September 7, 2003

Thirteenth Sunday of Pentecost

Mark 7:24-37

 “Gone to the Dogs”

     We had the privilege of doggy-sitting Christina’s hound - Bagel the Beagle - while she was in school in Florida for the past five months.  Kay and I suspect that Christina timed this school thing to coincide with the height of the beagle shedding season.  How can a 25 pound dog shed 30 pounds of hair a day?  Even so, we kind of miss having him around.  He’s a good little mutt.

     Ever since the first caveman decided to feed a dog instead of eat it, people have had pets, but it’s probably only recently that they have been pampered the way they are today.  In biblical times, dogs often roamed the streets and countryside scavenging for food.  They were nature’s garbage disposals, the clean-up crew in the days before garbage trucks.  I think Bagel the Beagle would have liked a job like that.

     Jesus met a woman in need one day and noticed right away she wasn’t a Jew.  The Bible tells us she was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician.  When she asked for help for her sick daughter, Jesus said, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children‘s food and throw it to the dogs.”  By children, he meant the Jews and by dogs, he meant anyone who wasn‘t Jewish.  This is especially clear if we read Matthew’s version of this story, for there he first says to the woman, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

     I’ve often heard Jesus’ bluntness explained away by the argument that he was really just testing the woman to see what she would say.  I think this interpretation comes from the assumption that Jesus wasn’t really like other people, that his being rude is unthinkable.  But Jesus was a real person and what he said to the Gentile woman that day was exactly what a first century Jewish rabbi would have said.  The Jews considered themselves God’s chosen race and no one else had a right to relate to God the way they did.  Jewish men thought that just having a conversation with a woman of another race or faith was a sin.  Jesus was Jewish, raised in a Jewish home and probably educated in a Jewish school.  His words might have been rude, but he was true to his roots.

     But of course, Jesus was more than just an ordinary man or an ordinary rabbi.  As his life’s mission unfolded in the Gospel story (and certainly as he got nearer to the cross) this became more and more clear.  There was a progressive revelation of his divinity.  This incident with a Gentile woman marked an important, even radical step in this revelation. 

     Consider the sweeping implications of the woman’s reply to Jesus: “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs!”  She met Jesus right where he was, but then threw open a door to something more.  She was saying, “Maybe I am a dog in the eyes of the Jews, a foreign woman with no rights, no voice and no respect, but God still has something for me, something so precious even the crumbs of it are sufficient for my need and for my daughter’s need, too!”  And suddenly, it seemed as if something deep and true clicked.  Jesus responded, “For saying that, you may go - the demon has left your daughter!”,  or as Matthew’s version puts it even more eloquently, “Woman, great is your faith!  Let it be done for you as you wish!” 

     Something truly radical happened in that moment.  Centuries of Jewish tradition were redefined.  The whole sense of who was “in’ and who was “out” was turned around.  The boundaries fell.  Religious law succumbed to divine grace.

     Doesn’t this vision of radical inclusiveness still challenge us today?  We eat food at the children’s table this morning, the bread of Holy Communion and thank God for calling us and for forgiving our sins and for opening before us the gates of eternity.  But who are we, the “us” that God calls, the children that God loves?

     This is an old question and it is a new question for it has direct implications for us today, for the ministry of First Church.  We have comfortable ways of doing things, the way we like things to be - the ways of worship and program and we think they are just great and that people on the “outside” should see how wonderful they are and just come inside and become one of us.  But is this happening?  There is a huge spiritual need in the community around us, but are we reaching it?  Are we meeting people where they are to share this bread? 

     I believe we are beginning to, beginning to reach out, but there is so much more we need to do.  We need to find out what boundaries are still there and then lower them.  Are there language or cultural boundaries, style or prejudice boundaries?  We must lower them.  We must see that Communion is about community and that it extends far beyond these walls.

     An amazing thing happened the day Jesus met a Syrophoenecian woman - it was as if God’s grace poured over the boundaries and spread across the earth.  It wasn’t easy for the Jews to accept this and many of them never did.  It’s not any easier for us, but it is Christ’s way.  The Lord feeds us, gives himself for us, to equip us for this radical grace.  We have been given so much.  We have so much to give.  What an amazing thing it will be if we’ll allow him to lead us, allow him to open our hearts and minds to the needs around us.