Be Opened!

Scriptures: Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23   James 2:1-17    Mark 7:24-37

All the poor guy wanted was some “alone time”.  Within the past few days, Jesus had just experienced a major rejection at his hometown synagogue, commissioned his disciples for their first mission and welcomed them back on their return, learned of the death of John the Baptist, fed a crowd of 5,000 people, walked on water, healed the crowds at Genessaret, and dealt with a run-in with some of the Jewish religious establishment.  Can we blame Jesus for having a bit of a Greta Garbo moment, for wanting to say, “I vant to be alone.”

Anywhere he went in his home territory, the crowds would recognize him, and so it was time for a road trip.  Jesus headed north into Tyre, located in modern day Lebanon, a distance of over 30 miles, nearly two days’ walk on foot.  Mark tells us “he entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there.  Yet he could not escape notice”…..Jesus wanted to be alone, but ….curses, foiled again.  A Syrophoenician woman – that is to say, a Gentile, a non-Jew - came into the house and threw herself at Jesus’ feet, threw herself on Jesus’ feet, begging for Jesus to heal her daughter, who was possessed by a demon. We’re not told how the woman had heard about Jesus – though we do know that Jesus had healed a man in Gentile territory once before, a demon-possessed man who lived among the tombs.  Though it was a distance away, perhaps word of this healing had reached the Syrophoenician woman. And also, earlier in Mark’s gospel, we’re told that among the crowds witnessing Jesus’ healings by the Sea of Galilee were people from the region of Tyre, and perhaps their stories had spread.  In any case, this woman – this foreign woman was not only on Jesus’ doorstep, but throwing herself at – and on top of - Jesus’ feet.

Maybe it was because Jesus was tired and annoyed at the interruption, but Jesus’ initial response to the woman doesn’t sound very…..Jesusy.  “Let the children be fed first,” Jesus said, “for it’s not fair to take the children’s food and toss it to the dogs.”  Did Jesus just call the woman a dog?  Why, yes, Jesus did.  Actually, the word “dog” was not uncommon language for Jews to use in referring to Gentiles, non-Jews….but it’s jarring to us just the same.  And Jesus’ reasoning doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense….it’s as if there’s only so much healing power available, and if Jesus heals a Gentile – a dog – it means there will be less healing power available to  Jews – that is to say, to the children.  It’s an odd argument to make, especially since Jesus had not many days before fed five thousand people with a few loaves and fish.  With God, there’s enough bread to go around, but not enough healing power? Really?

As shocking as Jesus’ words are to us, the original hearers of this story would have been more shocked by the behavior of the woman….this woman who, in this culture, was three times an other – a woman, a non-Jew, and from a different country…separated from Jesus by boundaries of gender, religion, and nationality.  Other, other, and other.  Remember that, in that patriarchal culture, for a woman to approach a man she didn’t know, and then to touch him, to throw herself at his feet, just wasn’t done.  And for a Gentile to approach a Jew, speak to a Jew, let alone touch him, again just wasn’t done.  As much as Jesus words may put us off, for Mark’s original audience, the woman’s behavior would likely have freaked them out….in that culture, this foreign woman was just coming on to Jesus way too strong. 

So the woman violated a number of social boundaries by approaching Jesus as she did, and Jesus responded in a way that makes us uncomfortable, but in a way that was very characteristic of his culture.  The conversation could have ended there, but it didn’t, because the person who approached Jesus was not only a foreigner, not only a Gentile, not only a woman – but was also a mother.  And the mothers here today don’t need me to tell you that if your child is sick, you’re going to do anything – walk through fire even, if it comes to that – to get help for your child.   So the woman, who we already know is no shrinking violet,  comes back at Jesus hard – “Lord, even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the children’s table” – and it’s notable that, up to this point in Mark’s gospel, the only person who has addressed Jesus as Lord is this woman. Ok, Jesus, ya wanna call me a dog – fine, at least give me the consideration that a dog would get in being allowed to eat the crumbs.  At least throw some little scrap of healing at my sick daughter. And Jesus basically says, “For saying that, you win; your daughter is healed.”

We’re told that Jesus then took a roundabout route through Gentile regions – going by way of Sidon, which was another 15 miles further away from his home territory and then heading toward the Decapolis, ten predominantly Gentile towns along the sea of Galilee.  The people brought Jesus a deaf man with a speech impediment, and Jesus healed him, touching his ears and tongue and saying in Aramaic “Ephphatha” meaning “Be opened.”  And the crowd is amazed, saying, “He has done everything well, he even makes the deaf hear and the mute talk.”

“Be opened!”  These were the words of Jesus to the deaf man, but in a sense, these were also the words of the Syrophoenician woman to Jesus – “Be opened!  Don’t limit your healing powers only to those of your own people.  Open them up to others as well.”  As Christians, we affirm that Jesus was fully human as well as fully divine, and as one who was fully human, he had to deal with the cultural baggage of the people among whom he lived….and it was out of that cultural baggage that Jesus initially responded to the woman in calling her a dog.  I believe that the woman’s strong comeback startled Jesus into looking past the blinders of his culture, into being opened to a larger vision of who it was he was being called to heal.  What had initially been for Jesus a very unwelcome interruption became a moment for God’s grace to come into play, for the woman and for Jesus.

How about us?  Like Jesus before his encounter with the Syrophoenician woman, we all have our comfort zones and our cultural baggage.  We all have those groups of people with whom we are comfortable, other groups of people to whom we might not give the time of day, and still other groups of people that we might cross the street to avoid.  But, like Jesus, we in the church are called to mission.  In fact, we’re called to Jesus’ mission, to be Christ’s hands and feet in the world.  Might we, in our mission, sometimes be like the man whom Jesus’ healed, deaf to the cries of those outside our comfort zones, unable to speak the Gospel in a way understandable beyond our own in-group?  Might Jesus be saying to us, “Be opened!”

Our reading from the letter of James gives us a very specific example of what it looks like when we’re not opened.  James give us a vivid image, a sort of pictorial instruction manual of how not to do church:  Two people walk into a church.  One is dressed to the nines, with fine clothes and gold ring.  The other is wearing ragged, dirty clothing, may have a few flies buzzing around their head, and probably smells a little bit ripe if you get close enough, perhaps with the faintest hint of the scent of cheap whisky on their breath.  And the ushers are falling all over themselves helping out the well-dressed guy while those same ushers are trying to hide the raggedly dressed man in the corner.  A few years ago, the United Church of Christ national office put out an advertisement that looked very much like a modern day version of our reading from James – in succession, a black single mom with a crying baby, a gay couple, a middle-eastern man, a man on a walker, and an apparently homeless woman sat down on a pew inside this grand looking church, and as each sat down, a hand was shown behind the scenes pressing a big red button that ejected these undesirables out of their pews…they literally went flying up in the air and out of the church.  Of course, the advertisement was trying to make the point that the UCC isn’t like that….and of course, the Presbyterian Church isn’t either.  

We say our churches are welcoming, and I believe we sincerely want our churches to be welcoming.  But here’s an interesting exercise to try – to walk into our churches and ask “Who’s missing?”  Not just “who of our regular members isn’t here?”….on a holiday weekend like this one, lots of our regulars are away, but will be back next Sunday or the Sunday after.  But, “who’s missing?  What groups of people aren’t here?  Non-whites?  Recent immigrants? Gay folk?  People who have been through divorce? Single parents?  People in recovery from addiction?  People living on public assistance or disability? Who isn’t our church reaching?  Whose cries for help aren’t we hearing?  Who isn’t able to hear the good news of Jesus in our churches, in a way they can understand?

Here’s a poem, based on Matthew 25, that brings home the message of our readings from the letter of James and the Gospel of Mark.  The title is “Listen, Christian”

“I was hungry,
and you formed a humanities club and discussed my hunger.
Thank you.
I was imprisoned and you crept off quietly
to your chapel in the cellar and prayed for my release.
I was naked

and in your mind you debated the morality of my appearance.
I was sick and you knelt and thanked God for your health.
I was homeless
and you preached to me about the spiritual shelter of the love of God.
I was lonely
and you left me alone to pray for me.
Christian,
you seem so holy; so close to God.
But I am still very hungry,
and lonely,
and cold...”

A pushy, even overbearing foreign woman pushed Jesus to a new understanding of his mission, a new understanding that included this woman, and people like her.  James pushed his readers to understand that faith is an action word, that praying can be done with folded hands or with open arms or with marching feet.  May God likewise push our congregations out of our comfort zones, that in unplanned encounters with unexpected people, we too may be surprised by grace.  Amen.