Proper 18B.  5 September 2021. The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23. Do not crush the afflicted at the gate.
James 2:1-10, (11-13) 14-17. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
Mark 7:24-37. Be opened.

O God of Mercy, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

It’s rare that I love three scripture lessons appointed for a Sunday as much as I love ours today. They make it abundantly clear that the blessing of God is upon those who are generous with their actions, not only with their thoughts and prayers — those who share what they have with people who do not have enough. The evidence of blessing is not simply prosperity or good fortune. I often hear people who are experiencing abundance expressing gratitude, giving thanks to God and saying, “I am (or we are) so blessed.” But according to Proverbs, it’s not the fact of abundance that is a blessing from God; it’s the re-distribution of abundance so that everyone gets enough that is a blessing from God. The evidence of the blessing of God is in the sharing. Sharing is how the heavens get opened up for one another. And in the process of sharing, James says, mercy triumphs over judgment:  mercy outshines judgment; mercy is better than judgment, every time in the Realm of God. That’s a hard concept for many of us, so it takes practice. Whenever there’s a conflict of biblical values or teachings or interests, ask yourself which approach is more merciful, and go with that. And whatever you do, do not crush the afflicted at the gate (or in the doorways).

The context for our Gospel portion from Mark is that Jesus and his disciples have had an exhilarating and exhausting time traveling all around the Galilee, teaching and healing and casting out demons. Jesus recognized their exhaustion and said, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while,” but it never happened. This is a story of yet another of their attempts to get away for a rest. Having just benefitted from a break myself, I’m very sympathetic.

Jesus headed up to the city of Tyre – out of Israel, up the coast, maybe to the beach! He didn’t want anyone to know he was there. Yet a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him right away, and she found him. What follows is the most extraordinary encounter in the whole Gospel of Mark, in my opinion. She was a Gentile woman: a Syrophoenician, from a people condemned in scripture for their violence, injustice, and desecration of places deemed holy by Israel. In this story, she was not in a crowd; she was alone. She came to beg Jesus to heal her little daughter. I think of how desperate she must have been to do that. What she represents – this ethnically, racially, culturally-foreign female with a gravely-ill daughter – was feared, forbidden, chaotic, and dangerous. Jesus wasn’t interested.

Some of you will remember that not long before this in the Gospel of Mark, Jairus, a leader in a synagogue had come to Jesus imploring him to heal his little girl. Jesus had dropped everything to go with Jairus. But what he said to the Syrophoenician woman, begging him to heal her little daughter, was crass, rude, and extremely insulting. He didn’t just say no, or that he was on vacation. He said that he was not going to give sustenance to a little dog. He called her little daughter a little dog. In scripture, Gentiles are often referred to as dogs: unclean pests, gross scavengers. For ancient Israelites, dogs were not cute pets. The term is only used pejoratively in the Bible. His calling the little girl a dog means the little girl’s mother is a dog, and you know what the word for a female dog is. It’s a horrible thing for Jesus to say.

I’ve heard preachers say that Jesus was just testing her. But I don’t agree, and I admire her persistence. She didn’t walk away weeping, she didn’t go away in silence, ashamed that her request had been rebuked, sorry that she had even asked. Mark wrote, “But she said, ‘Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.’” She insisted that Jesus share what he had. Her swift retort accomplished the only miraculous healing from a distance in all of the Gospels. Indeed, it was her retort that healed her daughter. It was her willingness to respond directly, clearly, forcefully, that made her daughter well. Jesus says so. “For that retort,” Jesus says, “the demon has come out of your daughter.” Although she is not named in the Gospel, in church tradition, the mother in this story is called Justa, meaning just or righteous one. Jesus was changed by his encounter with Justa. Justa was insisting that Black Lives Matter (to use our vernacular), and Jesus had a change of heart and thinking, thanks to Justa.

What happens next is baffling for anyone who knows the geography of that part of the eastern Mediterranean. Mark wrote, “Then [Jesus] returned from the region of Tyre and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis.” Jesus left Tyre and went 25 miles in the exact opposite direction from the Decapolis, because Sidon is 25 miles north, and the Decapolis area is about 90 miles southeast. Some commentaries assume that this is a mistake of Mark’s, but since most biblical scholars think that the Gospel of Mark was written in Antioch, in Syria, I don’t think that’s it. I think the writer of Mark knew the territory.

I think Jesus intended to continue heading north, got as far as Sidon and realized that he just had to turn around and revisit the Decapolis, where he had done an exorcism, putting a legion of demons into a herd of swine and driving them off a cliff. The frightened people had begged him to leave their region. That’s what had happened right before the story of the healing of Jairus’ daughter. I think Jesus got 25 miles into his continued journey north and realized that he had to turn around[1] and go back to the people who were so scared of being freed from a legion of demons that they wanted him to leave. Maybe it was like white people who now are so scared of being freed from the inherent benefits of white supremacy.

When Mark moves on to tell the story of a man whose ears were blocked and whose tongue was tied, he reports that Jesus said, “Ephphatha,” be opened. Notice that Mark says, Jesus looked up to heaven, sighed (or groaned), and said to him “be opened.” Is he addressing God in heaven, or is he talking to himself? I think that the Syrian woman, Justa, had opened heaven a little wider for Jesus, opened him up to the possibility that bread – that justice – was for everyone. Jesus had been opened, and he returned to the Decapolis to pay it forward, to give the people there another try. When he arrived in the wilderness area of the Decapolis, he fed a great crowd of 4,000 with seven loaves and a few fish, with seven baskets left over. (Mark’s earlier story of the feeding in Israel was 5,000 with five loaves and two fish with twelve baskets left over.) Following so close to the retort of the Syrophoenician woman, it’s clear that the crumbs of bread are going to be quite filling! It’s a banquet where their hunger is more than satisfied.[2] It’s funny that we rarely refer to the feeding of the 4,000 in the Church. Is the number somehow less impressive than 5,000? You won’t hear it in church next week because our lectionary is going to skip right over it.

So I wonder, if we might be opened to Justa, to justice, the way Jesus was, the way countless others were. I wonder if, with regard to white supremacy in particular, we might suddenly, or gradually, hear more deeply and speak more clearly than before and open up heaven for others? It might be disorienting. It might mean needing to revisit some territory we thought we’d left behind. We surely are taking the long way to get there, but we’ll get there. We know something about being filled with a just morsel of bread. We know about mercy triumphing over judgment. We know about being astounded at the healing and feeding that is possible when we are fully participating in the merciful and just Realm of God with both our prayers and our actions. This is what we must remember as we confess, repent, and commit to ending the sin and evil of white supremacy, trusting in the never-ending love of God.

What do you know about being opened and how disorienting it is, or how it might mean to be needing to revisit some territory you thought you’d left behind? What do you know about going the long way to get there? What do you know about being filled with a just morsel of bread? What do you know about mercy triumphing over judgment? What do you know about being astounded beyond measure at the healing and feeding that is possible when we are fully participating in the merciful and just Realm of God? And how can you share it? How can you act on it? Thoughts and prayers are not enough. Action is required. Perhaps you remember this poem from Adrienne Rich.

it will not be simple, it will not be long
it will take little time, it will take all your thought
it will take all your heart, it will take all your breath
it will be short, it will not be simple

it will touch through your ribs, it will take all your heart
it will not be long, it will occupy all your thought
as a city is occupied, as a bed is occupied
it will take your flesh, it will not be simple

You are coming into us who cannot withstand you
you are coming into us who never wanted to withstand you
you are taking parts of us into places never planned
you are going far away with pieces of our lives

it will be short, it will take all your breath
it will not be simple, it will become your will [3]

[1]  Thanks, Joy Howard, for thinking of this possibility in our conversation.

[2] Pheme Perkins, “Mark,” in The New Interpreters Bible (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), p. 614.

[3] Adrienne Rich, “Final Notations,” An Atlas of the Difficult World:  Poems 1988-1991 (New York:  W.W. Norton & Company, 1991), p. 57.