Who Asked You?

Mark 9:33 – 37

September 23, 2012

Here we are again.  In front of what I think is a tough text.  You were warned.  And if you missed church last week, well now you’ll know better than to miss church.    

Last week, we heard Jesus tell his disciples for the first time that he was not a Messiah headed for the throne – he was a Messiah headed to suffering and death.  The disciples did not respond positively.  Cross words were exchanged between Jesus and his friends.  Then, when it was all over, the disciples pretty much went on as if he never said it.  I can almost hear Peter say, “It’s okay…Jesus has gone round the bend.  But we’ve got time to bring him back.  Meanwhile, we have to stay focused on the end goal.”

But then, in our passage this morning, Jesus says it again.  He talks of death; not kingship.  But again, the author of Mark tells us, the disciples didn’t understand… and this time they didn’t ask for clarification.  They went right on ahead, as if nothing had changed.  After Jesus talked of death, they were having an argument about who was the greatest.

Now, trusting, as I do, that the disciples were not horrible people, I think their question makes sense given where they thought they were going – where they thought Jesus was going.  Jesus was still, for them, the Messiah that would reign as king of the Jews; literally.  He would be king in place of the current king.

They were about to be in power – and they believed that when they had the power, they would do good…everyone would prosper.  I think it’s only natural under these circumstances to start planning how to best organize that new kingdom.  The disciples wanted to make sure that they had the best team in place for when they took over the reins.  So they had to figure out who would be chief of staff – which one of them was the greatest.

At the same time, they are probably not completely dense.  They know Jesus isn’t exactly on board right now.  They know he’s still off on his weird thing – talking about how he is going to suffer and die.  So, when Jesus asks them what they were arguing about, they don’t invite him in to the conversation.  And frankly, I think it wasn’t so much that they were embarrassed about what they were talking about:  I think they didn’t want to know his answer…he hadn’t exactly been helpful in these conversations lately.

Problem is, Jesus answered the question anyway.  Who’s the greatest?  Let me tell you what I think. 

Jesus says greatness is not about being powerful – it’s certainly not about being the political king.  The way to greatness involves rejecting power altogether, and choosing a life of serving everyone.  In the disciples’ worldview, the greatest one is the king, and that one is “served” by all those under him.  In fact, the whole stability of the society depended on it.  As soon as people decided they didn’t have to be loyal to and serve the king, everything fell apart.  This is why kings were so quick to dispatch of dissidents. 

The disciples know this system – and they don’t really want to change it.  I suspect they can’t imagine anything else.  They just want to change who is on top.  They think everyone will be better off if they are serving Jesus as king.  But Jesus says, he will not be served by people; this Messiah will serve all.  To them, this sounded like anarchy – chaos – and certainly not like the way to having their glorious nation of Israel back.

It seems like, for Jesus, the system of having the weak serve the powerful is the problem.  No matter who’s on top, if that person is given all the power over others, it’s never going to work for the people on the bottom.  A top down system will always benefit people at the top first and the people at the bottom last.  So, Jesus says that he is going to work from the bottom up.  Children, widows, slaves, the poor, the imprisoned, the oppressed – they are his first constituents. And they don’t have to serve me – I will serve them.  It’s why he calls himself “Son of humanity”…servant of humanity…not Messiah.

The disciples are asking who’s the greatest – and Jesus says it’s the person that rejects power, serves everyone, and oh, by the way, ultimately is killed by the king.  I can imagine more than one of them whispering under their breath – well who asked you?

A number of years ago, right after an election that I was particularly devastated by – I won’t say which one J.  I worked like crazy on the campaign, and we lost.  And I was bummed to say the least.  At about that same time, I happened to read a book by William Cavanaugh.  He was a professor at a Jesuit university, and wrote a book called Theopolitical Imagination – not a best seller, as you might imagine.  Reading it, I found the arguments he made about what it means to be a Christian in this political system we live in very compelling – and the implications of those arguments thoroughly disconcerting.    

He argued that only the table – the communion table – can be the center of our politics.  Only the communion table can be the center of power…because the communion table is where we are both served by Christ, who gave up power, and where we commit to serve others by doing the same.  In the bible, we see that for Jesus the table is where the least of the least have the most honor and are given the best seats.  The table rejects power by celebrating a broken body as the way to salvation.

I was vaguely aware as I was reading it that one of the possible implications, though he never said it directly, was that there is no Christian way to be engaged with our current political system – which has at its center power and authority.  But, I pretended I wasn’t aware of this.  I decided I could like his book without having to own up to its conclusions.

Then I met William Cavanaugh at a conference.  I had a chance to ask him questions about his book, but I distinctly remember not really wanting to ask – because I was afraid of the answer.  Problem was, he answered anyway. 

In a lecture he gave that weekend, he talked about how lost we are as Christians when it comes to serving the poor.  At one point he said this is primarily because, “We look to the government for our salvation, not to Jesus.”  It’s a line that has haunted me.  I do look to the government.  I believe that if I use my faith to inform my politics, I can help make things better for the poor through the government.  He was saying this is a fool’s errand, destined to fail, and in saying this, he was challenging one of my core beliefs. 

“Who asked you,” I muttered under my breath.

Jesus’ way is not just hard, it doesn’t make sense.  It didn’t to the disciples, and it doesn’t to me.  It’s not that I don’t believe in serving others.  That I get.  It’s rejecting the chance to have a huge impact by being the one in charge of the whole system.  The disciples wanted him to rule over Israel, and instead he was going to have dinner with sinners.  That doesn’t get you anywhere.  More to the point, that doesn’t get the country anywhere.  Jesus had a chance to truly make a difference – a huge difference.  Instead, he roamed the rural countryside, spent time with the poor masses, got himself killed, and left the oppressive Roman government firmly intact.  What kind of Messiah is that? 

The disciples are walking with Jesus on the way to Jerusalem.  Once they get there, Jesus will take one road, and they will take another.  They will still be headed to the throne.  Jesus heads to the cross; and he does so alone. And the question comes to us:  Will we take the road where greatness is tied to power and authority, or the one where greatness ends up tied to a cross?

As the elections approach, I, like the disciples, think it matters who is on top.  If we’re giving power and authority to people, I want to help decide who those people will be.  And looking out, I suspect the same is true for many of you.  And I want to do this not just because I want to make sure they make my life better.  I think my faith informs me in this process.  I want to choose people I think will make things better for everyone – especially those who are hurting and suffering most. 

So, I participate in the system.  I spend time arguing with people about who is the greatest; about who should be seated in the big seats.  And I ignore that pesky voice in my head that says, once someone is in the big seat is forced by our system to be less concerned for the ones in the little seats…they are concerned first with the ones who got them the seat in the first place.  It’s big seats that are the problem; and the bigger the seat, the bigger the problem.

Given our context is so different from that of Jesus and his disciples, I’m not entirely sure I know what the implications of this are for us.  Our government, at least ostensibly serves the people, not the other way around, and we know there are good people in the government – and very good people right around us running for election.  I don’t think anyone can convince me that I shouldn’t work to get them elected.  But the one similarity I see is that serving the least, the most insignificant, the most despised – as Jesus did – is definitely not at the center of our system. Even if it’s in the hearts of our leaders.  Because in the system, the worth of people is determined not by being a child of God, but by being someone who makes money, contributes to the economy, and doesn’t “mooch” off the system.

I, like most people, was offended by governor Romney’s talk of the 47% who will never take responsibility for themselves.  But I was equally disturbed when I listened carefully to the main criticism of what he said:  people went out of their way to point out that most of those 47% were “good” people:  they were veterans, the elderly, the hard working, and they paid taxes of some kind; as if his comments would have been totally justified if all 47% were on welfare.  Worth in our system is determined by how much you work, how much you make, and how much you serve the economy – an economy dependent on some being at the top and others being at the bottom.

All of that said, there are degrees of suffering, and I do think it matters who our leaders are.  Some will make things better and some make things worse.  We might disagree about who will fall into which group, but if we believe it, we can’t stay out of the process.  Plus, I think there is a difference between voting in order to preserve your way of life, verses voting to serve the lives of those who suffer most.  And if more people did this, it would start to subvert the system itself.

People are suffering, the poor are not adequately cared for, etc.  And we are in the system.  It is simply where we are…it doesn’t make us bad people.  And, as people, and our bible for that matter, are fond of saying, God can use anything for the good.  In the Hebrew bible God used imperfect kings all the time for divine purposes. 

So, I do believe we have to figure out how to best affect the system from inside…who we vote for does matter.  The character of the people who run for office – who accept the reins of power – does matter – even if that character will always have flaws.  I would feel callous and irresponsible if I thought otherwise.  When we do choose, however, we can pay attention to who we are serving with our vote, our support, our money, etc.

This passage is hard for me, because it makes me slightly less sure of all that.  Which makes me think that, although we should have conviction, we should also have a healthy dose of humility.  We should be skeptical, to say the least, of both power and those who seek power.  With apologies to all the truly wonderful people I know seeking office, and all who work hard to elect them; no matter who we support, no matter who we vote for, no matter who is running for office:  if we’re part of this system at all, we’re probably not Jesus.  Our government will not ultimately be the source of our salvation, if salvation means a world where no one is better than another, everyone is served equally, and everyone is invited to the table. 

Jesus says we should welcoming people into our lives, as he welcomed the child into his arms.  Children at that time were seen a bit differently than they are now.  They were seen as leeches on the system until they were able to work and support the household.  The equivalent today are those we think take but don’t give back.  Instead of trying to avoid even the appearance of supporting people seen this way, we should serve them – welcome them with open arms  -and they should be first in line.  This probably won’t bring down the government.  But, for whatever it’s worth, it might be following Jesus.  Amen.

Escape Hatch

Mark 8:27-38

September 14, 2012

I have two warnings this morning:  First, this sermon is a little long.  And that might make you want to get up and leave right now. 

Second, from now until Advent – the first Sunday in December – the gospel readings for Sunday worship are brutal.  And that might make you want to get up and leave and not come back.  I did not get an “A” in the seminary class called:  How to use a sermon to grow a church.

But this is not all my fault:  The gospel of Mark – especially the part we are going to be reading over the next couple of months – has harsh truths about who we are, and what’s asked of us if we follow Jesus.  We are hit over and over again with our own failings as we watch ourselves in the failings of the disciples.  So, consider yourselves warned.

I also really need to say this – and this should really go without saying – even though I am up here, giving the sermon, I do not stand apart from you when it comes to struggling with the difficult parts of our faith.  There’s a danger, because I’m up here “preaching”, that it might appear that I think I’m ahead of the game, and I’m telling you what to do.  I’m not and I’m not. 

In fact, when I’m as honest as I can be about what these texts say, I dread being up here because it exposes me as the world’s biggest hypocrite.  I lack credibility because I don’t do in my life what I think the texts ask us to do.  Not practicing what I preach is a literal, daily reality for me.  So what right do I have to up here?  None, really.   And, as the title of my sermon says, I wish more than anything I had an escape hatch about right now.   I wish I had been smart enough to schedule my sabbatical for these two months J.

Yet, giving sermons is part of what I have chosen to do, and what you have chosen for me to do.  I have committed to myself and you to do the best I can at reading the bible, studying, and hopefully listening for the spirit of God as I put together my weekly attempt at a sermon.  I’m wrong a lot, to be sure.  But I have committed to try my best.  And to not say what I think a text is about – to give myself an escape hatch just so I can feel better and you will like coming to church – that too is hypocritical. 

So, I warn you that when I read the gospel of Mark – when I look at what’s on tap for the next two months, I think it’s brutal and I’m going to try and not deny and avoid that – as much as I would like to.

But let me assure you, it was brutal for the disciples as well, so if we aim to be disciples, maybe it’s only fair if we join them a little bit in this.

Today, when you listened to Max read the gospel, you might be thinking, “what’s so brutal about this text?”  I think familiarity has bred complacency on this one.  “Take up your cross and follow me,” is familiar to us.  It’s not like we think it’s easy, but I think it doesn’t affect us the same way it did Peter and the other disciples.  This wasn’t just hard for them.  They had done “hard.”  They left their family and their jobs to follow Jesus.  This wasn’t just asking a lot – they’d given a lot.  This was devastating.  And in the end – we know from the rest of the story – it was impossible for them.  Everyone abandoned Jesus when the cross got too hard.  It was the request that revealed their greatest failings.  They couldn’t do it. 

Throughout Mark, Jesus has been trying to keep something secret.  Many times, he instructs people to not tell anyone what he has done for them or who they think he is.  It’s not totally clear why he does this, but I’m going to suggest it’s because he thinks they will say the wrong thing – or that by telling, people will misunderstand Jesus, or worse, God’s purposes for humanity and the world.

In the first part of our passage, he does it again:  He asks the disciples who they think he is, and when Peter answers, he orders them not to tell anyone.  This time “sternly.”  And, interestingly, he says this right after Peter calls Jesus Messiah.  A bit strange, right?  This is a name we still use today to describe who we think Jesus is.  In fact, we have entire choral pieces based on this one word.  Add to that, Messiah is simply Hebrew for the greek word, “Christos.”  Christ.  Peter calls him Christ.  The number of times we call Jesus, “Jesus Christ,” simply cannot be counted…like grains of sand on a beach.  And when Peter says to Jesus, “You are the Christ,” Jesus says, “Don’t you DARE tell anyone that!”

This is kind of the first “ouch” in the passage for all of us.  Probably, every once and a while, we should wonder if we, like Peter, shouldn’t be using these words for Jesus.  If Jesus were sitting here today, and heard us pray, “In the name of Jesus Christ,” would he order us sternly to stop doing that…to not call him Christ?  Are we as off base in using this word as Peter was?

Peter calls him “Christ.”  But, when Jesus explains what is going to happen to him, Peter gets mad.  And then, Jesus calls him Satan.  Satan!  Misunderstanding what Messiah and Christ means seems to be a pretty big deal.  And whatever Peter thought Messiah meant, it did not include “undergoing great suffering and being rejected by the elders and being killed.” 

Peter, like other Jews of his time, thinks a messiah is a savior.  A grand figure who comes to save the day much as a popular, revolutionary hero might.  A messiah reigns over people – but in a good way…as God would reign.  Peter thinks Jesus has come to reign as God would, and Jesus says, “Get behind me Satan!” 

Jesus talks not of Messiah and Christ, but of the cross.  For us, a cross is something beautiful at the front of the sanctuary or hanging on the end of a necklace.  For Jesus, Peter and everyone else living in 1^st century Palestine, the cross was mode of execution for common criminals…nobodies…slaves; certainly not for kings and messiahs.  You are not killed on a cross if you have status, assets, property, land.  In most of us would not fit the description of a person Rome would hang on a cross.  Claiming the cross as his way, Jesus is saying not only will I not be the messiah you imagine, I’m going to give up everything to be the least – the common – the slave. I will reject ALL power, status, notoriety, etc.  I am not choosing to help the nobodies by being a better king than the one you have now;  I am choosing to become a nobody, and I will die a nobody.  If you want to be good news in this world, you will do the same.  Take up your cross and follow me.

I’m guessing our response to this is similar to what Peter’s was.  What good will that do?  Isn’t this all about how to help people, heal people, do good for others???  If I become a nobody – if I have no power, no resources, no standing – how can I do anything but be part of the problem?  I can’t help others – I won’t be able to survive myself. 

Peter probably thought he would get a pretty good return on his investment of leaving his old life; for giving so much up to come with Jesus – at least he was going to get a new leader, the world was going to change.  Now Jesus seems to be telling him that you didn’t give things up in order to follow a messiah to the throne:  Giving things up was the whole point. 

What I think Jesus is saying is that obedience to God is not as simple as “doing the right thing,” or “being a good person,” at least not as we usually think of it.  Being a good Christian is not ultimately about figuring out how to use our privilege and resources to help change the world.  Maybe it involves something much more radical.  Maybe it involves giving up any power you might that allows you to help others.   

It’s about right here that most of us bail on the cross.  And it’s not because we’re bad people.  It’s because we don’t get it.  What good will that do?  How does that change anything?  But, at some level, deep inside, I think we do get that as long as we cling to what we have – our privileged life – we are not what God wants us to be.  Because having privilege is necessarily linked to why there’s suffering in the first place.  We’re causing the problem even as we try to be the solution.  Instead of tweaking our current life, we must lose it completely.

I’ll be the first to admit that I both believe that this is part of taking up my cross, and I’m not willing to do it.

Will Willamon, who has a way of putting things so that you can’t avoid feeling them in your gut, writes this about “taking up the cross”:

“To help us avoid the cross, our theologies first minimize our participation in evil, and then inflate our possibilities for goodness…  Unable to be obedient or courageous, we are content to be decent.  [We tell ourselves] Jesus was an idealist who lived 2,000 years ago in a dusty, prescientific sort of place, whereas I must adjust to [living in the 21^st century], and keep up my car payments.” 

As someone who recently bought a new car, this one hit really hard.  I am unable to be courageous or obedient.  I am unable to accept that taking up my cross really does mean giving up everything: not just giving up my car, but giving up everything that makes it possible for me to buy a car in the first place.  Unable to do this, I am content to be decent.  This is why this passage today  brings me to my knees.  This is why this passage makes me question why I want to be a Christian at all.  Who in their right mind would choose this way?  The way of the cross?  Isn’t it good enough to just choose to be decent?  The cross means sacrifice greater than I’m willing to make.  It means suffering greater than I’m willing to endure. 

So, I reach for escape hatches.  I content myself with trying.  I pat myself – and others – on the back for being basically good people.  Privileged, but good people. – as if that were not a contradiction of terms.  I make Jesus into a friend who likes me.  I make the cross into a beautiful symbol that stands for love and grace, but not for sacrifice and suffering.  I make my faith about me, rather than giving up any sense of self for the sake of others. 

And when I get to this passage:  Take up your cross and follow me.  I do exactly what we will see the disciples do in the coming weeks:  they continue to follow Jesus for a while, pretending they don’t understand what he means, then abandon him in the end when they finally have to face where he is actually going.  Are we really Christian if we follow Jesus, but not to the cross.  Or is being a Christian defined by taking up the cross.  If we, like Jesus, don’t willingly give away our power and privilege, can we call Jesus, “Christ,” without being exposed as hypocrites?

I told you:  I think this is brutal stuff.  And it’s not even Lent.

And, maybe I should leave it there.  Our passage does.  But, I can’t, and I don’t actually think I should.  I really don’t. 

I have often warned in sermons of the danger of taking one passage from the whole bible and interpreting it as if it stands on its own. 

The big story of our faith – the arc of the whole bible, is that our God, Jesus, and our very creation is a movement from brokenness to wholeness, sin to redemption, alienation to reconciliation, despair to hope, death to life.  And it’s true: that is not always what we see – we take steps backwards, we suffer the consequences. 

But, we live somewhere between paradise and God’s realm fully here on earth.  We do not live in a perfect world.  We are not perfect people.  And I honestly don’t think religion is about trying to become perfect.  I think it’s about learning to live faithfully as imperfect people.  It’s about learning to join that movement of God whenever we can.  Joining that movement does mean sacrifice, it does mean solidarity with nobodies, it does mean taking up our cross, and it does mean the painful, heart breaking reality that when we don’t, people suffer.  

But, this is why we have the whole bible.  And it is definitely not all brutal.  I promise Advent will come.  I promise that, as we have in the past, we will get to the book of Acts – where we read about all the disciples who failed Jesus at the cross.  They are carrying on, imperfect though they may be, the ministry Jesus began – and we read about how massive their impact was.  It does matter when we help people, heal people, love people.  That’s not just an escape hatch to make me feel better:  That’s my experience.  That’s why I seek to follow Jesus, who did feed, love, and change people.

Finally, what I know is this:  If it weren’t for you all, I would be in the tall weeds on all of this.  If I didn’t have the church, fellow journeyers, and a place to help make meaning of it all, I’d be lost.  I can barely do any of the hard things, much less the brutal stuff.  On my own, it’s hopeless – I become hopeless.  Without you, I’m not even going to follow Jesus far enough to get to see him on the cross from a distance:  much less come out on the other side of the resurrection a changed person, ready to try yet again to be as faithful as I can in this broken world.  So, please, please, please – despite my warning – come back next week.  Amen.

Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up?

James 2:1-10, 14-17; Mark 7:24-37

September 9, 2012

 

Many of you know that some folks gather here at the church every Friday at noon to study the texts that I will be preaching on that week.  It is not a rare occurrence for me to leave the lectionary bible study with a deeper, richer understanding of our scriptures.  Unfortunately – but probably not unrelated – it’s also not rare for me to leave a little disoriented.  The ideas I brought in are shaken up a bit when I hear what others have to say.  But, I have come to trust that this experience is a good thing:  a good thing for my sermons, and a good thing for me as I try to be a faithful person.  And I can hope that it’s as helpful for others in the group.  This week was no exception.

I was late; I came in about half way through, and the group was grappling with this story from Mark about the Syrophoenician woman.  They were struggling to make sense of it, which is understandable.  It is not straightforward; it doesn’t fit our expectations; the conversation is hard to follow; and it’s one of those passages that probably makes a lot more sense if you are a Jew or Gentile living in 1^st century Palestine than a Grinnellian in the 21^st century.

Let me recap the passage for you…  The whole thing starts with Jesus trying to get away from everyone.  He was literally hiding.  But a Gentile widow finds him.  A widow whose daughter is suffering – she is possessed by a demon.  The woman begs Jesus to help her.  Begs. 

And this is Jesus’ bread and butter.  It’s what Jesus is all about – he loves the Gentiles, the widows, the suffering.  So Jesus reaches out, looks compassionately into her eyes, says because of your faith, your daughter is healed.

Oh wait.  That’s not what happens.  He is hiding out.  She does beg him to help her daughter.  But he says – somewhat cryptically – “Let the children be fed first, for it’s not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”  She replies – somewhat cryptically – “sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”  Then Jesus says, “because of what you said, your daughter has been healed.”  And sure enough, when the woman goes home, her daughter is free of the demons that had taken over her life. 

That’s the story.  And it is hard.  Not least because Jesus doesn’t act like we expect him to.  Add to that this conversation about the dogs, which confuses pretty much every scholar that has tried to tackle this passage, not to mention me and most of us in the bible study Friday.

It seems like Jesus initially tells her “no, I won’t heal your child because my priority is elsewhere…to people who deserve first dibs” – which doesn’t seem like the Christian response.  But worse, it also seems like he calls them a most offensive name.  He calls them dogs.  Now, I love dogs, and wouldn’t mind such a comparison, but I assure you, this was not meant as a compliment at that time.  Dog was an epithet commonly hurled at the Gentiles…it meant mangy, annoying, scavenger, sub human.  The reason, Jesus says, they did not deserve help was because they were less than human. 

So, I think it’s understandable that we all struggled with this passage.  Jesus doesn’t do that, right?  He would not respond to a women whose daughter was suffering by calling them a name and refusing to help.  As we talked in our bible study, we all agreed that this is a really challenging passage.  When we’re honest with ourselves – and this is probably true for most of scripture, all we can do is take our best guess in the end – there’s no way around this, unless we can time travel back and ask the author of Mark what he meant.  Some guesses are better than others, and we are responsible for doing the best we can – but they are guesses nonetheless.    

At the risk of misrepresenting my bible study cohorts, I want to share some of our guesses:  I went in thinking Jesus really did call her a dog.  That he really did insult her – and we should recoil in disgust.  And we have to face the fact that Jesus was human.  When he walked this earth, he wasn’t perfect.

Someone else suggested Jesus wasn’t calling them dogs, he was indicating that this was a commonly held attitude toward Gentiles by people in his faith tradition.  In other words, it isn’t what Jesus believes, but what Jews in general believed and Jesus wants to dismantle this terrible attitude as much as the woman does.

We also wondered if there wasn’t an actual dog there that they both were using as a kind of metaphor, but that Jesus wasn’t directly calling the woman and her daughter dogs. 

And another suggested Jesus was testing her. He knew the right answer all along, but he wanted her to come to it herself.

Each of these gives a little different picture of Jesus.  All of them are reasonable and possible, and all of them have their own limitations.  But the bottom line is that this discussion on Friday left me with a richer, deeper connection to this story – for which I credit this weekly gathering of rag tag Christians who are willing to wrestle with the hard stuff in order to have a deeper connection with God.  I credit them with reminding me yet again of the importance of walking this journey together, sharing our thoughts, experiences, and faith with one another – because no one person’s perspective is sufficient.  I also blame them for disorienting me, making me less confident in what I had been thinking, and for making me reevaluate my sermon – on a Friday…at 1 p.m. J

Interestingly, after being so disoriented on Friday, I think my sermon title, which I came up with on Thursday, still makes sense.  With all those plausible interpretations of the story, with all those ideas about what Jesus was doing in this story, I left this bible study yearning to know, “Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up?” 

I yearn to know this because the answer to this question really matters to me.  This is what I stake my life on.  Yes, it’s a big question, ultimately unanswerable question, but it is important for me to keep exploring it.  It’s important for me not because I think it should be important for everyone in the world; it’s important to me because I have chosen this story, his story, as the one that I will wrestle with, believing that learning about, engaging with, wrestling with his life will shape me more and more into the person I want to be…in the person I believe God wants me to be.  Is it the only story that will do this?  No.  But I have come to trust it implicitly over the course of my life.  And over the course of my life, I have developed a sense of who I think Jesus is.

And for me, no matter how many different ways I looked at it, the Jesus in this odd story doesn’t match the Jesus in my head and heart. That Jesus looks at people with the most compassionate eyes in the world and responds immediately to their suffering with healing; not with cryptic riddles.  The Jesus I carry around challenges the religious elite with his stories and questions – he doesn’t challenge someone who is begging for her daughter’s life.  The Jesus of my heart eats with, reaches out to, goes to the poor, the orphan, and, yes, the widows whose daughters are suffering.  He meets them where they are and changes their lives.  He doesn’t hole up in a secluded place hoping no one notices him.

So I walked out of bible study less clear on what this story means, but with much greater clarity that I yearn to know what this story says about who Jesus is.  Given that, where I landed on all of this surprised me.  It disoriented me once again. 

It dawned on me that as much as I want to know who the real Jesus is, so I can know who I’m supposed to follow, not every passage in the bible is necessarily answering that one question.  The Harry Potter books are in large part about revealing who Harry Potter is to the audience, but if the author didn’t also spend time revealing history, other characters, the rules of Quiddich, there would be no way to fully understand Harry or, more importantly, the meaning of the whole story.  While we don’t often think about this, it’s possible that not every passage in the New Testament is trying to tell us something about Jesus. 

When I could let go of my question – what is this story trying to tell me about Jesus? – I was a bit more open to seeing that maybe this passage isn’t about Jesus at all – or at least very much.  And it’s only in letting go of my need to figure Jesus out that I can learn from the true star of this story:  The Syrophoenician woman.

It’s her love of her child that sends her out looking for help.  It’s her courage that allows her to approach a Jewish rabbi, who’s hiding away, and have the nerve to beg him to help her.  It’s her persistence that keeps her from letting Jesus have the last word.  And, most importantly, we are told, it is because of what she said that her daughter was healed.  She healed her – not Jesus.

Which translated to our day means it’s up to US, not Jesus, to bring healing into this world.  It’s up to US to cast out demons. 

If that’s the case, and if her words bring about the healing, maybe we should figure out what she was saying.  Again, I’m not sure why she has to be so cryptic, but I think in a general sense we can agree that her response denies a world where some are fed and others aren’t.

The author of James drives the point home, and, in my humble opinion, much less cryptically.  “If a rich person walks into church at the same time a poor person does, if you fall all over yourself to welcome the rich person while ignoring the poor, you have become judges with evil thoughts.”  James says when we make distinctions, when we show partiality, we dishonor God.  And more drastically he tells us that in drawing distinctions we reveal a faith this is not alive – and, worse, gives no life to the world around us. 

Whatever we think about Jesus, the point of calling the Gentiles dogs in the first century was to make very clear distinctions, and to show partiality:  children of Israel first, Gentile dogs second.  When the women responds, she manages to dismantle that worldview in one sentence. 

And what we find out is startling:  When you challenge the system and assumptions, when you are persistent in convincing others that we can make no distinctions, when you are like the women, daemons are cast out.  The demons of prejudice.  The demons of hunger.  The demons of war.  The demons of poverty.  The demons of injustice.  All the demons that are rooted in distinctions and partiality are cast out when we refuse to accept a world full of distinctions, no matter who is trying to tell us otherwise.

Maybe learning about the woman does reveal something of Jesus in the end:  Namely, that Jesus didn’t believe it was all about him.  We are participants in God’s saving Grace.  Who we are matters to this world, to the possibility of healings, to our children, our neighbors, our enemies.  The character and nature of the human Jesus may not be clear in this passage, but the character and nature of God is revealed in the woman’s actions – and can be in ours.  Amen.