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| flowers along the way... |
The Beverley Church gathered again...virtually...still dealing with the fact that their basement is under five feet of water. Faithful Evgeny has been tireless in trying to deal with the water. Here are my Labor Day reflections...
So here we are. Labor Day weekend. Even though there are 16 days left of “official summer,” this is it, the traditional end of summer. Vacations come to an end. The time for back to school. (Though the charter school across the street from me has been back for several weeks now, the kids in their uniforms, shirts and ties and all…) We’re heading back to actual children in actual class rooms while churches like ours continue to meet virtually…..signs that like it or not, we are still living in coronavirusworld.
This new Delta variant has us all kinds of anxious as we try and figure out what is going on. Even vaccinated people falling victim to what we call breakthrough covid. Some even dying. It’s all so confusing. The one thing we do know is that the more of us who are vaccinated, the better off we are. And somehow still some of our fellow citizens adamantly refuse to get vaccinated. I just don’t get it.
Many of us are old enough to remember mandated vaccines at school…the polio sugar cubes, the scratched patches on our arms as we conquered polio and smallpox. I just don’t get it…how did common sense and public health become controversial? Enough already.
And on Tuesday, our longest war came to an end with 13 more casualties and tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of Afghani friends vulnerable and at risk. Twenty years…or forty if you go back to Carter and the Mujahideen. To what end?
And last Wednesday, another hurricane, Ida, ravaged the East Coast and the Gulf Coast. New Orleans under water again. Over 100,000 without electricity or water. New York City hjghways and subway systems down. My apartment basement flooded. My former West Park Church flooded. Porters working all night to limit the damage. Back in Pittsburgh, the old downtown of my last parish flooded. Friends in Brooklyn with water filling their first floor. (Is everyone here alright?) Along with raging wildfires out of control in California and the Northwest. Do we need any more evidence of the damage we have done to our environment, our God-given home before we take action?
And so here we are…
Jesus has left the Galilee. Crossed the border into what we no we call Lebanon. The region of Tyre and Sidon. He wants to lay low. To bide his time, to chill for awhile. This place of tension between exposure, revelation and seclusion. But as always, they find him. And this time, since he is in a mainly Gentile region, a place despised by the Jewish community, it's not surprising that the person who seeks him out is a gentile woman, a Syro-Phoenician ethnically speaking. She wants him to cast out a demon from her daughter. (This, by the way is the third of four exorcisms Jesus will perform in Mark.)
Jesus response is shocking to us. He says, "Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs.” And that is every bit as bad as it sounds. That word dogs, in Greek kynarion, is actually for the Jews of that day an ethnic slur, kind of like the n word in its impact. He is literally saying I am only here for my own people.
Her response to him is very clever: "Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.” ( She also might well have asked him if so, what was he doing in her part of the world?) And he immediately gets it. And tells her that even as she spoke those words, her daughter was already healed.
So what’s going on here? For centuries, scholars embarrassed by Jesus’ words, have tried to find a way out for him., Finesse this in one way or another. But it is what it is. He said it. And in today’s culture, that's enough to cost him a job as a newscaster, professor, politician or preacher. I believe it’s best to take the Bible as it is.
If we do, we see Jesus gain a new insight …and grow. Look, if Jesus is in our tradition, fully human as well as fully divine, then as fully human, he can’t be perfect. As fully human, he can’t know everything in advance. As fully human, he can be filled with prejudice and un- reflected upon attitudes. And he shows us that we can grow and change in how we understand our world.
Think about this …in the immediately preceding chapters, Jesus has been engaged in intellectual repartee, debate with high level scholars and religious leaders. And he always wins, he’s always got the right word.
This time, a simple woman, from the “outside,” bests him and leads Jesus to a new understanding of how he is and what his mission is. She helps Jesus understand that there is room in his community for people like you, people like you and me.
What happens next is a more typical healing story. Jesus heals a man who is hearing and speech impaired. What’s significant is what he says to him…be opened. The man’s physical impairments are a metaphor for Jesus…and our…emotional impairments. In his experience with the woman, It is Jesus who is every bit as much in need of healing as the woman’s daughter, And I might add, us.
Jesus says to us, be opened..to reexamining our own preconceptions, prejudices and attitudes and be open to seeing the world in a new way.
Jesus wants the people to be quiet about this healing, Why? Wouldn’t it help spread his fame, grow his following? It’s the same reason Jesus turned down everything Satan offered in the wilderness. Everything he was offered was good…food for people, convincing miracles, political power…but none of that is at the center of what Jesus wants.
We spent weeks studying and reflecting on Jesus as the bread of life. He didn’t want people following him because he could provide food. He didn’t want people following him because he was a magic man who performed miracles. He performs miracles, he heals, out of compassion for the human need he sees in front of him…And that is the heart of the matter.
What he wants from us is to follow him…follow him in a life that recognizes the need in front of us regardless of who it is that is presenting it and to respond with compassion and a commitment to doing whatever is in our power to bring about healing….
Jesus says Be opened…let those with ears to hear, hear…
Amen
Mark 7: 24-37
24From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, 25but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. 26Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27He said to her, "Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." 28But she answered him, "Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." 29Then he said to her, "For saying that, you may go — the demon has left your daughter." 30So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
31Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. 32They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. 33He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. 34Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, "Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened." 35And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. 36Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. 37They were astounded beyond measure, saying, "He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak."
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