He Called Her a Dog (Sunday Sept 6 2015)

Homily:  Yr B Proper 23, Sept 6 2015, St. Albans

Readings:  Proverbs 22; Psalm 125; James 2:1-17; Mark 7:24-37

He called her a dog.  Then she won the argument, and Jesus changed his mind and he did what she asked.

You know, I was planning to preach on the letter of James today.  In fact, I was looking forward to it.  The letter of James is all about theological integrity.  It’s about practicing what you preach, in real practical ways.  Do you really believe in our Lord Jesus Christ?  Well then let’s see what happens when a rich, well-dressed person and a poor, poorly dressed person walk through the doors of the church.  Do you treat the one differently than the other?  I was looking forward to preaching on that, because it’s good practical stuff, it’s stuff that happens in our lives every day and it reminds us that faith involves more than just affirming theological formulas, it really means a thorough re-orientation of our lives.  Our faith has to make a difference – otherwise it’s dead.

That’s what I was going to talk about this morning, and believe me, I can get into that stuff, it would have been a good sermon.

But then I read the gospel.  And he called her a dog.  Then she won the argument, and Jesus changed his mind, and he did what she asked.

Whoa!  That’s not the Jesus they taught me about in Sunday School.  What happened to the Jesus who is compassionate, who is always nice, who knows everything that’s going on and is always right so he wouldn’t ever have to change his mind.  Does anyone else here find today’s gospel a challenge?

So I figure that we should talk about this a bit.

In today’s gospel, Jesus enters foreign territory.  He goes northwest to the region of Tyre on the Mediterranean coast.  It seems like he just needed to get away.  Up until this point, his ministry has taken place in and around his native land of Galilee, in Jewish territory.  He’s been swarmed by crowds, he’s been called demon-possessed, the authorities are out to get him.  Maybe he just needs a break, so he takes off to foreign territory and holes up in a house there, hoping no one will find him.

But he is found.  There’s a pounding on the door.  A woman, a foreign woman, desperate, begs Jesus to heal her daughter.  But Jesus says 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.”

Now it was common enough in those days for Jews to refer to foreigners as dogs.  And the relationship between Jews and the people of Tyre was particularly bad as a result of a recent conflict.  Jesus may have been simply saying what any other Jew might have said.  How often after all, do we simply parrot the biases and assumptions of our own culture and society?  But it still sounds rude, and it seems to be out of character for Jesus.  And because of this various theologians and commentators on the gospels have done all sorts of mental gymnastics to get around this.  Some explain that Jesus used the diminutive word for dog, so what he was saying was “little dogs”, which sounds a bit nicer.  Others explain that Jesus was just testing the woman, or that the verbal exchange was purely for the benefit of unnamed listeners, or that Jesus, knowing what would happen, was simply setting the woman up for a witty reply.

To be honest, I don’t buy any of those explanations.  What Jesus said still sounds rude to me.  I can’t understand it, I can’t justify it and I can’t explain it. 

But I am very thankful that he said it.  Because through this exchange between Jesus and the woman, whether he intended to or not, Jesus has taught me a lot about two things:  First about the Kingdom of God.  And secondly about discipleship.

In the gospel of Mark, the kingdom of God is always portrayed as this surprising, exciting, boundary-crossing new reality that breaks into our world in the least likely of places.  Even Jesus himself is surprised and stretched when the kingdom of God breaks into his house in Tyre through this encounter with the Syrophoenecian woman.

And discipleship?  Well, discipleship is just a fancy word for “learning”.  We are called to be learners, disciples of Jesus.  And how is it that we learn?  It’s a new school year.  Many of us have just embarked on a new phase of our learning.  We’re taking courses, we’re going to lectures, we’re reading books, soon we’ll be writing papers and exams. 

All of these are good ways to learn.  But the best way to learn, the most profound and life-changing learnings, happen when we encounter and engage with someone who is very different from ourselves.

In today’s gospel, Jesus encounters someone who is different from him in just about every possible way.  He is a Jew, she is a Gentile.  He was born in the land of Israel; she was born in Syrophoenicia.  He is a man, she is a woman.  He’s single, she has a daughter.  He doesn’t know who she is; she’s heard all about him.  He’s seeking a time of rest and solitude; she’s desperate and it’s urgent.

I imagine that the reason that Jesus has holed up in this house in the region of Tyre is that he’s trying to figure some stuff out in his life.  He needs time to seek guidance from God the Father.  He’s trying to flesh out this mission he’s been given, trying to understand what this vocation of Messiah is all about. 

And I can imagine that as he is praying, as he is asking God, ‘tell me what comes next in my ministry’, there is a pounding on the door, and he opens it and the woman throws herself at his feet and begs for his help.

And immediately, Jesus is faced with a dilemma.  Because up until that moment his understanding of his mission, his own theology if you like, tells him that God’s kingdom, God’s grace and healing and salvation would be given first to the Jews, the children, and only later to the Gentiles.  This theological understanding wasn’t unique to Jesus, it was the usual Jewish way of thinking, the understanding reflected in the prophet Isaiah, and in the theology of Paul that you find in his letter to the Romans.  And so Jesus answers the woman by saying not yet, it’s not yet time for his ministry to extend to her and her daughter.

But she won’t accept this.  Sometimes human need trumps theology.  She responds with humility, with insight, with persistence and humour.  “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

There is enough of God’s goodness and love to go around, she is telling him, it doesn’t have to be confined to one people, and even a crumb of God’s grace will be good enough for me and my daughter.

The Syrophoenician woman refuses to accept the limitations of Jesus’ theology.  She refuses to accept his timelines.  She has a greater vision of God’s grace than he does.  She is stretching him, and Jesus allows himself to be stretched by his encounter with her.  The abundance of God’s kingdom is breaking out in ways that surprise even Jesus!  And he goes with it, he learns from it.  He changes his mind!  He broadens his theology and expands his mission.  He heals the woman’s daughter, and then he goes on to travel through foreign lands, feeding crowds just as he did back home, making the deaf to hear and the mute to speak, the very signs that Isaiah had prophesied would mean the in-breaking of God’s kingdom here on earth.  Not just in the land of Israel, but throughout the nations.

Isn’t it remarkable that the same Jesus that calls us to be disciples, to be learners, also shows us what learning looks like.  Learning happens when we encounter someone who is very different from us, and allow ourselves to be stretched, to be transformed, to change our minds, to be led into a greater vision of what God is calling us to do.  Isn’t it remarkable that when Jesus calls on God for guidance, that guidance just may have come in the form of a surprise encounter with a hated foreigner who also happens to be a desperate mother.

And if Jesus can learn from his encounters, if he can be willing to go beyond his perceived limits, well, don’t you think we can too!

We have, right here in this community of St. Albans, an amazing opportunity to do just that.  Because as a new congregation in a dynamic urban neighbourhood right beside the university, we get to encounter new people every week.  How will this change us?  How will we as church be stretched and shaped into a more abundant and life-giving vision of the community we are called to be and of the ministries we are called to engage in?  What might we be asked to do now that we thought could wait until later?

Well, the answer is that we just don’t know!  What we do know is that we are called to be disciples, to be learners, and that our most profound learnings will happen when we encounter and engage with people who are different from us, who challenge us and stretch us.  May God bless us and surprise us by bringing these people into our lives.

Amen.