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Last Sunday was Homecoming, a time for us to come home to All Saints’, no matter how many times we may have been here before. We had a good time welcoming each other, while we enjoyed food and fellowship in our Parish Hall and learned about Christian Formation opportunities and classes coming up this fall. During Homecoming, someone came up to me and asked if we could talk for a few minutes. This was a person who first came to All Saints’ as a young child, then left for a time and has now come back home, getting reconnected, making a fresh commitment to being an active part of the life and ministry of this church. We drew apart from the crowd, and the first thing I heard was this: “I wanted to talk with you, because people here really seem to struggle with new things and with change, and I think some things here really do need to change.” Christians, in my experience, always struggle with change, with new things or people who are new in their church. Whether it’s how communion is served or what’s being served for lunch, whether it’s what is preached from a pulpit or what happens during a meeting, whether it’s what we wear or what we dare, change happens. Of course, church is not the only place where we struggle with change. When my parents brought my sister home, the first of four siblings to arrive, I was just two years old. I am reported to have said, “Take her back.” In church, we tend not to say something like “please leave” – although we might be thinking it! Whether it’s new leaders, new members, new ways of doing things, new ideas or even new beliefs, we Episcopalians claim to be open to all who come to offer themselves and their gifts for ministry in the name of Christ. Ed Browning, one of our former Presiding Bishops, used to say that “there will be no outcasts.” Living into that vision of full inclusion, welcoming and being open to all sorts and conditions of people – that takes a lifetime. And we will need our lifetimes to learn what we need to learn. In my own life, a bit of wisdom from the Orthodox Church has been helpful. St. Simeon, who lived in the 11th century, said that, “The mind should constantly descend into the heart and from the depths of the heart offer up prayer to God.” Over the past thirty years, when I have allowed my mind to descend into my heart, when I have truly prayed, I have learned how I needed to change my beliefs – about the ordination of women, about the full inclusion of all people, about God. Letting the mind descend into the heart is especially important when it comes to how we read, pray with and understand the Bible. In the last fifty years or so Christians and other people of faith have begun seriously to consider how slavery, while it may be biblical, is just not good theology. Slavery of any kind is never part of God’s economy. The Episcopal Church, especially here in Maryland, and nearly all other churches have been learning over the years how to welcome people of color more warmly. Yet we do it imperfectly. We are still learning how to change our minds and our hearts. Old habits die hard, and the old habit – rather, the sin – of racism is dying, ever so slowly, around the world. “Slaves, obey your earthly masters” (Ephesians 6:5) is a part of the Bible that simply no longer makes sense to us as a people of God with a 21 st century faith. Nor does “wives, be subject to your husbands,” unless we remember that the verse before that one exhorts that “wives and husbands be subject one to another, out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:21-22). Nevertheless, when it comes to civil rights and human rights, change is happening. Change needs to keep happening in church, until all are truly welcome, until there are indeed no outcasts in this church or any other. Racism and sexism and classism and ageism and homophobia are old, sinful habits that need to die, if we are to follow Jesus, to become truly alive in Christ. How did Jesus handle change? Was he open to it? What did Jesus do when God put someone new or unexpected in his path? Did he let his mind descend into his heart? These deeper questions emerge, as the story moves from the hypocrisy of the Pharisees we heard about last week to the healings we just heard about in today’s continuation of the seventh chapter of Mark’s gospel. Jesus, the Messiah of God, tells the woman from Syrophoenicia that he came to save the Hebrew people. He is to be the savior of the Jews and the Jews alone. “Let the children be fed first,” Jesus tells this Gentile woman whose daughter was possessed by an unclean spirit. He is, of course, talking about the children of Israel, not the child of this non-Jewish woman. Then, he uses the word “dog” to describe the woman’s daughter, and, indirectly, the woman. Some scholars point out that the word is actually “little dog,” suggesting this could be Jesus’ term of endearment. But is it? Or is this just Jesus’ humanity showing? Loye Bradley Ashton, a professor of religion at Tougaloo College, reminds us that there is a traditional way of understanding today’s two healing stories. She says they “highlight the universality of God’s relationship with (all) humanity and the tenacious faith of two Gentiles, (a woman and a man. Their) faith allows them to witness to, demand and participate in Jesus’ saving power, even though they both remain outside of the recognized religious community” (Feasting on the Word, p. 44). In other words, faith in the healing power of God knows no boundaries. In God’s world, if not in the church, there are no outcasts. This is, as she says, a traditional interpretation. “If, however, you are looking for an alternative reading of this passage that is a little less safe,” says Professor Ashton, consider this: “What if the placement of these stories after the warnings about hypocrisy highlights not the shortcomings of Jesus’ followers, but of Jesus himself?....Could the story of the Syrophoenician woman be a kind of ‘conversion’ moment for Jesus…?” In other words, did Jesus change? Consider this less-than-safe interpretation, just for a moment. After all, Jesus was human. The story begins with Jesus entering a house where he “did not want anyone to know he was there” (7:24). Was he tired, perhaps exhausted from all those people who needed healing? “Yet he could not escape notice,” it says. How did Jesus feel about this woman interrupting his desperately needed peace and quiet? Was he still angry with the Pharisees and now with this woman who won’t leave him alone? Has he lost sight of his mission? Is this woman trying to help him re-connect with that mission, even though she is “second class”? Is this a conversion moment for Jesus? Is Jesus changing? If Jesus is changing, it is because this bold, courageous woman of faith dares to speak God’s truth to him. “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs” (7:28). Even Gentiles, even women and children get crumbs. If Jesus is changing, might that be why he touches the man who can neither hear nor speak, then looks to heaven, sighs and says, “Be opened”? Might “be opened” be what has just happened to Jesus, forcing him to practice what he preaches? When Jesus pointed a finger at the Pharisees, might he have seen at least one finger of hypocrisy pointing right back at him? Is it possible that even the crumbs Jesus offers the woman’s daughter aren’t really enough? Why do some people always have to settle for crumbs at the great banquet table of God? We’ll never know the final answers to all those questions. But I do know this: I believe in a God who changes us. I believe in a God whose divine son Jesus was human enough to be changed. I believe in a God who works wonders. I believe in a God who, when nothing else works, simply says “be opened,” and we are opened. Sometimes, before we can open up, before we can be open to the healing, the changes, the life God wants for us – sometimes, we need to “be opened,” opened by someone else, even by people who are least like us, especially by them. Sisters and brothers, we all need to become more ready and willing to be open. Because sooner or later, we will all need to change. The Rev. Thomas A. Momberg In this Gospel account, Jesus was interrupted. For more on the interruptions of life, go to http://fathermom.wordpress.com |
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