SEPTEMBER 8, 2024
THE VERY REV. TRACEY LIND
ST. JAMES THE FISHERMAN, WELLFLEET, MA
MARK 7:24-37
Africa
I came to change you but instead you changed me
And I confess I came to frame you in a photograph
But you showed me why
And you turned this heart around
These lyrics by The Paul Colman Trio echo the sentiments of Out of Africa, a 1985 film based on the life of the Danish author Karen Blixen who spent seventeen years living on a coffee plantation in Kenya. In her memoir, Blixen concluded that, “God made the world round so we would never be able to see too far down the road.” Novelist Barbara Kingsolver captured this same idea in The Poisonwood Bible, writing that, “Everything you’re sure is right can be wrong in another place.”
Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you expected (or were expected) to be the leader, the giver, the teacher, the healer or the change agent, only to learn that you, in fact, were the follower, the recipient, the student, the one who is healed, and the person who is changed?
That’s what happened to Jesus one day. He was on a ministry circuit throughout Galilee. He had just been teaching those who would listen about what is “clean and unclean.” He had moved on to Tyre, a Roman province located on the southern coast of Lebanon. He wanted to get some rest and time alone – away from the crowds.
Jesus must have been exhausted from the work he had been doing. Pastoral and prophetic ministry can get tiresome. But, as is often the case, Jesus was interrupted by someone in need. This time he was interrupted by a non-Jewish woman of Canaanite descent, probably a native of Syria. She was seeking help for her daughter whom she believed to be possessed by a demon.
After bowing down at his feet – a sign of humble respect – this desperate mother made her urgent request in Aramaic: “Rabbi, Please help my daughter. She’s possessed by a demon! Cast it out! Please!!!!
We don’t know much about this woman, but we can assume that she was determined, resourceful, fearless and persuasive. After all, she got into the house where he was staying and interrupted a dinner party.
How did Jesus respond to the plea of this demanding outsider? Initially, he insulted her and refused her request. Jesus not only rejected this woman’s desperate plea on behalf of her daughter; he also called her a dog.
Sure, he did it in the form of a saying: “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” But in essence, Jesus was saying that she and her children were just worthless dogs.
Over the centuries, scholars and preachers have tried to dismiss this insult with a variety of explanations and excuses. Maybe, Jesus was having a bad day. Maybe, his bantering was a way of teaching, of explaining how he didn’t think he was supposed to minister to Gentiles. And, this is the best one: maybe, calling this desperate woman a dog was a term of affection and endearment – like a pet puppy. But, first century Middle Easterns didn’t raise dogs as pets – they were used for herding and security. However you try to explain it, the bottom line is simple: calling anyone a dog was and still is an insult.
Jesus called a desperate but determined mother a dog, and she called him on his hypocrisy: “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” And with that, Jesus said: “You may go – the demon has left your daughter.”
We can only imagine and guess how Jesus must have felt. Was he embarrassed by the exchange; angry that he had been challenged; mortified at his own behavior; impressed with the stranger’s tenacity; or all of the above? Maybe, Jesus had learned something about salvation and grace from this woman.
The text tells us that the woman went home and found her daughter freed from the demon. The text also tells us that Jesus left the region of Tyre and returned to more familiar territory.
His next recorded encounter is with the deaf man who had a speech impediment. Jesus took him aside privately, put his fingers into the man’s ears, spat, and touched his tongue. Then, looking up to heaven, Jesus sighed, and said in Aramaic, “Be opened.” Immediately, the man’s tongue was released, his ears opened, and he could hear and speak plainly.
Now think about this. What’s the connection between these two healing accounts; and what do these two stories have to teach us? A woman opens Jesus in need of grace. After responding with a reciprocal blessing (that is the healing of her daughter), Jesus then opens a man in need of healing.
Through her persistence, a woman told Jesus to open up, to be liberated from attitudes and prejudices holding him hostage. And Jesus obeyed. He changed both his attitude and his actions. He opened up. The woman’s request was granted. Her daughter was healed
As evidenced by his encounter with the deaf man, Jesus was empowered all the more to carry out his God-given mission of proclaiming in word and action “good news to the poor, release to the captive, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed, and the year of the God’s favor” (Luke 4.18-19).
Jesus the giver became the recipient and then the giver again. Jesus the healer became a wounded healer. Jesus the leader became a follower and a servant leader. Jesus the change agent was changed. And, it happened all because of a persistent, outsider, woman who violated the basic rule I learned about power dynamics in dancing school: girls are not supposed to ask boys to dance.
People in subservient roles (gender, ethnic, racial, sexual, class, whatever) are not supposed to initiate or persist with those in hierarchical power. Yet, this passage teaches us that a large part of the Christian vocation is to persist.
Faithful, forgiving and loving persistence changes the world. When the Syrophenician woman persisted, she demonstrated for us, for Jesus, and for herself that God’s grace knows no boundaries. Her daughter was healed and Jesus was opened. And, then Jesus healed the man who could not hear or speak. How often does it take someone else to help us open up?
Maya Angelou, in her novel, Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now, introduces the reader to Aunt Tee who worked as a housekeeper for a wealthy couple in Bel Air. The couple grew more and more isolated – old and withdrawn. Aunt Tee started keeping company with the chauffeur down the street. On Saturday nights, they had great parties in the servants’ quarters. One night the couple came in and asked if they could just watch her and her friends “live it up.” In the process, this old couple was opened up.
Being open is one of the first steps in the process of healing. Being open to the possibility that we can be healed; we can be changed. That’s what intervention is all about. That’s the essence of prophetic witness. It’s speaking truth to power.
Back in the mid-1980’s, I went on a Witness for Peace trip to Nicaragua. The purpose of our trip was to learn about the situation from many perspectives, especially the poor, and to return to the US to speak about it. When I asked people of all walks of life what they thought of the Sandinista revolution, they would frequently respond: Abierto, “I am open.”
One man, a very wealthy rancher, told me that during the Contra War he had been converted to the cause of the revolution. When I asked him how that happened, he said that his parish priest had invited him and a group of other men from the church who were also wealthy ranchers on a retreat. During their time away, they studied some of Jesus’ parables about wealth and poverty, and in this man’s words, his “eyes and heart were opened.” This wealthy rancher actually joined the revolution, turned over some of his land to his peasant neighbors, and after the war, helped write the new constitution and serve in the new government assembly for Nicaragua. When I asked him about his friends, he shrugged his shoulders and replied, “Many have moved to Miami.” While I know that the Sandinista government did not live up to its ideals (most revolutions and governments don’t), I’ll never forget that conversation. It opened my eyes to the power of the gospel.
One of the strengths of democracy, especially in the United States, is the innate openness to possibility. When traveling through Europe, people used to say that they could always spot Americans by our open faces and big smiles. And, people around the world used to speak of our openness as a nation. But something has changed, hasn’t it?
One of the tragic consequences of violence, terrorism, corruption and political chaos is the loss of openness – even in our own country. No longer do people trust one another in the way we once did. We seem to be held hostage by our own fears. And where is it leading us? I’m not sure, but I don’t like it. We need to reclaim some of our hopefulness and openness.
On this beautiful early fall Sunday, I want to leave you with a few questions. What inside of you needs to be opened? How can you reopen that which has been closed? And then, how can you carry your hopefulness and openness into the larger realm?
I won’t be around this week to talk about your response to this question. Alas, it’s time to return to Cleveland. But, you can always drop me a note or give me a call. And if you’re in Cleveland, do look me up.
And by the way, nearly fifty years ago, I first came to the Outer Cape. As I’ve told many of you, my father had just died. I had a change of clothes, a sleeping bag, a Gulf Oil credit card, and $30 in my wallet. I was a mess – in grief, anger and confusion. I got in my car (a Chevy Vega) and drove to land’s end. I looked around and said to myself, someday I must return. And then, I turned around, drove home, graduated from college and began my adult life. Summer after summer, I would return. I didn’t come out here to change anything, but as is always the case, Cape Cod – especially Wellfleet and Provincetown – changed me and continues to change me. And for that I am profoundly grateful.
So now, as I take my annual leave from this pulpit, let me leave you with the lyrics of the 19th century hymnist Clara H. Scott:
Open my eyes that I may see
Glimpses of truth thou hast for me.
Place in my hand the wonderful key
that shall unclasp and set me free
Silently now I wait for thee,
Ready, my God, thy will to see.
Open my eyes, illumine me.
Spirit Divine.
And as my mother used to say, “God willing and the creek don’t rise,” I’ll see you next summer.