delivered 6 September 2009
by Rev. Dr John Evans
A couple of weeks ago when we had the congregational discussion about our worship space – and the talk moved to the matter of pulpits, I must admit I had this idle thought about all the sermons that might have been delivered from our pulpit or this space here. There have literally been thousands of them. There would have been the great ones, and well, the absolutely appalling; the long ones and the short ones etc etc.
All of them, I would hope endeavoured to present, or re-present, who God in Christ, is for us. This would been done in a particular context and at a particular time. . . and with a particular style. Because the task of the sermon simply should be how does the life, death and resurrection of Jesus address us. . . . still. There is however a challenge here. As the Basis of Union says the responsibility is to “confess the Lord in fresh words and deeds” (Par 11). Fresh words. How can often very familiar stories and texts be given life and be freshly presented, is the task of the preacher. Or alternatively now, as the knowledge of the Christian story becomes less and less in our wider world, how can this often strange Jesus, the unfamiliar Word of God, be expressed in such a way that challenges and gives hope to those who do not live by Christian precepts.
Well, sometimes even the preacher is flummoxed when they encounter a story in the life of Jesus which just seems wrong. Instead of the preacher needing to discern a surprising or fresh word – the incident or the story itself just sits there awkwardly and screams inconsistency and trouble. Today we have one of those passages.
Christ and the Canaanite Woman by 17th-century Venetian painter Sebastiano Ricci
In a nutshell, Jesus insults a desperate foreign woman who wants her child healed. It is only through the woman’s persistence does Jesus come to listen, and address her need.
In the formula of preaching – this just ticks all the wrong boxes. Jesus can challenge , even be angry with, those with power – religious and political authorities – but not innocent, marginalized women. And what about the language used? Aren’t the words we use, important? To be called a dog, in any language, any culture is an insult. Just try the word “bitch” instead of the word “dog”, and you most probably have the tone and meaning right in the following verse form our reading. Jesus said
“Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
You are left with what, surprise, perhaps shock; and then one preaches, just rationalizations and excuses. So we say,
Jesus was tired - he is just showing his humanity; or
This is a good example of the warts and all nature of the gospel – you get the good along with the bad. Jesus is really like one of us.
They were not really dogs – they were just puppies.
The emerging consensus about this passage however, is that it really is about the great and profound struggle of the early Christian movement. Are the followers of Jesus within Judaism or not? Or put it another way – could the followers of Jesus really be non-Jews – gentiles?
Today we miss the intensity of this struggle. We are Gentiles, beneficiaries of the insight; we did not need to be Jews first, before being accepted as people who journey in the way of Jesus. However, at the time of the early church and the writing of the gospels, this was an intense, bitter and hostile struggle. There were two fronts: 1. the church was kicked out of the synagogue; but before that, were Gentiles accepted within this new movement.
Mark 7, of which we read the second half today, is about this struggle and indeed its intensity.
Recall last week our reading was about the challenge of the scribes and Pharisees, who had come up to Galilee from Jerusalem (so it was serious) to complain about Jesus and his disciples not keeping the food laws. If you were to hear that passage, say in the year 70, which is about the time when Mark’s gospel was written, Christianity certainly comes across as being very different to then manifestation of Jewish custom and tradition – with its rigour and its rules. There is here a freedom, a personal responsibility for your own behaviour and the reality you have your own relationship with God.
But (like the ad on TV) there was more. Not only are the ways of Judaism, or perhaps it was really the power of the Jewish authorities, needing challenging – but the message of hope, healing and of transformed lives, the message of Jesus was not just for the Jews –it is for all. This is the struggle in the second half of chapter seven.
If nothing else this story of the Syrophoenecian woman, a gentile, and the deaf mute from the gentile region of Decapolis, whom we assume also was a gentile with gentile mates, shows that this new message, this gospel is available for non Jews too.
The twist in the story, the profound twist in the story, is that that insight, the acceptance of gentile people, and their enthusiastic joy of being listened to and healed, comes not from the centre, or from within this new Christian community, or from Christ himself. It comes from the margin; it comes from the outsiders themselves – from their own persistence. This gentile woman, who could see
“That even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
This eventually won the day. Gentile people need the gospel too. There is this moment of realization. Oh! – even Jesus is challenged. I ….I guess you are right. Healing and transformed lives is needed by all.
Remember, Jesus had just been locked in this bitter dispute with the Jewish authorities. Indeed why he is in Tyre, was literally to get away from the intensity of that dispute and struggle. He wanted a break. He was absolutely focused on, what in Matthew’s account of this incident, Jesus calls “the lost sheep of the House of Israel”. They were his first task. “How, on earth could he get it into the thick heads of those religious authorities that change was needed within the life and practice of the Jewish religion?” They just did not get it. For Jesus religion was not about culture, external practices, rules, power over people – it was indeed about a relations with God, about peace within one’s own heart – about love of others and so on. And hadn’t God had been about this all along – and the Jewish leaders did not see it. From within the faith – reform, change, new insights were needed. This was more than enough to deal with.
So when Jesus is taken off this path of an internal revolution, Jesus shows resistance.
However, 40 years later in the Markan community, the revolution needed is not about transforming Judaism, but how to share this new insight of Jesus to people outside the Jewish faith. Such a view of being open to Gentiles comes from the insights of people like the apostle Paul who by then had reflected on Jesus’ ministry and concluded that the gospel is indeed available to all. Such is the logic of the cross and love. Why would it exclude?
Here the story of Mark 7 is a story, a stark and troubling story, to an insecure, troubled, certainly small community, that those outside you will push you to new insights, new possibilities, new ways of doing things because they too want to be a part of this journey with Jesus. Even Jesus himself, was pushed to be open to the outsider! Yes even Jesus himself was forced to concede the logic that accursed outsiders, dogs, eat, need to eat, the children’s crumbs, and have new relationship with God.
For me the starkness and the rudeness all then sort of makes sense. Our miserable and wretched assessments of others always need to be challenged. Have note slaves, blacks, indigenous people, and not to put a too finer point on it – people who we abuse with terms like niggers (or some equivalent to the word dogs) have quietly, and persistently addressed the centre of the faith and asked to be also included. They have said, among other things, demonic forces exist within our lives, or our world (remember it was the casting out of a demon that this woman sought for her child) – which also need to be cast out. And so the body of Christ itself has had to change. . . and see apartheid, and racism being abhorrent and not God’s way, and we in the uniting Church have even had to change our constitution.
And isn’t that also the same story with the role of women within the church. Sometimes the body of Christ through its prayer and reflection sees it needs to take a new direction, and new path. But sometimes this happens because those who are not “children needing sustenance and food first” – also want to share in the crumbs from such a table. And so it is with gay people . . . and who else?
This thus becomes not then a troubling story about Jesus not fitting our particular mould, image of saintliness – and yes it has got that flavour. But it becomes a story which Jesus, or the church, can tell against itself so that we do listen to the outsider and the marginalized, and their needs and their hope too for healing and transformation.
Again the story of the deaf mute from the Decapolis brought by his friends to Jesus shows why such an openness to the outsider’s voice is so important. Jesus this time is not rude and dismissive. Rather in a very physical way, a way that breaks all sorts of Jewish taboos and customs – such as spitting and poking and touching facial orifices – he heals this bloke. But then he says to him keep quiet. Why? Well perhaps because you don’t really understand all this significant stuff about a new way of life and relating to God. Jesus orders them not to tell anyone. And even here the son of God gets over-ridden. The more he says don’t tell anyone, these gentile folk proclaimed this healing all the more.
Stop and think about it – if you have been a deaf mute aren’t you going to shout for joy – for the first time. These outsiders just may not get all the subtleties of our rules, and correctly comprehend our doctrines, customs and beliefs, but by golly they are going to “zealously proclaim” they are different people. And yes we like Jesus then, just may get a little embarrassed by all of this enthusiasm, and shouting and carrying on – especially as they have not quite got full, doctrinally perfect, understanding of it all.
It really is a good story for the church today. I really does present a surprising challenge.
How can we freshly hear the outsider and their need; then how can such then be included; and finally are we really prepared to allow them to shout of their joy in having a new life because of God’s love.
