Title: “Teaching the Teacher”
9/9/12
23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Rev. Joy R. Haertig
Have you ever wanted to take back words that just sprang out of your mouth, almost with a will of their own?
Have you ever spoken about something based on an unconscious assumption that became all too conscious and uncomfortable as soon as you heard yourself say it out loud? (I’m sure we can all answer affirmatively on both of these!)
In today’s reading from the Gospel of Mark, Jesus has gone into Gentile territory to rest and is approached by a Syrophoenician woman who had everything going against her when she pushed her way into Jesus’ presence.
She was a woman and she was a Gentile. According to cultural and religious law she had no right to speak to him but she is driven by something more powerful than protocol; she is desperately afraid for her daughter’s life.
She bows before Jesus and begs him to cast the demon out of her daughter.
We expect our kind, loving Jesus to say, “Of course I will save your daughter,” but here Jesus shocks us with his words.
Jesus calls the woman a dog. Not a prized family pet but a scavenger, a flea-bitten animal that lives on the street and belongs to no one and has disgusting habits.
In the Middle East, in Jewish, Islamic, and Christian cultures, calling someone a dog is an extreme sign of disrespect. (Remember the reporter who threw his shoes at President George W. Bush and called him a dog in Arabic?)
“It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs”–Jesus tells her.
Some commentaries try and soften the word by saying he meant “puppy” – but the word is dog and dog is what he means.
It is a harsh way of telling her that he came to heal, teach and serve among his own Jewish people, not the Gentiles.
Fortunately for Jesus the woman he insults is a smart, focused momma-bear who is concerned with getting her daughter healed.
She is quick and bold and responds: “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
This woman brings Jesus up short.
Jesus was caught in his own religious and cultural prejudice.
But ---he was able to recognize it for what it wasand be changed for he blesses her heart’s desire and tells her to go home, that her child had been healed.
How do you feel about seeing Jesus like this?
Preaching Professor David Lose writes that “this is clearly Mark’s Gospel ---not the Gospel of John.”
In the Gospel of John Jesus is fully DIVINE and can do no wrong. Jesus was the very embodiment of God, always knowing in advance what will happen and how to act in every situation.
BUT in the Gospel of Mark the author shows us a Jesus who is still living into his understanding and potential as God’s chosen one. Mark presents a very human Jesus who struggles to understand who he is and what he is to do.
Today’s reading is an excellent example of that sometimes painful human process of learning and growth. In the Gospel of Mark you can even “teach the Teacher”.
I see the presence of God in the persistent mother whose love is fierce and tenacious; knowing no boundaries of location, creed or gender, whose only concern was the survival of her little girl.
Pagan or Jew – male or female – rich or poor – none of that mattered – those were surface issues. What mattered was her faith in God’s healing love.
Jesus’ encounter with the tenacious mother changed him.
He was able to learn from his mistakes and to witness God’s fierce love for all people through her.
The teacher was indeed willing to be taught.
If God was not done with Jesus – then surely God is not done with us either!
While I was watching some of the political conventions these past weeks I was struck by how much our country has changed through the decades as we have become more and more diverse. This kind of evolution has not been easy ---it still isn’t easy. Much like the encounter Jesus had with the Syrophonecian woman; we come face to face with our cultural, religious and economic assumptions and prejudices over and over again as we share our tables and work places with people from many different walks of life and are invited (challenged?) to expand the horizons of our understanding and relationships.
I remember well a conversation I had with someone when Obama was running for president four years ago – she was terribly uncomfortable with a black person in that office –for her a black person was an “outsider”. Seeing and hearing an African American person in this way really shook her foundation.
A few weekends back Dawn and I visited my first church outside Portland, Oregon in a little community called Beavercreek. When I stood outside the Fellowship Hall I could still hear the voices of the 65 people that gathered there on Sunday afternoon to discuss whether a lesbian couple who had been members of that church could openly celebrate their 10 year anniversary in that space. I had announced their anniversary in church a week before and there was an up-roar that I had said it in front of the children. And now just 20 years later we are discussing legalizing same-sex marriage in Washington State.
I remember the family from a church I briefly served in California who was terribly upset that their oldest daughter was going to marry a Muslim man. Her mother had always been a very bold and proud feminist and now her daughter was going to wear a head cover?!
As challenging as diversity can be I thank God for the often uncomfortable and slow moving growth that comes with expanding our limited viewpoints. It is one of the ways that God the Great Teacher, teaches us. It is one of God’s ways in helping us learn humility and mutual respect.
It is not easy to think of our kind and compassionate Jesus expressing such prejudice ---but at the same time it can be a helpful reminder that if God was not done with Jesus, then we know God is not done with us either.
Amen.
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