September 7, 2003 - Food Bank Sunday
Mickey & Harvey Staples
Hector Schneider
“Look at story
of Syrophonicean woman. She is a foreigner. And so in this story she is like a
dog, compared to the children of Israel. It’s not showing Jesus in his best
light. It evokes uncomfortable thinking. In the telling
of this story, however, we see something special…Jesus could be taught!! Some
may find that idea refreshing … others may fear it is blasphemous thinking,
“Jesus is perfect, and he would know everything!” For me its
inclusion in this gospel offers a wonderful thought, because although we see the
divine in Jesus, he was also human and therefore didn’t know everything – he was
still learning. That shouldn’t be so surprising. Like in Luke, 2:52, it says
“Jesus increased in wisdom and in years.” He was growing and learning. Why would
he stop learning in his adulthood? So in this
story, The word of God comes through the woman, not thru Jesus. Let’s look at
that: in the first part of the passage Jesus is almost cruel, using the metaphor
of dogs. That’s the word Jesus uses would translate as “dogs!” But the woman
uses another word that should be translated as “puppy (v.28).” In the end Jesus
honors her, and realizes that his ministry is to all people, not just to the
Jews. Learning isn’t
always easy…sometimes it takes someone to toss back to us a phrase or a comment
that calls into question how we ought to interpret something. This is a great
discourse. Lots of people don’t like dogs and in eastern cultures they aren’t
the pets they are in west. This summer
Jane and I were walking and I noticed a young fellow about 10 or twelve riding
his bike as his small dog, a border collie, I think, was running along beside
him as he rode. Just as he passed us and I was still watching because I’m always
amazed at the dexterity of dog and rider to be able to keep it all going,
because I know our little dog would be in the spokes in no time and the whole
thing would be a disaster… anyway… As I watched,
a Rotweiller bounded through the door of a home and was upon the boy and his dog
in an instant…barking, terrifying the boy and the small dog. Fortunately the
owner also ran out to the street to bring things under control but as he did
another Rotweiller joined the fray from inside the house…I was transfixed,
fearing for the child and his dog …wondering how to help…knowing that I really
couldn’t… the good news
was that the owner, now with the help from his partner, got the big dogs back to
the house and the terrified little guy and his traumatized dog…now crouching and
walking disorientated with tail between legs, were able to continue on their
journey…it was a horrible experience that could have been much worse … and yet
it’s the kind of thing that makes people dislike dogs. Puppies, on
the other hand, are the stuff of cute commercials and TV ads, the stuff of
smiles and visions of wholesome living, the kind of images we find on calendars
…tough not to like a puppy and it was a puppy that the Syrophonicean woman
parallels with the plight of her people, herself and her daughter. ‘Thank God’
Jesus was teachable or the message would not even be shared with us today. We
Gentiles owe her a debt of gratitude. What are the
learnings that God is calling us to embrace? What are the
prejudices that we cling to that God is calling us to abandon in favour of a
more loving response? A transformed response? A response that echoes Jesus care
and concern for all people…albeit, even by Jesus, a learned response. It’s fall…or
so it seems from time to time as the temperatures fluctuate more wildly than
they have for many, many weeks, and one of the things about fall is the annual
Aids walk. Jane, sharing with the HIV AIDS Network of Southeastern Alberta often
inspires a team of youth and others to make that walk each year and it is one of
the important fall ministries that we engage. I hope some of
you listening right now will join in that walk. HIV and AIDS affects all of us.
And I think because of the walk and the face of people associated with this
pandemic, we have moved from a society of blamers to a more compassionate one.
We have been opened. Sure there are some who would rather blame than
embrace the love needed to battle the disease and work toward a cure…but the
tone of humanity has generally softened over the past two decades and the warmth
of compassion has made a great difference! There is never
an issue that doesn’t call out for us to stop and find the thread of Christian
compassion, the milk of human kindness, and to apply that to our prejudices. We
learn, we grow, we move and we live the love that God shows us…Jesus did and so
can we. Martin Luther
King Jr.’s “I have a Dream” speech was given on my 6th birthday. It
may surprise you that I don’t remember it, although I have heard portions of it
many times since. King, you may
remember, had earlier organized a boycott of the bus company that Rosa Parks was
riding with when her refusal to give her seat to a white rider resulted in her
arrest. The boycott took 381 days but segregation on Alabama buses was ruled
illegal. Prior to that action, legislated inequality made sense to many. What does
being church mean to you? In today's Bible readings, our biblical ancestors
share their understanding with us. They remind us that some of the most
important symbols of our faith are how we treat our neighbors, who we exclude
and include in our circle of faith, and how we live out our beliefs in our
everyday lives. No matter what
our background or experience, each of us is called to "be the church." As the
church, our circle of faith includes those who are rich and poor, physically
challenged, people of a wide variety of cultures and histories. All are equal in
the eyes of God and each should be in the eyes of each other. Each of us is,
invited to live out our faith, whoever we are and wherever we find ourselves. I
think that one of the ways that we do that is to resist the temptation to be
tribal in our thinking. To the tribal
person the idea that one should be concerned for others has narrow limits. A
tribal person's concern is confined, first to blood relations, then to the
members of the tribe, who represent the extended family. Jesus, addressing the
Syrophonicean woman was thinking tribally. Albert
Schweitzer, in The Teaching of Reverence for Life says, I have
“tribal-thinking” people in my hospital. If I ask an ambulatory patient to
undertake some small service for a patient who must stay in bed, the patient
will do it only if the bedridden patient belongs to the same tribe. If that is not
the case, I will be greeted with wide-eyed innocence: "This man is not brother
of me," or "This woman is not my sister." Neither rewards nor threats will
convince the patient to perform a service for such a stranger. But as soon as
humans begin to reflect upon themselves and their relationship to others, they
become aware that all people are equals and neighbors. Gradually we
see the circle of responsibilities widening until it includes all human beings
with whom we have dealings. I am deeply
concerned when I see religion mobilize to exclude persons…it's like the
segregation debate of the 60’s all over again…it happened when AIDS was
identified in the 80’s…it happens when people speak viciously about Gay and
Lesbian persons and its happening again in the ongoing debate about same sex
marriage… The God I have
come to know invites—no, compels—me to struggle to find ways to value all the
life that God values…and it is not easy to be opened to new thinking…it was a
stretch for Jesus to welcome those outside his tribe and it is for us too…that
doesn’t mean the challenge is an unnecessary one or an unimportant one. “Hearing can
be impaired in both physical and spiritual ways. This gospel challenges us to
examine the things that get in the way of our hearing God’s word. Are we
prepared to have our spiritual “ears” opened to even the most disturbing aspects
of the gospel? Are we ready to accept the radical change that goes along with
that choice? – Susan Ivany” Jesus used the
word “ephphatha”, “be opened” and the challenge has echoed throughout history
ever since. I believe that even before Jesus said that, God was placing before
humanity those who would challenge the world to be opened to the disturbing love
of God. The joyously wasteful love of God. The record of
history is the struggle to do that, the struggle to find life-giving ways that
God's love might live through us. Important
stuff. If the church had not been challenged to hear the call to do that
throughout the centuries, no doubt it would still be advocating slavery,
segregation, the silence of women, the dehumanization of all who are not of the
same tribe. But we listen,
we hear, we change, we grow and thank God we do. Amen.