The Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost - November 8

Learning to See
Proper 27
Mark 12:38-44

The Gospel reading for today may seem pretty simple and straightforward. But it’s tricky.

Most modern Bibles separate this passage into two parts with separate headings. The first is called something like Jesus’ teaching on humility. The second part is titled: The Widow’s Mite, or The Widow’s (small) offering.

The second part about the widow is well known; it’s a familiar story. And, at first glance, it may look like the perfect text for a stewardship sermon. The message is simple. Give sacrificially. A lot of stewardship sermons have certainly been preached on this passage. I didn’t go back to check. I hope I never have. The temptation is strong, especially since we hear this passage in the fall when most parishes are doing their annual pledge campaigns.

The widow gave “everything she had to live on.” As one commentator said, she was two pennies away from death. Literally. And she gave away those two pennies. The fall parish pledge campaign is not war. It does not demand the sacrifice of a life. There are several possibilities if she really gave all she had to live on. (1) She knew she was close to death and wanted that to be her last act. (2) She wanted to die so gave away her remaining meager means of support. Or (3) she was so mindlessly bound to duty that even in the face of death she acted as she thought she “should.” This stinks as a stewardship text.

But I don’t think today’s Gospel is about the widow. The first thing to do is to look at today’s passage as a whole. Within the broader context of Mark’s Gospel, this passage is a coherent unit, not two separate stories.

And it’s about the disciples. Jesus is teaching the disciples. And he’s teaching them not so much about how to give, as how to see. And who to see. This passage is about how to see.

One commentator reflecting on this passage called it: Jesus' Tips on People Watching.

At the beginning of this passage, the disciples couldn’t take their eyes off of the scribes. They WERE treated with respect. They DID have the best seats in the synagogue. They were the star athletes of their day. The disciples are having an “I wanna be like Mike” moment. After all, the disciples were in the religion business, too. And the Scribes were at the top. The disciples looked at them with envy and admiration.

Some of those scribes, Jesus says to the disciples, at least some of those guys you envy, aren’t so religious. For them, it’s all about the attention and status. They are folks who just use religion for personal status and gain. They are self-centered hypocrites. BEWARE. Be wary. Don’t spend your time ogling those people. Be wary of aspiring to be like them.

Jesus tries to redirect their vision. To change how they see people. Change who they see.

The widow is nobody, not noticeable, worth nothing. In the society of that day, a widow was worth nothing. Jesus doesn’t tell the disciples they should BE her, or be like her. In fact, he never explicitly praises her. Jesus says, NOTICE her. SEE her.

She’s just a woman. Just a widow. But she matters, Jesus says. She is worth noticing. See her. Jesus is trying to teach the disciples how to see people with God’s eyes.

The lesson is just as relevant for us today. Do we just see the people who want us to see them, or do we see the people God wants us to see? Do we focus on the people society heralds and holds up, or do we see people as God sees them?

Or, another way of thinking about it: Do we see people as they want to be seen, in the manner that they present themselves, or do we see people as God wants us to see them?

For those of us who are disciples, followers of Jesus… how we see is very important. It is the beginning of every choice we make. Where we go. What we do. How we see… how we sense… what we learn from all of our senses…. sight, hearing, touch, intuition… How we perceive determines every choice we make. Where we go. What we do. How we give of ourselves. Who we interact with, and how.

Lord, teach us how to see.

The Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost - October 25

Your Call
Proper 25
Mark 10:46-52

There is a method of Biblical analysis called form criticism. Form criticism. Criticism not in the sense of a negative put down, but in the general sense of analysis. It grows out of the awareness that stories in the Bible tend to fall into distinct categories and within each category the stories follow a typical form or pattern.

For example, there are miracle stories. And at least most of the miracle stories follow the same pattern; they are told according to a form that is consistent for miracles stories. Other categories would be things like infancy narratives or prophetic utterances. Again, within a given category, the stories tend to follow a set pattern or form.

The way the stories are told were shaped by the literary and social norms and expectations of the day. This is how you told miracle stories in Jesus’ day. We do the same thing today. There is a particular form for telling fishing stories (including the element of exaggeration!); there is a particular way we tell stories about sports rivalries or natural disasters.

For the Biblical stories the regular forms also probably helped people remember and tell these stories when they existed only in the oral tradition. Scholars can spend whole careers on this sort of thing. Form criticism is a useful tool for studying how Biblical stories may have changed or evolved over time. And, although it may all seem pretty arcane to us, I would say that all tools for Bible study are good… Anything that draws our focus and attention to the words of Scripture is good.

The story of blind Bartimaeus which we heard as today’s Gospel falls into the category of a healing story. There are lots of healing stories in the Gospels.

The story of Bartimaeus contains the elements of a typical healing story.

1. Someone has a problem. In this case Bartimaeus has lost his sight. 
2. There is some factor that complicates matters. In the typical form of a healing story, there is a bump in the road. Some factor that complicates matters. In this case, Jesus’ disciples try to silence Bartimaeus, to keep him away from Jesus. 
3. Jesus effects the cure. 
4. The cure is confirmed. 
5. There is some response. Bartimaeus becomes a disciple of Jesus. 

Just another healing story, with all of the typical elements in a healing story.

But this is also a call story. It is the story of how Bartimaeus becomes a follower, a disciple, of Jesus. There are other call stories in the Gospels. James and John. Matthew. Typically, Jesus directly addresses the person, saying “follow me.” And, somehow, in that personal interaction, that personal encounter, whoever it is chooses to follow, becomes a disciple.

But the story of Bartimaeus it is NOT a typical call story. It doesn’t fit the form. First of all, others are involved. Those same disciples who sought to keep Bartimaeus away from Jesus act later to bring him to Jesus. And then Jesus doesn’t say “follow me,” he actually says “Go.” Your faith has made you well. Go.

All of this reminds me that, ultimately, each call story is unique. As unique as each one of us.

Jesus has communicated his love for us and his desire to each of us that we be his disciples. He communicates in ways uniquely tailored to each of us. In the colloquial phrase, he meets us “where we are.” Just like he met James and John and Matthew and Bartimaeus where they were, he meets us where we are. And calls us each, personally, to be his disciples. And we have responded. You have responded. Your being here is a response.

A call story. It may be a direct encounter with Jesus. Or may involve others leading us to Jesus. It may be immediate or gradual process of understanding. Jesus may speak to us in the midst of healing or in the midst of struggle. Jesus may speak to us personally while we are quietly reading God’s word in Scripture or as a thunderbolt from heaven.

Each of us has a personal, unique call story. Do you know yours?

The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost - October 11

In This Family, We Share
Proper 23
Mark 10:17-31

Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!"

End of sermon?

Jesus said, “How had it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God.”

For folks who take the Bible literally word for word… What do literalists do with this passage? Many seem able to overlook it. One of the problems with strict literalism is that it really is all or nothing. Either the Bible is word for word literally true, or it’s not. You can’t claim literal truth just for the passages you like.

But those of us who aren’t literalists shouldn’t feel too smug. We do the same thing. We pick and choose. Cherishing the passages we agree with and dismissing those we don’t. And we do it quite casually.

It’s very hard, I think, for any of us to take the Bible seriously enough to let it challenge us… It’s hard to take the Bible seriously enough to let it challenge or confront our personal opinions.

How hard it will be, Jesus says, for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God.

As a non-literalist, what to do with today’s Gospel?

Jesus and his disciples lived in a time when there was a prevalent understanding among Jews that wealth was a sign of God’s favor. They believed that God rewarded righteousness or faithfulness with prosperity, material wealth. (I don’t know if some of you subscribe to that belief. As you may know there is a whole strand of contemporary Christianity, known as the prosperity Gospel, which directly teaches that God rewards faith with prosperity.)

The disciples, then, are quite sincere when they ask: if the rich can’t get into the kingdom of God, then who can? If the people who are demonstrably favored by God can’t get into the kingdom of heaven, then who in the world can??

Part of what Jesus is doing in this passage is debunking that understanding. That’s not how God works, he says. Riches don’t equate to God’s favor. So if we don’t share that view, then Jesus isn’t really talking to us… Whew… We’re off the hook.

But still Jesus says, “How hard will it be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God.”

There’s another line of exploration of today’s passage that I found interesting this week.

It comes from the beginning of today’s reading: As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

The word is “inherit.” What must I do to inherit eternal life? How have I missed that all these decades?

He does not say: What must I do to receive eternal life. Or gain. Or acquire. Or earn. Or find.

He says inherit. I’m not a Greek scholar, but I know enough to be able to sort of track things down. And the Greek word (klēronoméo) means inherit. With its very specific meaning of something that is bequeathed. And there isn’t really anything someone can “do” to “inherit;” it depends upon the person making the bequest.

Apparently, in Jewish law of the day children were always heirs of their parents. A parent didn’t have the choice to disinherit a child. When the young man uses the word “inherit,” he places his question within the context of the family. And all children of God were inheritors of God’s promise. All children of God were bequeathed eternal life in God’s kingdom.

All the young man had to do was join the family. Become a child of God.

But Jesus said one thing to him: In this family, we share.

In the family of God, we share. We share joy. We share pain. We share responsibility for one another.

Go and sell what you have and give everything to the poor. Was it really just poverty that the young man lacked before he could enter God’s kingdom and inherit eternal life? Or was it maybe compassion? A sense of connection and mutual responsibility for others?

Jesus didn’t tell him just to sell his possessions. Jesus said, sell what you have and then give the money to people in need. He was grieved, the Gospel says, at the idea of losing his possessions. I imagine he was also grieved because up until this point his life had been all about him. Thinking of others’ needs was not a happy exercise.

All he had to do was join the family of God. A family that shares. Being a child of God means being blessed with lots and lots of brothers and sisters in Christ. It also means treating them that way.

The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost (St. Francis' Day) - October 4

Our Relationship with Creation
St. Francis' Day

Today, October 4, is St. Francis’ Day. In the guidelines that govern our common worship, today is the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, and that takes priority over a saints’ day. Our regular commemoration of Sundays is the most important factor in our worship. So the Scripture readings for today are those for the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost. But today is St. Francis’ Day! And, at least for me, preaching on St. Francis is a lot more inviting than preaching on the lessons for today! And, after all, we’ll have the blessings and challenge of Job and the theological intricacies of Hebrews for several weeks ahead. The reading from Mark deserves faithful and scholarly exploration, but that’s for another day. Today is St. Francis’ Day!

In this week’s e-vangelist I shared a quote about St. Francis that is memorable for me. It comes from the book that sets out our calendar of saints and provides brief descriptions about them. The current iteration of the book is called Holy Women, Holy Men. St. Francis, it says, is probably the most admired but least imitated among the saints. Most admired, but least imitated. We do admire Francis, but almost in a fairy story sort of way, it seems. We are less eager to see him as a real human being who might be a model to us of discipleship. His voluntary acceptance of poverty and identification with the suffering of Christ are not attractive to most of us.

And we should think hard about that. But Francis has other things to teach us, too.

I want to share an extended quote from a reflection on Francis written by an Episcopal Deacon in Long Island. I don’t know anything about the writer; the reflection appeared this week on the website of Episcopal Relief and Development.

I’ve taken to calling myself a creationist these days, in part (grinning impishly) because I like to see how people react and in part because I have come to believe. (Still grinning impishly.)

But really – because of St. Francis – I have come to believe in creation. Not as a static event chiseled in the stone relief of our cosmic narrative, but as an open-ended and dynamic process where every thought and action, person and particle are some how only a few degrees of separation apart.

I am so grateful that Francis heeded his call. As he knelt piously in front of a dusty Byzantine icon of the crucifix, in a busted and crumbling church in the Umbrian valley, something spoke in him, maybe even to him. “Francis, you see that my church is in ruin. Go and rebuild it.”

Not only did Francis – in a fervor worthy of a recent seminary graduate – rebuild that little church stone by stone, he began the more laborious task of offering the world a different perspective of itself; a perspective that still has the potential to change everything.

In Francis’ time, the predominant view of the cosmos was hierarchical. In an attempt to reconcile philosophical and Christian worldviews, the medieval mind conceived of the universe as a ladder. God was at the top, radiating truth down to the dimly lit earth below – for most, matter was less than spirit.

Francis’ own sense of order, however, did not spring from the university or the monastery. Francis was, in a sense, not corrupted by the popular paradigm where divine aspiration could only move in one direction: up. For Francis, Creation was like a web – an expanding sphere of interconnectedness – with God at the center and all components, creatures, moving in myriad directions: out.

It is interesting to consider that when Francis recited the Canticle of the Creatures on his deathbed, he never mentioned animals, pets or otherwise. Certainly he loved and honored all creatures great and small, recognizing their value and part in the drama of the universe. But instead, he mentioned the sun, the moon, the stars, wind and fire and he called them all brothers and sisters. To do so was to name, in an intimate way, his and our deep relationship to the world of matter that surrounds us. (Jesse Lebus HERE) 

Francis saw God’s creation as a dynamic, on-going web of relationships. It’s that idea of relationship that I want to stress. We use it sometimes with respect to nature or creation, but do we really think about what it means.

What is your relationship with creation? How would you characterize the “nature” of your relationship with nature? Or, better, with all of God’s creation? What are the qualities of that relationship? I hope you’ll consider this your spiritual homework for the week. Reflect on your relationship with creation.

Relationships, by definition, are active. They involve interactions, give and take. This isn’t about your perspective on creation; it’s about the give and take of your interactions with creation and the quality of those interactions.

What is your relationship with the sun? What do you give? What are you given? What do you take?

What is your relationship with water? What sorts of interactions do you have with water?

What is the quality of your relationship with the creatures of God’s creation?

Our relationships with other human beings provide us some models or metaphors that we might consider as we reflect on our relationship with creation.

Friendship. Is your relationship with creation like a friendship? Friendships enrich our lives very much. However, even the best friendships are usually intermittent, occurring in just a particular place or time in our lives.

Or is your relationship more like the deeper commitment of a marriage?

Do you think you have no relationship with creation? You do. You do have interactions with creation. Give and take. We all do.

Relationships can be abusive.

Or they can be casual. The interactions taking place, but not having and real meaning or significance.

There are a series of human relationships that are, by their nature, hierarchical. Which doesn’t fit as well with Francis’ view of creation.

A parent – child relationship.

An employer – employee relationship, something most of us have at least some experience with. But if creation is like our employee, what’s the bottom line? What is our company’s goal?

We often talk about environmental stewardship, but I’m a little less keen on that image now. It’s a hierarchical one. Where we are the overlord or manager.

Francis saw creation as a non-heirarchical, integrated, dynamic, ongoing process, interconnected and inspired by God. God is in the interactions.

Francis offered us the relationship model of siblings. The sun, the moon, the stars, wind and fire are our brothers and sisters. Anyone who has a human brother or sister knows it is not always a perfect relationship. But as a model for our relationship with creation it reminds us that we spring from a common creative source: God. And we interact more or less as equals within a larger whole.

Francis challenges us to ponder the quality of our relationship with creation. But, especially on St. Francis’ Day, he also reminds us to celebrate our place in God’s wondrous creation.

The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost - September 27

Doing Faith
Proper 21B
James 5:15-20
Mark 9:38-50

For the last several weeks, the lectionary has provided passages from James for the second lesson. We’ve been pretty much working our way through James. Today is the last Sunday of James.

As I said when we started James, it sometimes gets a bad rap. Luther was famously dismissive of it and would have preferred it not be in the Bible. James talks about the “works” of Christian life. Drawing upon Paul’s writings, reformation theology, like Luther’s, stresses salvation through faith alone. God’s favor, salvation, does not come through works; only through faith or belief.

But I think we have taken that reformation perspective to a real extreme. We have become too focused on belief as the be all and end all of being a Christian. If we don’t have pure belief, we assume we can’t be Christians. We expend a lot of anxiety worrying about the status of our belief. On the other hand folks who are confident or secure in their belief sometimes think that is all they need as Christians.

James provides a helpful reminder that faith is also a verb. In addition to being about belief, faith is also a verb. Faith is not just what we believe; it is also what we do. The two perspectives are not in conflict. And I think we would do well to re-energize the idea that faith is action.

And, although my main focus today is James, I think part of what today’s Gospel reminds us is that faith is action… what you do with your hand or foot or eye matters.

It’s also nice to remember that you can “do” faith even when your belief is a little shaky. That’s reassuring. Even on days or weeks or months or years when your belief may be a bit shaky, you can still live faithfully. You can still “do” faith. On the other hand, James reminds us: “So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”

The verses we hear today are from the very end of James’ letter. These are his parting words to the community to whom he writes.

One scholar writes this about James:

[The] epistle of James seeks to encourage and lead us to the conviction that we are indeed endowed by our creator with a rich bounty of gifts for the living of daily life in this world. It is then an extra benefit if the author can teach us some of the practical insights that human wisdom has discovered about a faithful living… 

We have been given a rich bounty of gifts for faithful living. Faithful living in daily life. One way I would describe what this means for me is: There is a Christian response to every situation we may face in daily life. There is a Christian action possible in the midst of every human experience. There is always something a Christian can do.

James talks about what these Christian actions are. He gives practical advice. In passages we heard in earlier weeks, James stressed the Christian responsibility to act on behalf the marginalized and powerless… widows and orphans in his world… in our world, anyone who has less power than we do through absolutely no fault of their own. It is always our responsibility to do what we can, to act to help people who are powerless or marginalized.

In today’s reading James’ vision turns a bit more inward. Speaking to the community to whom he is writing, he says: Are any among you suffering? And he probably means more than just suffering under oppression or persecution, although those might have been possible for early Christians. He means suffering under any negative life experience, such as sorrow, depression, a bad family or social situation, or economic distress.

What is the practical Christian response when we are suffering? Pray. We know that, but we need to be reminded to do it. Pray.

Are any among you cheerful? Again, he doesn’t just mean smiley face happy, he means aware of the goodness of life. Are any of you experiencing good within your life? What is the practical Christian response to goodness? Praise. We know that, too, but how often do we really do it? How often do we pause to offer words or acts of praise?

Are any among you sick? And here he means literally, physically sick. What is the practical Christian response when we are sick? Call upon the church. It never occurs to James that there would not be a church community to call upon. Christians exist in community. And when we are sick what Christians do is call upon the church community. For the church’s anointing and for the support and help that other Christians offer.

When James mentions people who are suffering, cheerful or sick, he imagines that he has covered everyone. He means to cover the totality of human existence and present a practical and Christian response for every personal situation. There is always a Christian response.

He means to be encouraging. But he also challenges us in our day, I think, to ask ourselves: how often really am I living, responding to the experiences of life, as a Christian? What percentage of my life am I doing faith? I was reflecting on aspects of my life (and maybe yours?) where I’m not generally consciously acting as a Christian.

For example, entertainment choices. An example came to mind, that I share with a bit of trepidation. Tom Ferguson is an Episcopal priest who serves as Academic Dean at Bexley Seabury seminary. He blogs on life in the church. Church, of course, is only thing that happens on Sundays. One other things is the NFL.

In August Ferguson, who blogs as Crusty Old Dean, posted about his decision, as a Christian, to boycott professional football. I’m not here to pass judgment on those of you who invest your time or resources on professional football as entertainment. I don’t enjoy it that much, so I’m in no position to cast stones. But it is probably a conversation that for some of you is worth having. Start by reading his piece (HERE). It’s four pages long. It’s not a casual or capricious decision. It’s a thoughtful and faithful one.

But I mention it as an example. An example of faithful living. An example of acting as a Christian in the midst of the experiences of daily life.

There is always a Christian action possible just ahead of us in any situation or experience of daily life. In the choice of food that we purchase or consume. In the choice of vehicle we drive. In the sorts of entertainment we participate in. In the way we relate to friends, coworkers, or people on the train. In the work we do. In the ways we spend our time and our money.

James reminds us to live as Christians. There is always a Christian response or a Christian action before us.

James' final words are worth noting. He says that the bestest Christian action we can ever do is to help others in their faith. And doing that covers a host of other sins or Christian shortcomings. (That’s not the best theology; God doesn’t keep score or assign points.) But James’ priority is good. The absolute best thing we can faithfully do as Christians is to help sustain others in their efforts to live faithfully.

The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost - September 13

Misguided Expectations
Proper 19
Mark 8:27 - 38

The first part of the Gospel reading appointed for today is an event known as “The Confession of Peter.” Not confession in the needing forgiveness sense, but in the sense of professing. Peter professes, or confesses, that Jesus is the Messiah. Peter names Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah.

It’s an important event in the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry. It occurs in all three synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke. It even has a holy day on the calendar for its commemoration: January 18.

At first glance it seems like a miracle. Peter actually gets something right. “You are the Messiah.” Peter correctly names Jesus as the Messiah. In Matthew Peter says: You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. In Luke Peter names Jesus as “the Messiah of God.” The Messiah.

What does it mean to you to name Jesus as the Messiah? We know the right answer. We know what to name Jesus. But what does the name mean to you? What does it say about Jesus to confess him as Messiah?

Maybe you know it means something about being God’s anointed. The one who was promised. But what does that mean in terms of who Jesus is, what Jesus does???

If you’re not sure, take heart. Peter didn’t know either. Peter got the name right, but he got pretty much everything else wrong. And, in the end, I think what he got wrong is more instructive to us than what he got right.

Peter confessed Jesus as Messiah, but Peter’s expectations of what the Messiah would do were totally off. We might do better to call this passage not the Confession of Peter, but rather “Peter’s Misguided Expectations.”

You’ve probably heard before that in Jesus’ day there was widespread expectation among the Jews that a big part of what the Messiah would be would be a powerful political leader, one who would fight for their cause and overcome those who opposed them.

Beyond that, and I’m definitely speculating here, I wonder if Peter wanted his Messiah to be a winner, a God of glory and power. Peter wanted to be associated with a Messiah who was acclaimed, not scorned, by the religious authorities. Peter expected his God to do him proud.

Peter clearly does not expect the Messiah to undergo suffering, to be rejected by the important religious leaders, to be killed…

Peter had strong expectations of God’s Messiah. Whether those expectations grew out of the religio/social expectations of his day for a Messiah who was a strong political leader and/or whether Peter’s expectations grew out of his own needs and hopes for who God would be in his life.

Wherever they came from, Peter’s expectations were his expectations and they were way off.

What are your expectations of Jesus or of God? In your own life, or in the world? What do you expect of God?

If God’s not meeting those expectations, then we need to question the expectations. That’s what this passage teaches me.

The problem wasn’t that God was absent or passive in Peter’s life. He was right there!! Jesus was as close to Peter and as active in his life as it’s possible to be. The disconnect was caused by Peter’s misguided expectations of “his” Messiah.

What are your expectations of your Messiah? That he will fight for your cause? Help you shine in the world? Affirm you desires?

If God’s not meeting your expectations, you need to challenge those expectations. And be open to God’s action in your life in unexpected places and ways. God is present; God is acting. But maybe not how you expect. Be open to God’s presence and care in unexpected places and ways.

The Messiah comes to us, not in power, but in weakness and suffering. Not in flashy glory, but in quiet hope. Not to meet our expectations, but to meet our deepest needs… the need for meaning, for joy, for soul-freedom…

If God is not meeting your expectations, put aside those expectations and look for him in new and unexpected places in your life.

The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost - September 6

What's Our Excuse?
Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23
Mark 7:24-37

The woman came up to Jesus bowing in supplication; she was “a Gentile,” not a Jew, “of Syrophoenician origin,” a foreigner. “She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. [Jesus] said to her, "Let the children,” our people, “be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs" such as you (Mark 7:26-27).

I’m not a Greek scholar, but I gather a literal translation of Jesus’ words is tricky. But there seems to be no doubt that his words were a dismissive insult. An ethnic slur. Any number of contemporary examples come to mind.

I can’t imagine there are any preachers who look forward to this Gospel passage as it shows up every three years.

There seem to be two primary approaches to interpreting Jesus’ rudeness.

The first, and most common, is that Jesus was testing her faith. He pushed her away, insulted her, to test how sincere and persistent her faith really was. This interpretation is supported a bit, at least, when Jesus says that because of how she answers—with persistent faith—her child will be healed.

But there are big problems with this interpretation (David Lose, here).  Nothing like it occurs anywhere else in the Gospel of Mark. Jesus doesn’t test people before he heals them. Also, there isn’t any clear mention of testing, as there is, for example, in Job. And, finally, this portrays a cold-hearted and cruel God who taunts and tests us in our deepest moments of need. Not the Jesus of the New Testament or our experience.

The second interpretation focuses on the human Jesus. And, of course, Jesus was fully human. 100% human, just like us. And, also, we assert 100% divine, fully God. In this interpretation, it is the human Jesus who speaks, who hasn’t completely figured out God’s purpose or the fullness of God’s kingdom and its rich inclusiveness. In speaking to the woman who comes before him Jesus reflects the cultural norms of his time. Without a doubt his words convey how fellow Jews of his day felt about Syrophoenician scum.

Picking between these two interpretations, I favor the second one. Although there are significant theological problems with it. Like where was the divine Jesus at the time?  But one nice teaching point from this interpretation (which I think I stressed in an earlier sermon) is that Jesus embodies or models the journey from bigotry to compassion. A very important and faithful journey that all of us humans need to make over and over again.

Ultimately, for me there is no satisfactory or “comfortable” explanation of this passage. That’s an important note.  Holy Scripture isn't always comfortable.  And I’m a bit wary of anyone who does have a comfortable interpretation of Jesus’ words.

But this year, as I read this passage again, a different piece of it caught my eye. Just a phrase, but maybe worth looking at.

Mark says that after Jesus came to the foreign region of Tyre, “He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice” (Mark 7:24).

He entered a house and did not want anyone to know that he was there.  One commentator I read kindly suggested that Jesus was tired. After all, he’d been doing a lot of healing of folks who’d come to him in need. A lot of healing.  He’d been teaching and debating in a setting fraught with stress and complexity as he challenged the religious leaders of his day. Just a little while back he had fed people who were hungry, five thousand of them! Surely he deserved a little down time from the work of bringing God’s kingdom into the world… Surely he needed a bit of Sabbath time from bringing God’s love into the world.

But.  What’s our excuse? For retreating from Christian mission?

What’s our excuse? For wanting to escape notice as Christians?

Why do we hide and remain passive?

Jesus could not escape notice. He was not capable of remaining quiet or inactive in the face of human need.

Oh, that it might be said of us that we cannot escape notice in the face of human need. That we are inescapably noticeable for the work we are doing to bring God’s kingdom, God’s love into the world!

People are hungry, starving, without food, in our world.  Who will feed them?

Who will shelter the homeless, including refugees whatever their ethnicity, in our world?

Who will fight injustice, and its roots in bigotry? And its roots in poverty? Proverbs reminds us to do what we can to redress poverty.

And those who are in distress… Sick in body and soul… Who will offer them hope?

Jesus didn’t do these things to earn notoriety in the society of his day or to earn God’s favor. He did them because it was God’s work. It needed to be done. And he was there to do it.

We are here to do it now.