Wellington Ave. United Church of Christ
September 9, 2012
“Did Jesus sin?” This was one of the first questions asked to one of my fellow
seminarians at her ecclesiastical council. What kind of trick question is this
I thought as I and I imagined others anxiously awaiting her answer. “ Of course he is without sin, he’s the Lamb
of God. He died for our sins. What
the ….? Just as she was about to give
her answer, the pastor threw in a clarifying question, “What about his conversation with the Syrophoenician woman?” The
who? Oh, my God, I’m never going to make it through this process. I’m still
biblically illiterate. My colleague paused for what seemed eternity and then
said, “No, he didn’t sin.” And that
was the end of the questioning on this fine theological point. My colleague
passed her Ecclesiastical Council but I was quite convinced that I was not
going to pass mine for I started to wonder all over again about Jesus’ divinity
and humanity----could his human part sin?
So I went over to Rev. Kakos during the
celebratory tea and cake to ask him about his question. I wanted to know why he
had asked this question and if she had answered satisfactorily. He said he
likes to throw in a difficult theological question to see how the
minister-to-be handles it, how open they are to admitting what they know and
what they don’t know. “How did she do?”
I ventured carefully, hoping he wouldn’t turn this around and ask me the same
question. He smiled and said
cryptically, “Ministers need to be able
to think on their feet and be flexible, be open to multiple points of
view.”
This conversation with Rev. Kakos was
sort of like a Zen story, something profound was being communicated to me but I
wasn’t entirely sure I was getting it. What I did get, however, was that I
needed to know what this story was about and what it had to do with whether or
not Jesus sinned. So I went home and
read this story first in Mark and then in Matthew. I was awed and shocked. I was awed by this woman’s
persistence, audacity, gustiness, self-possession, and wit. I was shocked by
Jesus’ response to her ---both his silence and then his derogatory comment
about her and her daughter being like dogs not worthy to eat the crumbs under
the table.
Let us review the story together. The
story unfolds in the region of Tyre and Sidon, the heart of pagan territory.
Jesus goes to this Gentile land not as a prophet with a message about love or
salvation but to rest and escape the crowds and the constant demands on his
time. He has also just had a confrontation with the Pharisees in Galilee and so
is probably not feeling like his ministry is going very well with his own
people. He is in need of a little alone
time, down time.
So, then, here comes this woman into
the place he is staying, a pagan woman, a Syrophoenician in Mark’s Gospel, a
Canaanite in Mathew’s gospel. She is desperate about her daughter’s illness and
begs Jesus to heal her. It is important to know that in the Jewish tradition,
non-Jews were considered unclean and outside of God’s care and redemption. This
woman is a religious outsider and a foreigner. She is also a woman. Furthermore, women do not talk to men in
public including backwater healers like Jesus from Galilee. The cultural clash
is striking on all fronts. Yet love and
concern for her daughter, coupled with her faith that Jesus can cure her drives
her to approach this man. She does so humbly, kneeling at his feet.
Jesus does not offer her his usual kindness
pastoral but rather a harsh rebuke, “Let
the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and
throw it to the dogs.” Jesus is saying that what he has, the food of the
soul, is for the children of Israel only. Furthermore, it would be absurd to
waste it on foreign dogs like her and her child. She can have the crumbs later.
There are priorities and protocols, rules and regulations. Jesus sounds like
one of the Pharisees. How ironic. Perhaps he just has compassion fatigue.
Perhaps he is product of his own time full of racial prejudices.
The woman, this
desperate single-minded mother doesn’t take no for an answer though. She does
not allow her own hurt feelings to stand in her way. She doesn’t stomp off in a
snit or start yelling or anything else I could imagine doing myself if I were
in her shoes. Instead she frames an intelligent, I dare say, witty response
that neither contradicts him nor cedes her own point. She meets his dismissal
with honor and respect, “Sir, even the
dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
She demands he help her even with
crumbs. Now, on one hand, she is saying that even the crumbs are holy and that
this will be enough. What faith! And on the other hand, like one of Gandhi’s
followers in his nonviolent resistance movement, she has just revealed the
teeth of the oppressor for all to see or hear--- in this case including the
oppressor himself, Jesus. She has spoken truth to power and risked everything
for the love of her daughter, her daughter’s health. Her truth telling, her
humility, her risk taking, her faith in crumbs opens the door to Jesus’ heart.
Then Jesus
said, “For saying that, you may go---the
demon has left your daughter.” Jesus, the man or god, who was caught with “his
compassion down” now has a change of heart, a moment of grace. This woman’s intercessory ministry moves
Jesus past his tiredness, his bad mood, his racism, and his sexism. She calls his bluff. She calls him back to his
humanity by reminding him of hers. Jesus
was suddenly able to see and “let the dogs out of his consciousness” and regain
his perspective, which is both human and divine. He has been taught by this
brave woman how to reclaim his identity as the Christ whose Beloved Community
is for all, not only the Jews.
As a UU minister friend of mine said
about Jesus shift, “He was cured of the
bigotry of his time and society.” She says the irony is that while he
restores the daughter to health, the Syrophoenician woman restores Jesus to
himself so that he can become the Messiah.
“For Saying That” was my second choice for
sermon title because it is the woman’s sharp retort that changes everything
including how the mission will now include even those pagan dogs, the Gentiles.
It is her gift to him.
There is a mutuality of gift giving here that
implies that God needs our engagement, even our retorts, for all that God can
be. I find this a radical notion that God needs us, each one of us for God to accomplish the mission of salvation.
My Jewish friends and rabbis tell me, of
course you can dialogue with God, influence God’s decisions for isn’t this what
Moses did and all the prophets when they pleaded with God not to smite everyone
for the sake of a few wicked.
As I think back to my conversation with Rev.
Kakos and the question he didn’t ask me, I would say to him now, the question
isn’t whether or not Jesus sinned but rather how Jesus acted and then
changed. He changed because he listened to the extent that love would go. He changed because he didn’t like the kind
of man he saw in the mirror she was holding up for him to see. Jesus changed
because He listened to someone he didn’t want to listen to, to someone he
considered less than human, no better than a dog. He changed because he knows that the crumbs are connected to the
bread, to his body broken for others to be made whole. He changed because he knows in his heart, if not his head, even if it
will be hard to convince others, that his mission of salvation is for everyone.
He knows, like we do, that the table
must be open to all regardless of class, race, sexual orientation, legal
status, or even beliefs.
So one of the lessons I hope you will take
away from this story is that we don’t always have to get it right, but we do
have to listen to people, especially those we don’t want to. We especially have
to listen to those folks we have deemed “other”, who are foreigners, who are on
the margins. Jesus learns how to be the Christ from one of the poor and most
despised outcasts, a foreign woman.
Who are you learning from?
Who are you feeding only the crumbs of your being to? Who do you give the
fullness of yourself to?
Finally, are you OK following the way of a messiah who doesn’t always get
it right?
Is perfection the goal for any of us?
So, back to the
question, did Jesus sin when he refused to see this woman as part of his family,
his beloved community? Yes, he missed the mark. His dismissive and hurtful
remark denied her humanity, her dignity. It also denied him his and thus, the
ability to fulfill his divine mission.
Was he redeemed? Yes. He was saved by love, the unconditional and
relentless love of a mother for her sick daughter. He was saved because he
heard the injustice of his remarks in her willingness to accept even the
crumbs. His hearing restored him, which allowed for mutual healing to occur.
I have come to
love this difficult story of protest and reclamation in which a displaced woman
reclaims her place at the table. I love the fact that Jesus starts out not
looking so good but gets saved.
This story confirms what I have
experienced---that I am changed by the people I minister to. And yes, I love
stories about uppity women, women who speak their minds no matter what, like
some of the women named on my stole or in this congregation. I am drawn to
people who dare to risk being who they are or who practice a ministry of
witnessing for others. Our UCC tradition is rich in its history about people
speaking out against injustice; this is part of our rich and proud legacy. Her
story is a beacon for us.
Let us model ourselves after both
Jesus and this Syrophonecian woman. Both were boundary crossers. Both risked
transformation. Let us accept their gifts. Amen.
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