SERMONS

By Anthony B. Robinson, Sabbatical Pastor
Is. 35: 4 -7a; James 2: 1 -10, 14 -17; Mark 7: 24 -37

September 6, 2009

There’s a tension, maybe a contradiction, in today’s Scripture lessons. Did you notice? James chastised a congregation for playing favorites, for kow-towing to the rich, while giving the poor, if not exactly the back of their hand, lesser honor and respect. James asks, “My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?” “Don’t play favorites,” says James.

Then we turn to the Gospel reading, from Mark. It sounds for all the world as if Jesus is himself playing favorites. Off in distant Gentile lands, Syria, a desperate mother pushed her way in upon Jesus who was hoping to be in town undetected. She sought his help for her daughter. And Jesus said, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” “Children” means the Jews; “dogs” means the Gentiles. Jesus said “No.”

What’s up with that? Jesus doesn’t sound real appealing here. And, as I said, there is a tension, maybe an outright contradiction, between James, “Don’t play favorites,” and Jesus brushing off the desperate mother because she was a Gentile outsider and not a Jew. It sounds as if Jesus is not only playing favorites but tossing in a few insults to boot!

In the world of biblical studies one of the criteria for determining the authenticity of a story is the “embarrassment factor.” In other words, if the story doesn’t make our guy, whether Jesus or Paul, Moses or Mary, look good, if it’s kind of embarrassing, then it’s probably authentic. Well, this story definitely meets that criteria! Jesus isn’t looking real good when he says to this desperate Gentile mother, “Children first,” Jews first; it’s not fair to give what’s meant for them to the Gentiles, who were commonly referred to among Jews, as “dogs.”

So what’s going on?

In the many attempts of commentators, scholars and preachers to “explain” Jesus and to make the whole thing a little less offensive, there seem to be two main strategies or explanations. One we could call “tongue-in-cheek Jesus.” According to this theory, Jesus who has just had a tough round with the Pharisees is repeating the conventional and proverbial Jewish wisdom regarding Gentiles, but doing so sarcastically, tongue-in-cheek, as if he hadn’t really said this seemingly insulting thing himself, but was only quoting the others. He is repeating what others said, but sarcastically, thus not really saying it himself.

The other main way of getting Jesus off the hook could be called “Grumpy Jesus.” He’s been beat up by small-minded religious types stressing about crossing the ritual t’s and dotting the legal i’s, he’s tired, over-worked, he heads out of town for a break. He is hoping that no one will know he’s there because he just needs to lie on his back and stare at the clouds sailing by. But immediately there’s a loud, pushy mother all over him about her sick daughter. So he’s grumpy, so grumpy he says something uncharacteristically mean. Grumpy Jesus.

I find the “Grumpy Jesus” option more plausible than “Tongue-in-Cheek” Jesus.

But more convincing than either is the notion that what’s really at stake here is Jesus’ identity and mission. Who is he? And what’s his mission? What’s his purpose? What are his priorities?

In the version of this same story in Matthew Jesus you hear this struggle a little more clearly. There Jesus says to the woman, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” In other words, his mission is to his own people. If he starts focusing on Gentiles, like this Syro-phoenician woman, his main mission, to get Israel back on track, will be lost or forgotten.

Here’s a contemporary analogy. “Imagine a woman who founded and continues to manage a shelter for battered women. She has carefully defined the mission of the shelter and energetically cultivated contributions and sources of financial support for that mission. There are other agencies that serve children, the homeless, and the hungry, but this shelter is dedicated to the needs of abused women. One day, however, the woman answers the door of the shelter only to find a desperately needy man asking for food and money. No matter how much here heart goes out to this man, surely she would wonder about the propriety of taking money donated for the care of abused women and giving it to him, however worthy he may be.” (Tom Long, Matthew)

Maybe we can relate to Jesus’ dilemma after all?

Or here’s another analogy. This week I was part of a small group of writers who met with an executive editor from Harper One publishing. Harper One is a large commercial publisher of books in the faith and spirituality area. Having Harper One publish you means that chances are real good that you’re going to sell a lot of books via outlets like Barnes and Noble and Borders and airport bookstores. So all of us writers are basically salivating, pretty much willing to do anything to get Harper One to publish us.

The editor from Harper One, perhaps sensing this, said, “Remember, you have to maintain your own integrity.” She was saying, “You have to remember who you are and what your calling is; you can’t just try to write what you think we want or what you think will sell.” It was a useful, if slightly embarrassing reminder. She had pretty much told us, all clergy, “Don’t prostitute yourselves for the market or sales. Be true to who you are, or it will never really work.” So Jesus has to be true to who he is. He is not a generic Messiah, he is a Jew. How does he stay true to who he is, true to himself?

Perhaps in much lesser ways all of us, have to wrestle with such questions too. Who are we really? What is authentic to us? What has integrity for us? I tend to think that’s what up for Jesus here. His work isn’t exactly going swimmingly with his Jewish and hometown audience. Here are eager Gentiles, outsiders, people who know nothing of the long tradition, history, calling, vocation of his people. Should he just bag the original plan and go with a whole new audience?

I often ask congregations and their leaders to struggle with this question: what for you is precious, and what is expendable?

Then the focus of this story shifts. It shifts to this rather remarkable woman who has burst in on Jesus’ get-away time. She “begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.” He seems to turn her away. He says, who knows in what tone of voice or exactly what he had in mind, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food, and throw it to the dogs.”

Here’s where it gets interesting.

Without missing a beat the woman says, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” In other words, “If I’m a dog, treat me like a dog, give me the crumbs off the table.” “I don’t care what you call me, just so you call.”

This woman, a desperate mother, is gutsy. More than that, she is quick-witted. Beyond that, she is persistent. She’s not taking “No,” for an answer. Gutsy, quick-witted, and persistent.

And one more thing. She’s not hung up on status, image, or even respect. It’s not about her. She’s there for her daughter and is willing to let everything else go in order to get what she needs for that little girl. It’s not about her.

If Jesus is struggling with the question of his mission, this mother was “on a mission.” She had let everything else go. She had no time for polite talk. She had no energy for appropriate protocols. She had no budget for personal pretense. She was desperate and determined.

Seeing this something turned in the chamber of Jesus’ heart, as if a lock’s mechanism had suddenly lined up and the lock fell open and his own ministry was transformed. “For saying that, you may go–the demon has left your daughter. So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.”

Here was a woman who wasn’t, to put it mildly, at all stuck on her self. She was desperate and her desperation set her free.

None of us try to get in desperate straits, but sometimes in desperation we are closer to God than at any other time. In such moments, time has narrowed down to now and we’re completely there. God hears that and honors it. Jesus honors that. “For saying that, you may go–the demon has left your daughter.”

So back to James. Stay with me now. I said earlier that James’s message was “don’t play favorites.” Don’t show the folks in minks and diamonds to the best seats, while you tell the person in a torn and dirty sweat suit to the last pew. But in fact James doesn’t actually say, “Be impartial.” Nor does James say God is impartial.

Rather James says that God is partial, that God has favorites! But that’s God favoritism turns the world’s standards and the world’s favoritism upside-down and on it’s head. God is partial. God chooses the weak, the broken, the desperate, the left-over and left out. “Has not,” asks James, “God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?”

God honors those that world does not honor. But not just as some kind of divine affirmative action program. The last and least, the broken and maimed shall enter the kingdom, said Jesus, before the good people because they know their need of God. They aren’t hung up on themselves. They aren’t under the illusion they are entitled. It’s not all about them.

The thing that is so striking about the woman in this story is that whatever Jesus meant with the “dog” thing, she doesn’t blink or bat an eye at. She’s right back at him. “If I am a dog, treat me like a dog then, and give me the crumbs off your table.” Persistent and insistent. Determined. You might even say “dogged.” Dogged determination.

Jesus offers mercy to all, but persistence is required to overcome obstacles.

The other evening Linda and I saw the wonderful movie “Julie and Julia.” If you haven’t seen it, do; if you have, you’ve seen two other women determined to do something crazy and great, two people who persist through the mess and the obstacles.

Like the Syro-Phoenician woman.

We live today in a society and culture where folks seem to spend a good deal of time being concerned about whether they have been given their due, whether they’ve been “respected,” and given sufficient attention. Some call it, a culture of “entitlement.” We are sensitive if someone doesn’t “respect” us, give us our due, flatter our ego. I understand that. I get caught up in it too. We get stuck on ourselves. Whether we’re being treated right. Whether someone has said a slighting word to us. Whether someone else is getting more or better than us. What is our place in the pecking order?

But God may not see things as we do. Jesus said, “Many who are first shall be last, and the last will be first.”

And if the story of this gutsy and determined woman is to be believed, God often honors those whom the world counts as last or least. Jesus is moved by those who aren’t stuck on themselves. God honors those who know their need of God. Jesus is moved by those who let it go and leave their self-preoccupations behind, who lose themselves in the work, the mission, the real need of a desperate world in the grip of demonic powers that is important.

This morning in our “Hot off the Press” session, we talked about the teacher’s strike in Kent. I was struck by one letter to the editor this week. The letter-writer quoted the words of a teacher who expressed shock and outrage that, “The administration instead of working with us has taken us to court. We’re the teachers. We’re the lifeblood of the school.” To which the letter writer commented, “Funny, I thought the students were the lifeblood of a school.”

James says, his favorite theme, “faith without works is dead.” It’s the work. When in schools, churches, clinics, or colleges, we are focused on the work, on the mission and don’t get all hung up on ourselves, our individual or collective egos, God honors that. God blesses that. “For saying that, you may go–the demon has left your daughter.”

Well, it’s Labor Day weekend. The season is changing, time is moving on. These words of Jesus and James remind us that it’s not about being all concerned with our egos, but with our mission, with the work, with giving ourselves wholly and in faith to the great work of God to set free a demon possessed world. God’s favorites, it seems, are those who have given themselves wholly, trusting God on the outcomes, to the work. With that in mind, and with Labor Day at hand, I want to end with a favorite poem.

This poem is called, “To be of use.” It was written by Marge Piercy.

“The people I love the best

jump into work head first

without dallying in the shallows

and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.

They seem to become natives of that element,

the black sleek heads of seals

bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,

who pull like water buffalo with massive patience,

who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,

who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge

in the task, who go into the fields to harvest

and work in a row and pass the bags along,

who are not parlor generals and field deserters

but move in a common rhythm

when the food must come in or the fire put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.

botched, it smears the hands, crumbles into dust.

But the thing worth doing well done

has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.

Greek amphoras for wine or oil,

Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums

but you know they were made to be used.

The pitcher cries for water to carry

and a person for work that is real.”

It’s Labor Day. A new season begins. Hope to see you all next week at the Retreat, or if not soon after, caught up together in the life and mission, the work of God, to mend and redeem the world God loves. May we so lose ourselves in love of God and in God’s good work that we truly find our selves anew in God’s Kingdom. Amen.