Sermons

"Good News for Everyone"

A Sermon by the Reverend Mary Garner
Emmanuel Church, Newport, RI

September 10, 2006

This morning’s Gospel is printed on a separate piece of paper because it is from the Revised Common Lectionary, not the lectionary found at the back of the Book of Common Prayer. In January, the Episcopal Church will begin to use the Revised Common Lectionary. We may be surprised at some of the things we will be hearing in church! This Gospel story doesn’t appear at all in the prayer book lectionary and it may be unfamiliar to some of us. Matthew’s version of the story is in the lectionary, but the details are different. In Matthew, the woman follows Jesus in the street, shouting after him, demanding healing for her child. In the Gospel we just heard, the setting is in a house and the woman is respectful, bowing down at Jesus’ feet. But both accounts include Jesus’ words about taking children’s food and throwing it to the dogs. Maybe the men who put together the lectionary found Matthew’s version more sympathetic. After all, no well-bred Episcopalian woman would ever shout in the street or make a spectacle of herself. It might be a little easier to understand Jesus being reluctant to help the woman in Matthew’s account.

But this morning it is Mark’s Gospel that confronts us. Jesus has just told his disciples-in the Gospel from last Sunday- that it is the human heart that is responsible for evil, not failure to comply with laws about ritual cleansing or purity. But here is Jesus; refusing to help a woman because she is a Gentile and unclean. How can we understand Jesus in this story? How can we hear our Jesus call a child a dog and not be disturbed? No wonder this story isn’t heard on Sunday mornings! Can you imagine this dialogue about children and dogs being the lesson used in Sunday School or Vacation Bible School? It is a very disturbing story, even though it does end with Jesus healing the child.

Biblical scholars have tried to make this passage easier to swallow. Some suggest that Jesus had every intention of healing the child; the words about children and dogs were just his way of getting the disciples to realize that all people, Jewish and Gentile are loved by God and worthy of healing. This technique is called “using another to think with” and to me it doesn’t make Jesus’ words any easier to accept. I have to tell you that feminist Biblical scholars love this passage and spend a lot of time on it because Jesus actually engages in a theological discussion with a woman in a culture where women were seen and not heard. Not only does she argue with Jesus, she wins the argument! I think all of us who are mothers can identify with the woman’s persistence; we would do almost anything to help our children when they are sick or hurt. Other scholars say that this story was added much later by people who were struggling over including Gentiles in the early church. The debate was bitter, so the words are bitter too.

In the end, we are still left with dogs eating the crumbs from under the table. It’s just not possible to explain it away. But I think that this story should be heard. I think it’s important because I don’t think Scripture is always comforting or consoling. Sometimes it is hard to swallow. It is a very real part of our human nature to see ourselves and our children as somehow more special, more beloved by God. When we are wronged, we feel God should be on our side and against our enemies. It is heartbreakingly difficult for us to see people who are different from us or who are our enemies as beloved children of God. Mark tells us that this story happened in Tyre. Tyre was an important city in ancient times. Tyre is an important city today. It is in Lebanon. As a result of the recent war, 1,000 civilians are dead, 4,000 injured and 250,000 displaced. How many mothers in Tyre must have argued with and pleaded with God to help their injured and dying children! How many mothers prayed that the demons of terror and violence would be cast out of their lives! I don’t believe that we can use Scripture to predict the future, but more and more I am amazed at how relevant it is to what we read in our daily newspapers.

Tomorrow is the fifth anniversary of the tragedy of September 11.Terrorist attacks claimed thousands of innocent lives and took away our mistaken belief that somehow terrible things could not happen to us. At the same time, our war against terror in Afghanistan and Iraq has claimed thousands of innocent lives. And those deemed enemy combatants have been held in secret prisons, tortured at Abu Grab and denied the protection of the Geneva code. There are allegations that torture occurred at the prison in Guantanomo Bay and 400 people are still held there without being charged. We have seen the photographs; we know the brutality humans are capable of. Those pictures are just as much a part of the story as the pictures of our own suffering on 9/11.We pet- loving Americans wouldn’t treat a dog the way some of our enemies have been treated.

In the end the Good News of Christ is that healing is for everyone. No person is a dog, searching for crumbs under the table. All of God’s children have a right to be fed, a right to live, a right to be treated humanely. Today’s Gospel ends with Jesus healing the man with a speech impediment. We read that his tongue was released and he spoke plainly. I hope that our prayers on September 11 will not come out of our sense of being wounded, but out of our hope for healing. I pray that our tongues will be released and that we will speak plainly for justice and peace. I pray that we will understand that God is not on anyone’s side; God is on the side of justice, peace and love. May our pride be not in our own strength, but in God’s mercy. Amen