Let s talk about DOGS. America loves dogs. For some of us, our dogs are like family.

Transcription

1 Crumbs A Sermon on Mark 7:24-30 May 10, 2015 FPC Topeka Let s talk about DOGS. America loves dogs. For some of us, our dogs are like family. They re almost like our children. We feed them, we buy them toys, we dress them up for Halloween, we invest in their health care. We grieve deeply when they die. Dogs are heroes in movies, and characters in great literature. And how can anyone watch that Super Bowl Commercial with the lost puppy and the Clydesdales and not get choked up? In Kenya, dogs are treated a little differently. When I visited there several years ago, we would all sit outside under the night sky eating dinner, and someone would finish eating a piece of chicken or goat, and just toss the bones over their shoulder onto the ground. Within four seconds, you d hear the bones crunched by whichever dog got there first. Do not pet the dogs, we were told, And if you act like you re going to throw a piece of food, be sure to follow through because the dogs take this very seriously. Dogs did not come inside, or snuggle, or sleep on special pillows. They were not pets. They were watchdogs, and they were canine garbage disposals, eating every bone and every scrap of food we scraped off our plates at the end of a meal. My guess is that dogs in first century Palestine were treated more like dogs in Kenya than dogs in contemporary Western society. And I imagine Jesus had nothing whatsoever against dogs. But no matter how you slice it, we cannot escape the fact that this story in our Holy Bible has Jesus comparing a woman, a woman who comes to him for help for her child, to a DOG. 1

2 Let s talk about JESUS. What is his problem? He sure doesn t sound very nice. Whatever we believe about Jesus, most people would agree that Jesus is supposed to be NICE. Teachers and preachers work hard to try to soften Jesus comment. We say things like, Well, Jesus may have been testing the woman, or, Jesus was referring to the likelihood that peasants from his part of the country were forced to grow food for the people in her part of the country, and it was a terrible economic hardship for them. We feel like the parents whose kid has a meltdown at the grocery store, or refuses to share her toys on a playdate, and we quickly say, You know, he didn t get very much sleep last night, or, You know, she just got that toy for her birthday. We re a little horrified, and we feel the need to offer some kind of explanation for the inappropriate behavior. What Jesus is doing here is setting a boundary. We do this ourselves all the time, and it is healthy. We turn off our phones in restaurants and church and school. We close the blinds in our homes at night. We have lines painted on our roads and fences around our property. We have in-state tuition and out-of-state tuition. Here at our church, non-members pay more for a wedding than members do. And there are good reasons for all these things. When Jesus says to the woman, It is not fair to take the children s food and throw it to the dogs, he is saying, I know who I am and whose I am. I know why I am here and the people to whom I ve been sent. I am staying to true to that purpose and those people. I will not be distracted. Back off! Let s talk about the WOMAN. She is Syrophoenician, so she s not Jewish like Jesus. She is also, as far as I can tell, one of only two people in the entire Bible to ever win an argument with Jesus. The other one was Jesus mother, when she came to her son at a wedding and said, They have no more wine, and Jesus said, My time has not yet come, which also means, Not 2

3 my problem, and his mother just sweetly ignores him and says to the servants, Do whatever my son tells you to do, and voila! Water into wine, and the good times roll. Jesus is not on the clock when the woman approaches him. He s out of town, deliberately choosing an area where he might be less well known, probably trying to get some rest. One writer said that for the woman to approach him in this way is like a person from another country, maybe even an undocumented person, coming up to the President of the United States while he s on vacation and asking for a favor. It s just not how things are done. But this woman is beyond the point of caring about what is appropriate. She knows that well behaved women seldom make history. Her daughter s well-being is at stake. That is her focus. It is going to take more than a put-down from a holy man to send her home. When Jesus says, Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children s food and throw it to the dogs, she meets him on his own ground. Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table eat the children s crumbs. What a comeback. Let s look at what Jesus does not do. He does not get defensive. He does not attempt to justify himself. He doesn t say, Well, we ll just have to agree to disagree. He gets it. She is undisputedly right. Of course there are crumbs. There is always something that falls to the ground that the dogs will eagerly eat. He can t argue with that. So he doesn t. We teach and believe that Jesus was fully human, and fully divine. Maybe there is something divine in being able to hear wisdom and truth from someone outside your own tradition. Jesus received a direct challenge to the limits of his own clearly stated calling. Perhaps, as he heard the woman, he remembered scriptures like the one George read earlier, about God s desire for salvation to reach all the way to the end of the earth. Maybe God meant for Jesus mission to be broader than he originally thought. Maybe he had more to give-- 3

4 and to share with more people--than he thought. Maybe the line between insider and outsider, between family and non-family, doesn t need to be drawn quite so thickly. Maybe even a savior has to have his mind expanded once in a while. And if even Jesus does, then what does that say about us? It s no fun to admit when someone else is right. It feels like weakness. But when Jesus acknowledges the woman s point, it doesn t make him smaller. It makes him bigger. Real men, real women, and real saviors know how and when to stand corrected. That is real strength. Let s talk about... crumbs. Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the table. Crumbs have value. There are some wonderful saints in this congregation whose ministry is to provide goodies for memorial service receptions. This past week there was a service, and the reception folks came through with a bountiful selection of treats as usual. One person carefully cut up a pan of delicious brownies and placed them attractively on plates. She had cut them leaving a thin crust around the inside of the pan so that the edges of the brownies would be more even. But then this angel brought the pan, full of crusts, over to the office staff, and said, here you go. And we snarfed them up, and by we, I mean me. There is value in leaving something for others, and that is why God instructed the Israelites about the right way to harvest a field. Both Leviticus and Deuteronomy say, When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. 10 You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the LORD your God. In other words, leave big, chunky crumbs. Are we living in a way that hoards every crumb of time and talent and treasure for ourselves and those closest to us? Do we trust that there will be enough to share? 4

5 When I was in Girl Scouts, I remember it was my turn to bring treats. I must have been in second or third grade. Oh, I will never forget this. My mother had baked her rich homemade brownies, thick ones with thick fudge frosting on top. She put them in a plastic bucket for me. I was proud to share them. I started handing them out to the girls, one by one, and then I realized, much to my horror, that I was running out of brownies and there was still another whole circle of girls who hadn t had anything yet. In my desperation, with my heart pounding, I started pinching off pieces of brownies and handing them to the girls, trying to make them last. I remember giving one tiny piece to one girl, and the way she meekly looked up at me and said thank you, for that tiny little piece. I felt so ashamed that I didn t have enough. And I felt betrayed: my mother hadn t given me enough to share. Didn t she know how much I needed? Only after snack time was over did I finally look more carefully, and discover that my mother had packed the brownies in layers of wax paper, and beneath the first layer of brownies, which I thought was all she had given me, was a whole other layer of brownies. More than enough for everyone. Plenty. [Although by then I was too embarrassed to speak up about my mistake. I have carried the fear of not having enough all my life, which is probably why to this day I always buy too much at the grocery store.] The Syrophoenician woman argues for crumbs. What she receives is a big, thick slice, warm and gooey, with extra frosting. Friends, that is how God gives to us. There is always another layer of brownies at the bottom of the bucket. There is always another layer of healing, of grace, of awareness, of hope and possibility. Of love. Always. Even death is just another layer. 5

6 So as we go about our daily living, let s follow the example of Jesus, and stand ready to learn and receive the lessons God has for us, wherever and in whoever they turn up. Let s turn to God in prayer with the same persistence as the Syrophoenician woman who humbly refused to back down. Let s be generous with our crumbs. And let s give thanks for the bottomless bucket of good slices God so richly provides. Amen! 6