Proper 18B, September 9, 2012; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

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.

Our lessons from Proverbs and James today kind of preach themselves. They make it very clear – abundantly clear – about the blessing upon those who are generous, who share their bread with people who are poor. The evidence of blessing is not simply prosperity, according to Proverbs; but it’s the sharing or distribution of abundance so that everyone gets enough to eat. The evidence of blessing is the sharing. And James says that mercy triumphs over judgment – mercy trumps judgment — every time in the realm of God. (Here are two texts I want Biblical literalists to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest.)

Our Gospel lesson, however doesn’t preach itself – at least I don’t think so. The context, just to bring you up to date, is that Jesus and his disciples have had an 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 that never happened. They’ve had no rest. They’ve been pursued by crowds of spiritually and physically hungry people, threatened by storms, and entangled in arguments with other religious leaders.

This is a story of yet another of their attempts to get away for a break. Jesus heads up to the city of Tyre – out of Israel and up to the coast of Syria. He didn’t want anyone to know he was there, Mark’s story goes. And yet, he couldn’t escape notice. A woman, whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him right away and she came and found him. What follows might be the most extraordinary encounter in the whole Gospel of Mark. She was a Gentile woman. A Syrophoenecian woman, from a people traditionally condemned in scripture because of their idolatry, violence, injustice, and desecration of places deemed holy by Israel. In this story, she is alone. She comes to find Jesus and beg him to cast the demon out of her little daughter. How desperate must she have been to do that?  What she represents – this foreign woman with gravely ill daughter – is feared, forbidden and chaotic. [1]

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 dropped everything to go with Jairus, even after Jairus’ friends tell him not to waste Jesus’ time because his daughter had already died. Jesus went to the house of Jairus, laid his hands on the little girl and told folks in the household to give her something to eat. His reputation for being able to raise a little girl from the dead, to cast out demons, to heal, had spread even to foreign territory.

But what did he say to the Syrophoenician woman, begging him to heal her little daughter? What he said is crass, rude, extremely insulting. He doesn’t just say no. His answer is that he’s not going to give sustenance to a little dog. He calls her little daughter a little dog. In Hebrew scripture, Gentiles are often referred to as dogs: unclean pests, gross scavengers. For Israelites, dogs were not cute pets. The term is only used pejoratively in scripture. He’s calling the little girl a dog and that means the little girl’s mother is a dog and you know what the word for a female dog is.

You know, I’ve heard people say that Jesus was just testing her. I’ve heard people say that what he said is really not that rude, not really a horrible thing to say. That doesn’t make any sense to me given the context of this scene – what happens before or what is about to happen next. 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 says, “But she said, ‘Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.’” Her swift retort accomplishes the only miraculous healing from a distance in the Gospels. Indeed, it is her retort that heals her daughter. It is her willingness to respond directly, clearly, forcefully, that makes her daughter well. Jesus says so. “For that retort,” Jesus says, “be on your way. The demon has come out of your daughter.” You know, although she is not named in the Gospel, in extracanonical tradition, the mother in this story is called Justa, meaning just or righteous one. Jesus was changed by his encounter with Justa.

I want you to pay attention to what Mark writes next because this next part baffles commentators: “Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis.” And then Mark moves on to tell the story of a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment. But not so fast. If you know where Tyre and Sidon are, and where the Decapolis is, you know that what Mark is saying is that Jesus left Tyre and went 25 miles in the exact opposite direction from the Decapolis. Sidon is 25 miles up the Mediterranean shore from Tyre. The Decapolis area is about 90 miles southeast.

Some commentaries just assume that this is a mistake of Mark’s – that he doesn’t know the territory. Maybe. But most biblical scholars think that the Gospel of Mark was written in Antioch, which is also in Syria, so I don’t think that’s it. I wonder if Jesus was so disoriented by the encounter with this uppity woman, that he temporarily lost his bearings. Or perhaps, he intended to continue heading north, got as far as Sidon and realized that he just had to revisit the Decapolis, where he had done an exorcism, putting a legion of demons into a herd of swine and driving them off of a cliff. The frightened people had begged him to leave their region. That’s what happened directly before the story of the healing of Jairus’ daughter. I wonder if Jesus got 25 miles into his continued journey north and realized that he had to turn around [2] and go back to the people who were so scared of being freed from a legion of demons that they wanted him to leave.

What he says to the man whose ears were blocked and tongue was tied, is “Ephphatha,” be opened. Be opened. I think that the Syrophoenician woman, Justa, had opened Jesus to the possibility that bread – justice – was not just for the children of Israel, but for everyone. Healing was not just for the daughter of the synagogue leader, but for her daughter as well. Jesus had been opened and he returned to the Decapolis to pay it forward, to give the people there another try.

And do you know what happens next? Probably not, so I’ll tell you! A great crowd of 4,000 in the wilderness area of the Decapolis, a crowd which had been with Jesus for several days, is fed with seven loaves and a few fish, with seven baskets left over. (Remember Mark’s story of the feeding in Israel was 5,000 with five loaves and two fish and 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! The meal provides more than a snack – more than enough food to keep the crowd going until they can get home. It’s a banquet where their hunger is more than satisfied. [3] It’s funny that we never refer to the feeding of the 4,000. Is the number somehow less impressive than 5000? You won’t hear it in church next week because our lectionary is going to skip right over it. That story never gets read in church, but now I hope you will remember it.

So I wonder, what do you know about being opened to justice? What do you know of suddenly being able to hear more deeply and speak more clearly than before? What do you know about being opened and how disorienting it is, or how it might mean 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? I’m going to read a poem to you to help you contemplate these questions. It’s 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  [4]

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