Walking the Talk

Walking the Talk--February 8, 2019

"From there [Jesus] set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said 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.' But she answered him, 'Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.' Then he said to her, 'For saying that, you may go--the demon has left your daughter.' So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone." [Mark 7:24-30]

Let's start with what I think is a reasonable presupposition: Jesus was not stupid.

That might seem like an obvious assertion, maybe even something so self-evident we don't bother to say it, but in a story like this, I think it is really, vitally important to start with a common agreement that Jesus was not stupid.  Let's give him at least the benefit of the doubt that he was, and is, at least (!) of average intelligence, and that this level of intelligence informed his choices, actions, and words.

Fair enough?

I want to start there because without that presumption in the background, I think we are left stumbling through this story wondering whether Jesus was either surprised that he ran across this Gentile woman while he was out on personal retreat in Gentile territory, or whether he was deliberately, cruelly trying to withhold help because it came from an outsider pagan--a Gentile.  

I know I have struggled with this story for nearly four decades, and I have heard plenty of sermons from plenty of other preachers, too, over the years, floundering with a story that doesn't seem to paint Jesus in a very compassionate light at first blush.  I have heard folks say that Jesus knew all along what he was going to do for this woman and just strings her along for a while with the rather racist-sounding exchange about "dogs" and "crumbs" and the "children's food."  I know others who suggest almost the opposite--that Jesus  was planning on not helping the woman, changed his mind, decided he had been wrong before, and then had to be corrected by this woman's faith.  That take seems to present other complicating problems of its own.

But both of those approaches seem to forget what I believe is a vital starting point: let's grant that Jesus was not stupid.  In particular, let's take it as a given that Jesus would have known that heading into Gentile territory would certainly mean running into Gentile people.  That seems obvious, doesn't it?

Well, if that's so, then it seems obvious, too, that Jesus has intentionally set himself up for this kind of encounter.  In other words, Jesus has deliberately crossed a line--the border between Jewish territory and Gentile territory--knowing that he is bringing the very presence of God to whatever and whomever waits on the other side of that line.  Jesus chose to make this trip into the territory of foreigners, of the "other," and he leaves himself open and vulnerable to however he is received there.  You don't deliberately take a trip from your home town to New York City without also expecting to run into some New Yorkers.  You may not have in mind whether they will be kind or rude, whether they will take your wallet or take your picture for you in Times Square, but you would certainly know in advance and expect that you will meet some New Yorkers.  Can we seriously not presume that Jesus knew, too, that if he went into a Gentile city he would cross paths with Gentiles?

If that was part of Jesus' awareness all along, then it reframes this whole scene, I believe.  Instead of picturing Jesus like he got stuck with an unexpected layover for his flight and is stuck in Chicago while he was planning a direct flight home, we have to see that Jesus chose this destination, knowing who would surround him there.  Jesus isn't being short-tempered because he's stuck in an unknown airport and upset when some local person recognizes him in waiting in line at Cinnabon.  Jesus has deliberately headed into the unknown for him--he chooses to go where outsiders, foreigners, and all sorts of "those people" will be at home, and where he will now be the outsider, the foreigner, and the one on the margins.  Jesus, in other words, doesn't just reach out from the safety of his own yard to pat marginalized foreigners on the head as they walk past his back porch.  Jesus himself becomes one of those people on the margins, a foreigner himself, traveling without permission or papers outside of his own land and into Gentile territory.

In other words, if Jesus was smart enough (and I am convinced he was and is) to know that there would be Gentiles waiting for him when he got into Gentile territory, I think it means Jesus made this trip knowing he would be put into a situation where he would have to choose whether to extend the grace and power of God to "those people" or not, and that he chose to put his money where he mouth was when it came to the width and depth and breadth of God's love.  Sort of like you may think you know what you would do if a friend called you in the middle of the night to help them get to the hospital, or you may think you know what you believe about helping homeless people, you really find out what you actually would do and believe when the phone call comes or someone without a place to stay comes across your path. Jesus has been saying that God's love is big and wide and includes anybody and everybody... but until those anybodies have real faces, it's awfully easy to say that without really living it.  Jesus, however, intentionally has painted himself into a corner, or set himself on a collision course with having to live into the Gospel he has been preaching.  Jesus sets himself up for a situation where he will have to walk his own talk. He might not have been picturing this particular woman's need, or this particular setting, but Jesus had to have known that at some point, he was going to have to make the choice about whether he would share God's love and power and deliverance with someone who was "other." And that's what Jesus does: he extends grace to this Gentile woman as a Gentile, without making her convert or pray a prayer or renounce whatever Syrophoenician gods she grew up worshipping.  That's because grace, like any genuine gift, never depends on the supposed worthiness of the recipient--it is always grounded in the goodness of the Giver.

So here's the take-home for all of us today, kids:  it is really easy in this life to say that God's love is for everybody.  That makes for a swell slogan and a delightful marketing campaign for our churches, doesn't it?  But all too often we say those words without ever thinking we will have to mean them for someone who we regard as "other," and it's so easy as to be practically meaningless for me to say them only for people who are basically identical to me.  But if we really believe that God's power, God's love, and God's grace are poured out recklessly and generously for everybody, then we will deliberately let God send us into situations that take us out of our comfort zones to share God's goodness with people whose stories, appearance, language, love, culture, politics, or passions are vastly different than our own.  And when God sends our paths to cross with theirs, we will find out in that moment, whether we really do believe that God's love is for everybody, or whether we were fooling ourselves with a nice slogan all along.

Jesus gives us an example, I believe, of just that kind of courageous experiment that pushes us to live into what we say.  He had to have known what he was getting himself into.  

Do we?

Lord Jesus, send us where you will, to live out your love and to walk the talk of your Gospel.