I am not telling the
truth to power.
In a letter to the Church the
Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies said, “Racial reconciliation through prayer, teaching, engagement
and action is a top priority of the Episcopal Church in the upcoming triennium.
Participating in “Confession, Repentance, and Commitment to End Racism Sunday”
[today] is just one way that we Episcopalians can undertake this essential
work. Our history as a church includes atrocities for which we must repent,
saints who show us the way toward the realm of God, and structures that bear
witness to unjust centuries of the evils of white privilege, systemic racism,
and oppression that are not yet consigned to history. We are grateful for the
companionship of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and other partners as
we wrestle with our need to repent and be reconciled to one another and to the
communities we serve.”[2]
There is good news here. St. Paul’s does – at many levels – practice what
we preach. We lovingly pass out sack
lunches to people when we are open. And
we don’t just hand out lunches. We sit
and listen to people. We have a
dedicated small group of people who feed nutritious lunches to all who walk
through the doors on Wednesday and Fridays.
There are members of this congregation who walk to city hall to demand a
reasonable affordable housing ordinance be passed. There are members of this congregation who
wash the clothes of some of our homeless members and take them shopping for
food and cut their hair.
But does putting up a fence
around the parish hall for our
safety and comfort pass the test of asking what would the incarnate Jesus
do? That is after the incarnate Jesus’
world was rocked by the Syrophonecian woman! We need to not only focus on our
safety but on finding ways where people who have no place can go to find
rest. Our facilities our limited and the
are sometimes abused by our guests. Yes
– it is hard to continually have to clean up after people who leave all manner
of debris behind – including at times human waste. But I have to say that it is not just the
homeless who pee in the bushes. It is
also the club and bar hoppers who do it.
Have you recently tried to find a restroom in downtown in the evening
without paying a cover charge or being a “patron” of the business? They don’t exist! Just try to find someplace in
downtown/midtown to use a restroom!
Karoline Lewis sums up our call. “Truth-telling
is hard to do and hard to hear -- and will be resisted, sometimes only at
first, sometimes perpetually and even exponentially. But that is when the truth
has to be heard for the sake of empowering the other. I think this is one of
the most powerful promises of this text. She tells the truth so that others can
then say, so that I can say, “You have just told my story! Thank you!” The
truth, in part, has to be told and has to be heard so that you know and others
know that you are not alone.
The process of truth-telling is
essential in ministry, regardless of any issue we use to divert the promises of
God. Those persons called to and entrusted with the privilege of giving voice
to God’s love must be held accountable to that which the Gospel in its fullness
proclaims. When voices are sidelined, when particular presences are questioned,
when presentations of the Gospel are called into question because the source is
an outsider, like from Tyre, it is never, ever just about us, but also about
God. When our imagination for God’s hope for the church is undermined by our
lack of imagination, that is when God becomes less than God. The Syrophoenician
woman tells the truth about God and in doing so helps us imagine that truth for
ourselves.”[3]
Our church is asking all of
us to recognize that racism and scapegoating of the “other” is real. It is asking us – each and every one of us –
to examine our selves and our institutions to see if we are perpetuating the
problems or are we working to solve them?
The church is inviting each of us and our institutions to examine our
hearts and to shine a light in the dark corners of our souls. To examine our institutional reactions. To talk truth to power. In short we are being called to have our
world rocked just as the Syrophienician woman rocked Jesus world.
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