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09/05/21 – Faith with Feet

FAITH WITH FEET

September 5, 2021
15th Sunday after Pentecost
Proverbs  22:1-2,8-9,21-23: James 2:1-17; Mark 7:24-37
Rev. Denise Clark-Jones

When I got my first smartphone, my middle child showed me how to set up my calendar to remind me of my appointments. She told me she had also put in family birthdays. When July rolled around, I received a text alert:” Your favorite child’s birthday is July 17th.” When I mentioned I had received the text message, she laughed. She was just kidding… sort of. Growing up as an only child, I didn’t experience the constant competition between siblings. I’m not sure anyone understands that you can love your children equally until you have more than one child of your own. I know many adults who are still hurt from the perceived favoritism of a sibling. Favoritism rears its ugly head in schools, the workplace, the marketplace, any social setting one can think of — even churches. Oh, how we despise favoritism – unless we are the ones benefitting.

Yet in our gospel reading from Mark, it appears Jesus is showing his favoritism and harsh judgment of a Gentile woman. This is one of the most troubling passages in the gospels. From the earliest of New Testament scholars, there have been myriads of theories proposed that attempted to make Jesus’ words to the Syrophoenician woman appear less harsh, but there is just no getting around the fact that referring to the woman and her daughter as dogs was an insult. Calling someone a dog was just as much of a slur then as it is today. Among Jews, Gentiles were referred to as dogs. Dogs were given food not wanted by humans. How could Jesus have said: “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs?”  It is believed that the children to which he referred were the children of Israel, the Jews.

The Syrophoenician woman was a gentile. In fact, she was from an area that would have once been an enemy of the nation of Israel. The region Jesus was in was Tyre. At the time Mark is thought to have been written, there was a Jewish rebellion against Rome between 66 and 70. The Jewish historian, Josephus described the Tyrians as enemies of the Jews. Why was Jesus, a Jew, traveling in the Gentile territory? Since Mark doesn’t tell us why Jesus went there, we can only assume he was led there by the Holy Spirit. Yet it seems he still understood his mission to be directed only towards the Jews, his own people. Did God change God’s own mind? It had happened before according to the Hebrew Scriptures Jesus knew so well. Like an e-mail that gets delayed in cyberspace, it appears there was a gap between God sending the message and Jesus receiving it.

This disturbing story indicates a turning point in Mark. Until this point, all of Jesus’ healing miracles have been performed in Jewish territory, but now he has entered a gentile area for the first time. The next healing mentioned, the deaf and mute man, was in another Gentile area. The Syrophoenician woman acknowledged Jesus’ insult, but this was her daughter who was plagued by a demon. She had such faith that Jesus had the power to heal, to put her daughter’s mind at peace, that she insisted on Jesus giving her the smallest touch of grace and believed that would be sufficient. Jesus saw her faith and got the message. God was expanding Jesus’ mission to the gentiles. God’s love was not heaped on the Jews exclusively. God’s love was infinitely abundant to share with all God’s children – not just the first Chosen Ones.

We can empathize with the pleading woman. Those that have children recognize that fierce love that makes us go to any length desire to get healing for our sick child. This past week we watched parents dropping their young children over the fence at the Kabul airport. They were willing to risk never seeing their child again to save them from possible death at the hands of the Taliban. These parents were probably also afraid of their children’s future lives under Taliban rule. This is the same situation parents in Central America have found themselves in, living in villages controlled by gangs. These parents have been willing to risk their own lives and being separated from their children to escape the gang violence. Thousands of people have crossed the Mediterranean Sea from African countries to escape war and famine, hoping to reach Europe.  Syrian families have languished for years on the border waiting for some country to let them in. Yet the wealthier nations do not want to let these people in. They are poor, they have a different religion and language, their skin is darker.  Not the favored immigrants. Proverbs tells us this attitude is not wise: “Those who are generous are blessed, for they share their bread with the poor.22Do not rob the poor because they are poor or crush the afflicted at the gate.” In Matthew 25, with Jesus’ last words to his disciples before his crucifixion, he gave his commission with a warning: “Whatever you do to the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you do to me.” He sent them out with work to do: ‘feed the hungry, give the thirsty something to drink, care for the sick, visit the imprisoned.’

So, let’s not get hung up on Jesus’ momentary lapse in compassion. When you think about it, if Jesus knew everything God was going to do through him, he wouldn’t be fully human, would he? If Jesus knew it all in advance there would be no need for faith, trust, and obedience. The woman had faith, but she could not help her daughter. Jesus supplied the works. Together, they brought healing to the young girl possessed by the demons of mental illness. The daughter reclaimed God’s gift of life and was able to be accepted back into her community.

Post-Resurrection, Christ’s followers came to know that faith and works join together to accomplish Christ’s mission in the world. We glean this understanding in the verses from James’ epistle we heard this morning “What good is it, my brothers and sisters if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” (2:14-17): The bible tells us God only plays favorites with those in need. Jesus demonstrated that same favoritism in his words and actions.

Jesus’ final meal with his disciples revealed God’s non-partial, all-inclusive love. Though he would be betrayed by one of his own disciples, denied by another, and abandoned by the others at the cross, he hosted a final meal with them all. No one was given too much or too little. All were fed. He told them to keep repeating what he did that night so that they would remember. After his resurrection the risen Christ repeated the blessing of the meal and the breaking of the bread “and their eyes were opened.” It was then they realized who he was, remembered all he had taught them, and went out into the world to feed others with the bread of life and put bread on the empty tables of those in need. They understood what the sixteenth century St. Theresa of Avila put into words:

“Christ has nobody now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has nobody now on earth but yours.”

This is the table where not only bread but also all human boundaries are broken. There are no favorites. Everyone has a seat at the table and there is enough for all.

 

Amen. May it be so!

 

 

 

 

 

 

© Rev. Denise Clark-Jones, 2021, All Rights Reserved
Westminster Presbyterian Church | 1420 W. Moss Ave. | Peoria, Illinois 61606
WestminsterPeoria.org  | 309.673.8501