Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Sermon for the 14th Sunday after Pentecost 2009 (Proper 18B)
Sunday, September 06, 2009 at St. Andrew’s in Montevallo, Alabama
Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23 Psalm 125 James 2:1-17 Mark 7:24-37
Let us pray:
Beloved sisters and brothers, let us look to the Lord.
May only God’s word be spoken,
May God’s word be heard.
In the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.

In the first half of the 7th Chapter of the Gospel According to Mark, that we heard last week, Jesus says that you can't judge a book by its cover; you must look beyond external factors like nationality or religious heritage or social position to get the real story on someone's faith. He then puts this theory into practice by traveling a good 100 miles out of his way into the region of Tyre and Sidon – into the heart of paganland – to make the arduous journey from the theoretical to the practical.

So, here we find ourselves with this week’s gospel that poses difficulties from a variety of angles. Jesus encounters a Gentile woman who wants him to heal her daughter. He says no, essentially calls her and all Gentiles dogs, and states firmly that his mission is only to Israel. She argues with him. He then agrees to heal her daughter. So, what happened?

One thing that has happened in this encounter is that when Jesus answers the woman, regardless of what specifically he says, he is recognizing the woman’s right to speak with him. Just by making the request, she is implying – even if perhaps solely out of desperation – that she has a right to claim his time and power. By arguing, she implies that she is worthy of challenging him. And by answering, Jesus affirms that she has that status in his eyes. This is a profoundly counter-cultural recognition of her dignity. But then Jesus insults her by calling her and her people dogs (and no, there's no trick of Greek translation that can make it about cute little puppies – Jesus is calling her people scavengers of the lowest sort).

But then, to all appearances, Jesus changed his mind – not only about healing one girl, but about his mission. This bothers a lot of people; most sermons I've heard that have spent time with this aspect of the story, have suggested that Jesus really knew all along that his mission was to Gentiles as well as Jews, and that he was only pretending to think otherwise to help the woman increase her faith, or to further demonstrate his power, or some other reason.

Personally, I find that kind of reading offensive as well as unconvincing. If Jesus changed his mind, then Jesus can’t be the kind of eternally changeless “unmoved mover,” to use Plato's phrase, that a lot of people present God as being. But if Jesus didn't change his mind and was just saying things he didn’t believe so that he could accomplish some other end, then Jesus is a liar – and a pretty cruel one at that, since the poor woman is clearly worried about her child.

And besides, who – other than Plato – says that Jesus isn’t allowed to change his mind, to learn something he didn’t know before? Certainly, learning is part of what it means to be human. Try to turn Jesus into someone who knew everything and could do anything from day one and you'll quickly get drawn into fairly silly speculation about how Jesus could have spouted the full Sermon on the Mount (and in any language to boot!) on the day he was born, but faked being able to talk only like the baby he was – perhaps so he wouldn't give away his secret identity, like Clark Kent having to hold back from running at full speed on Smallville. That kind of speculation is evident in some of the later gospels that are outside the Christian canon, but it’s not in any of our canonical gospels, which consistently portray Jesus as a real, honest-to-goodness human being who as a baby needed his diapers changed and who, like the rest of us, learned to walk and talk and function by playing and otherwise interacting with his mother and other people.

In other words, Jesus had to learn words and speech when he was a child. As Luke puts it, “the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom” (Luke 2:40). Jesus changed, not only getting taller and physically stronger, but learning things he didn't know before. If that idea is offensive, it's the offensiveness of the Incarnation, of the idea that God could dwell among us in the flesh. Human beings aren't born knowing and doing everything they will ever be able to know and do. They learn and grow, and in particular, they learn and grow in relationship. Jesus did too – all his life, as human beings do. I might even go so far as to say that part of being made in God's image means that we become more fully ourselves in relationship. Knowing others and loving others changes us, teaching things we didn't know before and helping us to grow into the fullness of our identity and vocation, and our capacity to grow in relationship comes from a God who experiences that too.

I know that doesn’t fit in very well with that picture of God as an “unmoved mover,” never experiencing a change of mind. But that picture is Plato's far more than it is our bible’s. Our scriptures are full of stories of human beings trying to change God’s mind. We call it intercessory prayer, and scripture shows it as working at least sometimes – God is moved to show mercy, to act in deliverance because someone asked. Observing that raises a great many problems of theodicy and the nature of evil in the world, among other things, but there it is, scattered throughout our canonical writings. And though it doesn’t make things any easier for me, I’m glad it’s there.

I'm glad because it is a wonderful corrective to our human tendencies toward arrogance and hardness of heart. Why should we listen to someone else's view on a matter of importance when we already know what the scriptures say, what those words mean, and therefore what the truth of the matter is? If any had the right to that kind of posture, it would be God. But if we take our scriptures seriously, we have to allow the possibility that God too is changed in relationship.
That may sound radical, but I find that radical message in our scriptures; as God is moved after observing the destruction wreaked by the great flood to say “never again,” and hangs God’s bow – God’s weapon – in the sky as a sign of God’s permanent swearing off of such moves. God – the one Plato presents as “unmoved mover” – is MOVED to mercy, and makes a covenant of mercy with all of humanity.

Is it so radical, then, to think that Jesus, God’s agent, might also be moved by his encounter with a Gentile woman seeking healing for her daughter? I not only don't think so but I thank God for people who aren’t willing to take “no” for an answer – even or especially “no” plus “Godtalk” coming from a perceived religious authority which is a particularly potent combination when coming from powerful men – but rather I thank God for people who will push for compassion and mercy. They prove to us that even God isn't the sort to say, “God said it; I believe it; that settles it.”
They teach us something that we would have gathered anyway had we been paying attention when Jesus says, “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” and then makes clear that the “perfect” he means isn't about being static in a “right” position, but rather compassion toward righteous and unrighteous alike (Matthew 5:43-48).
They teach us that no one should be so certain that they are right that she or he cannot make room to listen; and to listen in a way that allows us to be changed by what we hear.
They teach us that God is love, and of course it’s a very poor lover who is eternally unmoved by her or his beloved.

So when Jesus encounters a man who is deaf and therefore mute – someone who is unable to listen and therefore was unable to learn to speak – Jesus is very well prepared.

“Be opened,” he says. He says it not only with compassion for someone who has suffered, but also with the authority of one who has experienced what it is that he’s talking about. That is, after all, what the persistence of the Gentile woman said to him when he was deaf to her cries and therefore unprepared to speak of God's love for all peoples. “Be opened” – and Jesus was.

And so must we. And so shall we.

We must forgive, deepen our love.

In so fulfilling our vocation, we ourselves are healed.

Thanks be to God.
In Christ’s Name,
Amen. Alleluia.