Repentance - a Sermon about Jesus, the Syrophoenician Woman, and Refugees

Scripture:  Mark 7:24-37
Windsor United Church
September 6, 2015

I want to talk this morning about the Syrophoenician Woman.  The woman who approached Jesus to ask him to heal her daughter who had an unclean spirit.  And Jesus insulted her, and said “no.”  This is a difficult story.  Jesus does not come off in a very flattering light.

Let’s take a few steps back.  Up until this point in his ministry, Jesus had been hanging around the Galilee region – the area around the sea of Galilee which is located in the north of the modern-day country of Israel. Jesus had been teaching and healing and performing miracles; and he had attracted a crowd of followers as well as his inner circle of disciples.

At the beginning of today’s reading, Jesus leaves the region of Galilee and heads north-west to the region of Tyre.  This is on the shores of the Mediterranean ocean, in the modern-day country of Lebanon.  More importantly, for our story this morning, Jesus has left the land of the Jewish people, and is traveling among the Gentiles – the non-Jews.  We aren’t told if his disciples have travelled with him or not – as far as our narrator is concerned, Jesus and the woman who approaches him are the only two characters in today’s story.

And so Jesus has traveled to a foreign land, and he enters a house, trying to escape notice, we are told.  I wonder why Jesus was trying to escape notice?  Maybe his reputation for wisdom and healing and miracles has followed him, and he is looking for some peace and quiet.  Maybe he stands out as a foreigner – looking different and sounding different and with different customs.  We aren’t told why he doesn’t want anyone to know that he is there.  But he isn’t alone for long.

Enter the Syrophoenician woman.  Somehow she knows that Jesus is in that particular house.  Somehow she knows that he is able to heal her daughter.  And so she enters the house, and falls down at Jesus’ feet, and she begs Jesus to heal her daughter.

Now this would have been a highly unusual occurrence.  First of all, it is a woman approaching Jesus – in the culture of the place and time, it would have been unheard of for a woman to approach a man that she wasn’t related to.  Secondly, we are told that she isn’t Jewish – she is Greek and follows different beliefs and traditions.  Why did she think to approach this Jewish healer to ask him to heal her daughter?

I can’t help but wonder about this nameless woman.  What was her story?  Why was she the one to approach Jesus to beg for healing for her daughter?  Maybe she was a widow with no other family to request the healing.  Maybe her family had abandoned her and her daughter due to her daughter’s condition.  Or maybe she was just so desperate for a miracle that she was willing to cross the cultural and societal boundaries.  We don’t know.

So there she is, at Jesus’ feet, begging for a miracle that would heal her daughter.  And Jesus says no.  Well, not quite.  He insults her by calling her a dog, and tells her that because she is not Jewish, she and her young daughter are not deserving of a healing miracle.

Wait, what?!  This sounds so unlike the Jesus that we normally hear about – the Jesus whose message was of unconditional love.  Jesus, the perfect son of God.  Think of the Jesus that we sing about in our hymn books – Jesus, friend of little children.  Jesus, lover of my soul.  Jesus, priceless treasure.  Jesus, teacher, brave and bold.  Jesus, joy of loving hearts, the fount of life, the light of all.  Is this the Jesus who would insult a woman begging at his feet?  Is this the Jesus who would refuse healing to a young girl?

And that is why the title of this sermon is “Jesus had a bad day.”  Maybe he got up on the wrong side of the bed that morning.  Jesus was fully God, but Jesus was also fully human; and in his first response to the Syrophoenician woman, his human nature is shining through.  According to the human culture of his time and place, she probably shouldn’t have approached him.

Some theologians have tried to explain Jesus’ response by saying that he must have been testing the faith of the woman.  But if that is the case, then why aren’t we told that.  There is no verse in the text that says, “Jesus said this to test her faith.”  Without evidence, I have difficulty accepting this explanation.  Other theologians have tried to explain her response by saying that he wasn’t really insulting her – dogs are pets, after all.  But further analysis of the language used shows that the word “dog” probably had a meaning closer to the derogatory and insulting word in modern English for a female dog that I’m not going to repeat here.  Jesus wasn’t calling her a cute little puppy.

If the story ended here, we would be in trouble.  Why would Jesus, friend of little children, insult a woman and her daughter this way, and then deny them healing?  And why would the author of Mark’s gospel include this story that doesn’t show Jesus at his best in his re-telling of the life of Jesus?  Why not jump straight to the punch line?  Why not jump straight to the healing and leave out the dialogue?

It is what happens next that is amazing.  After being insulted, and after being denied the miracle that she so desperately longs for, the woman doesn’t leave.  She argues back.  She argues back to Jesus, a man with so much more power and privilege than she could ever dream of having.  She reminds him that God’s love and God’s healing isn’t limited.  Healing her daughter, or anyone else from outside of the Jewish faith, won’t diminish the love and healing available for those on the inside.  She reminds Jesus that God’s kingdom is one of abundance, not of scarcity.

And Jesus listens to her.  Jesus tells her that he has healed her daughter.  She leaves the house where Jesus is staying, and goes home, and finds that her daughter has been healed.

All through the Old Testament, the history of the Jewish people, there have been prophets who have come forward.  These were women and men who were led by God, especially in times when the kings and leaders and people had forgotten or turned away from God’s commandments.  They would speak to the kings and leaders and people through words and actions, calling on them to repent and change their ways, to turn back to God.

I believe that the nameless woman in today’s story was speaking with a prophetic voice.  She saw wrong, and she spoke out against the wrong.  In our world, we so often operate under the assumption of scarcity – there isn’t enough to go around, so if I give what I have to those people then there won’t be enough for me.  This prophetic woman sees Jesus slipping into this way of thinking, and she calls him on it.  She reminds him that God’s kingdom isn’t limited by scarcity.  There is always more than enough to go around.

And Jesus hears this prophetic voice, and he repents.  Repentance is more than just saying that you are sorry.  Repentance is being sorry, but then also changing your ways to correct what was wrong.  Repentance is living in to the apology.  Repentance is changing your ways so that they are lined up with God’s ways once again.  Jesus hears the prophetic voice, recognizes that his original answer was wrong, and he changes his answer and his actions so that the woman’s daughter is healed.

And that, to me, is the heart of this story.  That is why the full story was included in Mark’s telling of the life of Jesus.  Jesus was modeling repentance – he recognized that he was doing something wrong; and rather than stubbornly persisting in his ways, he was able to change his course of action.

As I was preparing this week’s sermon, I couldn’t help but think of the current situation with refugees trying to escape war in Syria and Iraq to make it to Europe and beyond.  There was that gut-wrenching, heart-breaking picture of a dead toddler, Aylan Kurdi, on a beach in Turkey that went viral this week.  There are stories of boats overturned in the Mediterranean Ocean, refugees waiting in train stations, journeys of hundreds of kilometers on foot.  And at the same time, our own country of Canada is accepting 10,000 fewer refugees per year than it did just a decade ago.  In the past decade, over 100,000 refugee claimants have been detained and then deported from Canada.  Jesus said no to a healing requested; he repented; and a young girl was healed.  Canada and other countries have said no to requests for refuge and asylum; we haven’t repented; and the bodies of babies are washing up on beaches.

I’m not going to preach party politics from the pulpit; but the Christian message is a political message.  Jesus taught us, through words and actions, that the core of God’s message was to love God and to love our neighbours.  We are to love our neighbours, even when they don’t look like us.  We are to love our neighbours, even when they don’t sound like us.  We are to love our neighbours, even when they have different customs than us.  We are to love our neighbours, even when they have different beliefs or religions than us.  We are to love our neighbours, even when they have a different social standing than us.  We are to love our neighbours, period.  The world says that if we help those people and their children, then there won’t be enough for us and for our children.  God’s kingdom says that there is always more than enough for everyone.

And so my question for you today is how can we take the message from today’s gospel reading to heart?  How can we be like Jesus, and not only recognize when wrong has been done, but then to take concrete actions to correct that wrong so that our actions are lined up with God’s teachings?  How can we live the gospel message today here in Canada, in Nova Scotia, in Windsor, in our communities, in our churches?

Prayers of the People

Sunday August 2, 2015

William Black Memorial United Church (Glen Margaret)

Refrain:  Lord Listen to your Children Praying (Voices United 400)

Refrain:          Lord, listen to your children praying,

                        Lord, send your Spirit in this place;

                        Lord, listen to your children praying,

                        send us love, send us power, send us grace!

Loving Parent, mother and father of all of us,

We approach you today like children,

            thankful for all that you have given us.

We thank you for both the rain and the sunshine this week,

            helping gardens to grow and flourish.

We thank you for the every-day gifts:

            for food to eat

            and for roofs over our heads

            and for safe water to drink

            and for the freedom to gather to worship.

We offer our thanks.

Loving God, hear our prayer.

Refrain

Loving Parent, mother and father of all of us,

We approach you today like children,

            railing against the injustice of this world.

We pray for a world where the killing of a lion by a human

provokes a bigger outcry than the starvation of millions of humans caused by other humans.

We pray for a world where the latest celebrity gossip

attracts more attention than the lack of safe water to drink on First Nations reserves in our own country.

We pray for a world where too many politicians

            make decisions based on the next election rather than the effect on people.

We pray for a world where too many people react out of a fear of scarcity

            rather than a trust in God’s abundance.

Loving God, hear our prayer.

Refrain

Loving Parent, mother and father of all of us,

We approach you today like children,

            with hearts open to everyone that we meet.

We pray for all who are sick,

all who are hungry,

all who are travelling,

all who are seeking,

all who are questioning,

all who are young,

all who are old,

all who are in-between.

Loving God, hear our prayer.

Refrain

Loving Parent, mother and father to all of us,

We pray all of these prayers in the name of Jesus Christ,

            who taught us to pray, saying:

Our Father, who art in heaven…

What if? A Semi-Spoken-Word-Sermon

Sunday July 26
Kingston Pastoral Charge
Proper 12
John 6:1-15
Ephesians 3:14-21

What if?

What if Jesus walked into a church today

            a church somewhere in Canada

            a church somewhere in Nova Scotia,

and asked the same question that he asked

            on that grassy hill

            by the sea of Galilee?

“Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?”

How are we going to feed these hungry people?

5000 hungry people.

            5000 people.

            That’s a little bit more than the population of this town.

            5000 hungry people.

What if Jesus asked us that question today?

I can imagine some of the churches that I know.  Good people, all of them.  I can imagine treasurers and finance committees raising concerns about the budget – “but we only have this much money to spend on outreach this year, so we can only feed this number of people.”  I can imagine worship committees concerned about planning liturgies – “it is more important to feed the spirit than to feed the body.”  I can imagine property committees looking at fire regulations and tables and chairs – “the church hall only seats 150 people, so we will have to have 34 seatings in order to get everyone fed.”  I can imagine UCWs and Outreach Committees working together to fundraise the money – “in 5 years, we should have raised enough to provide a meal for everyone.”

What if?

What if Jesus walked into a church today

            a church somewhere in Canada

            a church somewhere in Nova Scotia

and asked the same question that he asked

            on that grassy hill

            by the sea of Galilee?

“Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?”

How are we going to feed these hungry people?

Would we react like Philip reacted?  Would we throw up roadblocks in the way of Jesus’ question?  “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.”  Actually, Philip’s math isn’t too far off, even today.  Minimum wage in Nova Scotia is $10.60 an hour.  Assuming 40 hours of work per week and 52 weeks of work per year, this works out to an annual salary of $22,048.  Six months’ salary would therefore be $11,024.  Assuming that a loaf of bread costs $3.50, for six months’ salary at minimum wage we could buy 3,150 loaves of bread – just over half a loaf for each of the 5000 people who have gathered.

What if?

What if Jesus walked into a church today

            a church somewhere in Canada

            a church somewhere in Nova Scotia

and asked the same question that he asked

            on that grassy hill

            by the sea of Galilee?

“Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?”

How are we going to feed these hungry people?

Would we react like Andrew reacted, offering impossible solutions to the problem at hand?  “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish.  But what are they among so many people?”  Shared among 5000 people, each person would get barely a crumb of that bread.  Do we do that today?  When faced with a problem, do we talk around in circles?  Do we propose non-solutions, and argue back and forth until the problem is lost amidst the debate?

What if?

What if Jesus walked into a church today

            a church somewhere in Canada

            a church somewhere in Nova Scotia,

and asked the same question that he asked

            on that grassy hill

            by the sea of Galilee?

“Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?”

How are we going to feed these hungry people?

We are told that when Jesus asked the question, he already knew what the answer was going to be.  Jesus already knew that God was going to provide for the people gathered.  John writes that Jesus asked the question to test Philip.  What was the test?  Did Philip pass the test?  Was Jesus testing Philip’s creative problem solving skills?  Was he testing Philip to see if Philip had paid attention to Jesus’ previous miracles?  Was he testing Philip’s faith – could Philip see though the problem to God?  Could Philip trust that God would provide abundantly?

What if?

What if Jesus walked into a church today

            a church somewhere in Canada

            a church somewhere in Nova Scotia,

and asked the same question that he asked

            on that grassy hill

            by the sea of Galilee?

“Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?”

How are we going to feed these hungry people?

What if?

What if instead of reacting out of fear

            or bewilderment

            or a sense of scarcity,

What if we could react like the young boy,

            offering his lunch to Jesus and the disciples?

Knowing that his five loaves of bread and two fish

were nowhere near enough to feed a crowd of 5000.

Knowing that once he gave away his bread and fish,

            he would go hungry with no food to eat.

Knowing that he had followed Jesus a long way to get there,

            and that he would have a long walk home afterwards.

What if we could react like that young boy?

I can just imagine that nameless boy – one boy who, along with 4999 others, made up the crowd that followed Jesus and the disciples.  I can imagine his mother packing his lunch for him in the morning, with freshly-baked bread, tucking in a few extra loaves so that he could share with his friends.  Maybe they bought the fish from a fisherman, or maybe his family caught them in the Sea of Galilee.  He had enough food for himself, and maybe a bit extra; and then he gave it all away.  He trusted Jesus.  He trusted that Jesus would take whatever it was that he could offer, and make it enough to feed the whole crowd.

What if?

What if Jesus walked into a church today

            a church somewhere in Canada

            a church somewhere in Nova Scotia,

and asked the same question that he asked

            on that grassy hill

            by the sea of Galilee?

“Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?”

How are we going to feed these hungry people?

What if we could offer whatever we have to Jesus,

            whatever small amount

            a ridiculously small amount

            so small as to be laughable

What if we could offer that to Jesus,

            and have the faith to know that Jesus will see it as enough.

Jesus took the loaves and the fish.

Jesus gave thanks for the loaves and the fish.

            Gave thanks to God for providing.

            Gave thanks to the boy for sharing.

Jesus began sharing the loaves and the fish

            and he kept sharing

            and he kept sharing

            and he kept sharing

Until all 5000 people had been feed.

Until all 5000 people had eaten enough.

Until all 5000 people had eaten as much as they wanted.

If we look around the world today, there is so much cause for despair.  There are so many hungry people in the world – many, many more than just 5000.  There are so many people living without adequate shelter.  There are so many people living in fear.  There are so many people crying out for justice.  There are so many people living in war zones.  It is so easy to look at the problems of today’s world from the perspective of Philip and Andrew.  We don’t have enough resources to solve all of the world’s problems, so why should we even try.

But then we can look to the example of the boy.  He knew that what he could contribute wasn’t enough.  But he did anyways.  He did what he could do, and trusted that God would do the rest.  He trusted that God is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine.

Jesus taught about God’s kingdom of abundance, where there is more than enough for everyone.  Too often, the world follows a teaching of scarcity – a fear that there isn’t enough to go around, so we should look out only for ourselves.  If that one boy had followed this teaching, he would have kept what food he had for himself.  But instead he took an attitude of abundance, and he shared, and trusted that there would be more than enough.  And there were twelve baskets of leftovers at the end of the feast.

What if?

What if Jesus walked into a church today

            a church somewhere in Canada

            a church somewhere in Nova Scotia,

and asked the same question that he asked

            on that grassy hill

            by the sea of Galilee?

“Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?”

How are we going to feed these hungry people?

What if?

What if each person, each group, acted like the young boy?

What if each person, each group, gave,

            trusting in God’s abundance?

What if each person, each group,

acted as though we believe in the God that Paul wrote about,

God who is able to accomplish abundantly,

            far more than all we can ask or imagine.

What if?

Learning to Walk in the Dark - Barbara Brown Taylor

I finished reading this book this afternoon, and I don't think that I can start another book until I have managed to get some of my thoughts about this book out of my system.  And there is so much to think about.

This book was mentioned by my Spiritual Director this winter when we were discussing fears.  I didn't have time to read it then, but I added it to my ever-growing TBR list.  Once summer holidays started, I put my name on the hold list for it at the local library.

"… dark and light, faith and doubt, divine absence and presence, do not exist at opposite poles.  Instead, they exist with and within each other, like distinct waves that roll out of the same ocean and roll back into it again.  As different as they are, they come from and return to the same source.  If I can trust that - if I can give my heart to it and remain conscious of it - then faith becomes a verb, my active response to the sacred reality that the best religions in the world can only point to." [1]

I have never been afraid of the dark, though I know many people are.  I don't even like to sleep with a clock radio in the room (as both of my sisters will attest to), since the light disturbs the darkness when I sleep.  (Besides, I am blind as a bat and can't read the numbers without putting my glasses on, so it is purposeless light.)  I have some lovely memories built around nighttime and the dark:

• Cooking outside in Tanzania after dark on a charcoal stove, watching the bats swoop out of the rafters chasing down mosquitoes.
• Cross-country skiing by moonlight with my father, hearing coyotes yipping off in the distance.
• Watching the sun set in Zambia and the dusk and darkness rolling in in rapid succession.
• Waking up in a tent in the middle of the night on a canoe trip, and lying there in the dark thinking about the day past and the day to come.

I love the dark.  I enjoy being in the darkness.  I have struggled with the metaphor of light for God.  It is a very powerful metaphor.  The smallest light can transform the darkness in the same way that God can transform anything that God comes in contact with.  And yet if God is only ever associated with light, then where is God in the darkness?

And to take the metaphor one step further, darkness is often associated with pain, with suffering, with confusion, with all of the negative things that happen in life.  If God is only associated with light, then where is God at these "dark" times?

So many scripture verses associate God with light, and the implication is that darkness is anti-God.  "God is light and in him there is no darkness at all." (1John 1:5)  "For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light.  Live as children of light - for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true."  (Ephesians 5:8-9)  "Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, "I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life."  (John 8:12)  Even one of my favourite verses in the whole bible villainizes darkness:  "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it." (John 1:5)

Over the course of a year, half of our hours are spent in darkness.  In life, difficult times - times of pain and sorrow and suffering and questioning and despair and confusion - are just as real as the joy-full, loving, relaxing times.  If God is only ever associated with "light", where is God in the "dark"?

In the first biblical creation story, "the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.  The God said, 'Let there be light'; and there was light.  And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness." God's first recorded creative act was speaking light into being.  Was darkness created, or does the creation story assume the scientific explanation of darkness being the absence of light?  If God proclaimed that light was good, does this imply that darkness is bad?

These are some of the questions that this book wrestles with.  These are some of the questions that I have wrestled with, and continue to wrestle with.

This book comes to similar conclusions as I have.  God is always present - in times of literal or metaphorical light; as well as in times of literal or metaphorical darkness.  God is.  Light is a powerful metaphor for God, but it shouldn't be the only metaphor; because as soon as a metaphor is used exclusively, it restricts that which it is describing.

"God created earth and heavens;

            God created day and night.

God creates each day that follows –

            holy darkness, shining light." [2]  

This book points towards some of the encounters with God in the time of the ancestors that take place at night or in the dark - Abraham is led outside at night by God and is told that his descendants will outnumber the stars (Genesis 15:5); Jacob encounters God twice at night (Genesis 28:10-17, 32:22-32); the Passover and Exodus from Egypt happens at night (Exodus 11 and 12); Moses encounters God in a dense cloud on top of a mountain (Exodus 19:7-25); God calls Samuel at night (1Samuel 3:2-18); Elijah hears the "still, small voice of God" in a cave at night (1 Kings 19:9-12).

If we limit God to the metaphor of "light," we create a "God-in-a-Box" who behaves the way that we want God to behave.  If we embrace a multiplicity of metaphors, we will have a more broad picture of a God who is wholly/holy mystery, beyond all human understanding.

"Instead, I have been given the gift of lunar spirituality, in which the divine light available to me waxes and wanes with the season.  When I go out on my porch at night, the moon never looks the same way twice.  Some nights it is as round and bright as a headlight; other nights it is thinner than the sickle hanging in my garage.  Some nights it is high in the sky, and other nights low over the mountains.  Some nights it is altogether gone, leaving a vast web of stars that are brighter in its absence.  All in all, the moon is a truer mirror for my soul than the sun that looks the same way every day." [3]

[1] Barbara Brown Taylor, Learning to Walk in the Dark (New York: Harper One, 2014), 148.
[2] Springs Gush Forth, verse 3.  http://katesnextgreatadventure.blogspot.ca/2014/11/hymn-writing-assignment.html
[3] Taylor, Learning to Walk in the Dark, 8.

The End of My First Year

I survived my first year of seminary!  Actually, that deserves a lot more exclamation points!!!!!  My last paper was submitted on the 10th, and since then I have been reading lots of non-school-books and watching lots of TV and movies and playing the piano (learning this Chopin waltz) and working through my to-do list that has been growing since January.

I will be heading "home" for a visit on Thursday, and then coming back here to start a couple of summer jobs in May - going back to my previous profession as a physiotherapist for the summer.

It was a good year, overall.  I have met some wonderful people; I have discovered a love for writing essays (yes, I know that I am slightly insane); I have grown in my confidence in so many ways; and my brain has been definitely been stretched.

I am excited for the summer, but I do miss the routine of school.  It will be good to get into a new routine once I start work.

(First year divinity students (minus one) being silly at the Informal Formal)

All Creation Sings

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the "Aesthetic Expression for Worship" that I was working on as a class assignment.  It all came together a couple of weeks ago - a choir was recruited and practices were held, and then on March 24 we sang it for the class and on March 26 sang it during the school chapel service.

The practices were lots of fun.  We have some very talented singers with lots of choral experience here at the school - both students and faculty - and they are always happy to join an occasional choir.  At our first practice, it took a couple of times through to pull the parts together, but when they came together it sounded amazing - it sounded even better with real voices singing it than it did in either my head or with the computer playing it back to me!

At the first practice, I was a little bit nervous because there were choir members with a lot more musical knowledge and training than I have, but those nerves were calmed down when it all came together.  Then when we sang for the class, it went very well.

Singing it as part of the chapel worship service was another thing entirely.  I had nightmares about it the night before and didn't sleep well; and then after class before worship I had a panic attack - I felt like I was going to either hyperventilate or throw up.  I think that it was triggered by a realization of the absolute audacity of thinking that anything that I had created was worthy of worshiping God.  Fortunately, I have some wonderful classmates who prayed with me, and others who were praying as we sang the anthem, and we made it through.

I've done some reflecting on this experience, and have come to the realization that this is the case with all worship.  All liturgy - whether it is words that I have strung together or words that were written by another, or words that were crafted by a denominational tradition - is all created by humans; so how can it ever be worthy of worshiping God?  But then God takes our imperfect human offerings and lovingly receives them and makes them worthy of worship.

And so I have learned from the experience of creating, and I have learned from the experience of using my creation in worship.  It was a concrete reminder of the constant presence and action of God's grace whenever we gather to worship.

And without further words, if you would like to see and hear All Creation Sings as it was sung in chapel on March 26, you can click on this link.