Pentecost 16B
September 8, 2024 – Rally Day
Isaiah 35:4-7a; James 2:1-17; Mark 7:24-37
INTRODUCTION
In my page in the St. Paul’s newsletter that went out last week, I printed the core values that came out of the visioning work we’ve been doing the past several months. They are also on the back of your bulletin –I’d love to hear your response! One of the values that we considered aspirational (meaning, we do it kind of, but would like to grow in this area) was the one around welcome and inclusivity.
So I was delighted when I read the readings for today, traditionally the first Sunday of the new church program year, and I saw throughout, this theme of openness and inclusivity, showing no partiality, reaching beyond natural and cultural barriers. What a great set up for our year! We’ll see this explicitly in the words of James. Isaiah and the Psalm talk about opening the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf, and generally eliminating anything that would keep us from being together in relationship with God.
We also see it in Mark, as Jesus ventures into Gentile territory. Gentiles are people outside of the Jewish community. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus often takes great effort to venture into these non-Jewish areas, these places populated by those who are “other” to, or even, in some cases, enemies of the Jewish people. So today he takes a journey to Tyre, a place far from his home in Galilee, where he encounters a Syrophoenician woman (so, she is Greek, and descended from people of Syria, and Phoenicia, two historic enemies of Jews). His encounter with this woman changes, or rather, opens up the scope of his ministry, and he continues onto another largely Gentile (non-Jewish) region to continue his ministry with this whole new segment of society. So, today’s story is an important turning point in Jesus’ ministry, from focusing on Jewish people, to opening his mission up to non-Jews.
All of these readings are full of life-giving words for those desperately in need of that news… even as they are challenging words for those of us accustomed to feeling comfortable in our faith and our lives. Notice how they make you feel. Let’s listen.
[READ]
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Is it just me, or does Jesus seem a little… off, in today’s Gospel reading? I mean, we usually picture him as the very embodiment of compassion, care, and availability, right, but today, he first enters a town and doesn’t want anyone to know it, wants to hide away for a while. And then, when someone comes to him for help, what does he do but insult her! “Can’t help you now,” he says. “Gotta help the children of Israel first. I’m not gonna throw their portion to the dogs!” Did he just… did he just call this woman a dog, and refuse to help her daughter? What?? This is not the Jesus we know and love!
It is one of the more puzzling interactions Jesus has, for sure. Interpreters have spilled much ink trying to figure this one out. Is this just an example of how Mark paints a much more human picture of Jesus? Throughout the Gospel of Mark, we see Jesus exhibit more emotions, as well as more human frailty, even lack of knowledge at times, than we do in the other Gospels. So maybe Mark is saying that Jesus was tired, and a little bit irritable, snarky, and dismissive? I mean, we get that, right? We’ve all been there! But… does Jesus get snarky and dismissive? It opens a complex theological can of worms.
Or maybe, is Jesus testing the woman’s faith? Yeah, standing as the wise teacher who is seeing how bold she will be in her declaration, always with the intention of giving her what she asks, and letting her win the argument. That seems to fit better with our understanding of Jesus – even though I don’t especially like the idea of a God who tests our faith for sport, while our loved one lies in pain!
It’s a tricky one, and it can be very easy to get caught in the weeds of this question – I know I have spent a fair amount of time there.
But in the end, that’s not the point of the story, and not what really matters to me. What matters more than why Jesus responded to this woman the way he did, is that the woman, who is an ethnic, religious, social “other” from Jesus, has the opportunity to proclaim, even to us, the truth: that Jesus is there for her, too. That her life, and the life of her daughter, matter, and should matter even to this Jewish teacher, even to this God. That she is worthy of God’s care, compassion, and love. This woman boldly proclaims that truth.
We have a complicated relationship with the truth these days, don’t we? There has always been a fair amount of fuzziness around the truth in politics, but it has gone off the rails in the past decade – well past a creative reframing of the facts, and fully into easily verifiable lies. That, along with evidence of foreign interference, and the rise of AI and easily altered visual media, and the result is that the folks trying to keep up at home just don’t know who or what can be trusted anymore. What really is the truth, and what is only some version of the truth, cherry-picked, or conveniently twisted or edited to support one viewpoint or disprove another? In the words of Pontius Pilate, “What is truth?”
Yet here, this woman of Syrophoenician origin, boldly proclaims a very important truth, and one that can absolutely be trusted: that she matters, and that her daughter matters, and that they are worthy of God’s attention and care.
But even when a truth, like this, is indisputable, that does not always mean it is easy to hear. Jesus seems to receive it readily enough, but for us? We sometimes have a hard time receiving the truth, especially when it rubs up in a bad way against something we believe and hold dear, when it challenges our viewpoint. Once we have decided what is the truth, I think a lot of us tend to close our minds and our hearts to anything that doesn’t fit with what we believe.
Perhaps that is why I am particularly drawn to what Jesus says in his next interaction with a Gentile, the man who is deaf and mute. Jesus doesn’t just lay hands on this man to heal him. He says to him, “Be opened.”
“Be opened.” This is message I know I need to hear, and one I think we could all stand to hear and take to heart. Be opened. Be opened to the movement of the Spirit. Be opened to learning something, even something that at first makes you uncomfortable. Be opened to the gifts of others, even others whom you don’t like. Be opened.
I remember once sitting in the office of my college band director. He was leaning back in his chair, with his arms crossed tightly across his chest, when he started to reflect, as he often did. He said, “You know, I’ve been told you should never sit this way, arms crossed, when talking to someone. My teacher used to say, ‘Closed body, closed mind.’ But I don’t know – I think I have an open mind, but I just think it is comfy to sit this way!” Well yeah, it is also comfy to sit in our opinions and never let them be challenged. It is also comfortable to stay right where we feel safe, and know how things work. It is comfortable not to rock the boat, not to speak up when we know something is wrong. But I wouldn’t say any of those things are necessarily open, nor faithful! (That said, I do think my band director had a pretty open mind, and was very faithful, despite his crossed arms!)
Be opened. Be opened to the truth, even uncomfortable truth. Be opened to ideas, even ideas you think would never work. Be opened to the possibility that you might be wrong, and someone else is right. Be opened to change, even if you love where and how things are. Be opened.
I think this is a valuable word for us today, on Rally Day, as we begin a new program year. We have some exciting things on the horizon. In the September newsletter, as I mentioned, I printed the core values that emerged out of the visioning process we’ve been working on. Some are values we already live into effectively, and some are aspirational, things we need to work on. In the coming two weeks, the Keymel committee and the council will start making some decisions about how we will spend the bequest we received earlier this year – keeping in mind how we can use this gift to help us better live into our values, including and especially the more aspirational ones.
Some of what will happen in these next months is objectively exciting, and will be easily received. Some might require some risk. Some might require some patience, as we work through the inevitable tough spots. All of it requires for us to “be opened” – to listen to one another and our broader community, to be kind and responsive, to entertain the possibility of sitting in a position that might not be as comfortable at first, but one which will absolutely make us grow stronger in mission and in faith.
All of what will happen in the coming months, I hope, will equip and empower us to boldly proclaim the truth: That ours is a God who loves, who cares, who heals, who brings life, both to those on the inside, and those who are “other,” who are different from us, like the Gentile woman and her daughter, and the deaf, mute man. That ours is a God who never promised that we would be comfortable, but rather, who always invites us to move, to change, and to grow. I hope we will be empowered to proclaim that ours is a God who listens to our needs, who equips us to boldly share our stories of how God has been active in our lives, and who bids that we “be opened” to the possibilities of new life that God places before us.
And so let us “be opened,” my friends. As we enter into this new, exciting year of ministry, let us be opened and responsive to the ways that God will move within, among, and around us.
Let us pray... Active God, you make the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Make it so also with us, dear Lord. Make us bold to listen, to be opened, and to proclaim your truth. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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