23 Ordinary B 15

Posted on 08 Sep 2015, Preacher: Kevin Maly
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HealBleedingWomanReadings:
Isaiah 35.4-8
St. Mark 7.24-37

Well, we hear this morning that Jesus is setting out for the beach-side resort town of Tyre for a little R &R – perhaps getting away from the maddening crowds continually traipsing after him, continually begging him for this, that, and everything else under the sun. And, it was to be hoped that in that posh get-away region of Tyre there would be none of God’s chosen people hounding the Messiah, barking for favors. But it seems that for the One who is God-from-God, there can be no rest – beggars have big mouths and so the One who is Light-from-Light is unable to escape notice.

And so there comes yet another one to Jesus – but not just your everyday, garden variety beggar, but a Syrophoenician and a woman! And this nervy woman, she just bursts right in on where Jesus is staying, and in the process disregards every possible social and religious boundary. Proper women of any sort, Gentile Syrophoenicien or not, do not come-a-calling on anyone except other women (who don’t count as people) and usually then just relatives, and preferably when their husbands aren’t at home. And no woman, not even a wife would dare speak much of anything to a male other than “yes, m’lord,” or “I’m sorry, m’lord, I’ll never do it again, m’lord”! The only women who say any more than that to a male are prostitutes or soon to be divorcees. But no, this brazen piece of Tyre trash, after bursting in, grovels at Jesus’ feet and begins to keep on begging. Interesting in a sort of outré way: seeing a Syrophoenician beg – they’re impossibly rich you know and quite above the fray. But here’s this you-know-what (rhymes with rich) insistently begging for Jesus to heal her daughter. What’s the matter, hoyden, you one of those rich sorts who doesn’t believe in paying for medical care or much of anything else? Or is your daughter one of those cases no one wants to touch? Or are you truly as lacking in morals as your current behavior would suggest – and no self-respecting healer wants to have a thing to do with you?

And what Jesus says next – well, he’s only telling her – in case she or we don’t know – he’s only telling in rather down-to-earth terms what religion dictates must be said to such a one as she. “Let the righteous be fed first, for it is not just or proper to take the bread of the righteous and throw it to the unrighteous – who in the sight of religion, are the equivalent of mangy, stray dogs; as it is said in Isaiah,” which was just read to us by the Deacon, ‘no one unclean shall pass along the Sacred Way – it shall be for God’s people,’” which of course is who the religious most assuredly are.

But this dog-of-a-woman – she’s desperate – desperate and sassy. So sassy that she’s risking a good, hard slap across the face – which, according to custom, would certainly be well within the prerogatives of a religious male to do. But, not getting smacked upside the head, Ms. No-good Sass-box, in utter disregard of couth, smarts-off in reply, “Listen – even the dogs under the table get to eat the children’s crumbs.” Such . . . such audacity . . . such hideous, irreligious, profane, and ugly behavior. (Sort of like how Martin Luther, that uncouth German priest, said he’d act if God were about to sentence him to everlasting death: “I’d shake my fist in God’s face and cry out, ‘But you promised.’”) And whaddya know – lo and behold, it appears that this Jesus, God-from-God, rather likes this woman’s uppity, audacious, irreligious, profane, and ugly behavior – in truth Jesus regards it to be indicative of . . . faith! And so it is that the daughter of this uppity, rhymes-with-rich gets freed from whatever was keeping her in bondage and from which she could not free herself.

We tell them that the One-who-is-Light-from-Light never wearies of beggars – be they poor or rich; male or female; same-gender lovers or not; transgressive of gender or not; unclean and uncouth or not; democrats, republicans, libertarians, socialists or completely apolitical; young, old, people of every degree of physical and mental ability; regardless of culture, skin color, ethnicity, language, or citizenship …

And with this, Jesus, Very-God-from-Very-God, having gotten no rest, decides to go back to Galilee in the south, but strangely – or not – by travelling north, through Sidon – yet another beach resort, and then east through the Urban Corridor where surely the sophisticates living there would have no need of Jesus. But – once again – no rest for God-from-God – though you gotta wonder if this Jesus wasn’t in fact going in search of trouble. Be that as it may, long story short and all that, some bunch of nameless nobodies bring to Jesus this guy who’s deaf and so, naturally, can’t speak. These folks must be desperate too. Why else drag someone to this alien Jesus guy . . . . who to all appearances is just some landless schmuck from that primitive, pathetically backward backwater of Galilee – and this Jesus, one of those rabbi types with their ridiculous God, their ridiculous clothes, and those ridiculous pe’ot curling down from in front of their ears. But desperation knows few boundaries nor Jesus either – Jesus, who just can’t resist the needy even if they’re wealthy and unclean (religiously speaking); so, Jesus just goes and breathes out Spirit and some spit – and the one who couldn’t hear now hears the Word from God, “Be opened – and speak.” And hear and speak the man does, and then runs off, yet another beggar telling everybody about Jesus, tho’ for the moment, Jesus says “don’t tell anyone,” (or the fullness of God upon the cross is yet to come. However (!) this, “don’t tell anyone” is not a word from the Lord for us – but more of that in a bit.

So – what to make of these two stories? It seems that “who gets to come to Jesus” has nothing to do with being either poor or wealthy, has nothing to do with religious boundaries, has nothing to do with how ill-behaved a person is. Turns out that it’s precisely the desperate, the miserable, the oppressed of every sort, religious or not, who get to come to Jesus; turns out, that countering the ways of conventional, dead religion, the God who neither slumbers nor sleeps, who does not take vacation, does indeed hear the begging of those who can’t fix themselves, who can’t pull themselves up by their own bootstraps (presuming of course that they even have boots or even shoes), and not only does God-in-Jesus not turn these dogs away, but gives them, for free, living bread, and with Word, spit-water, and Spirit opens their ears to hear some good news for a change and looses too their tongues in the bargain. And next thing you know they’re off to tell other desperate beggars – irrespective of social boundaries – where to receive living bread, where to hear that the God who knows no religious nor social boundaries is as invasively close to them as the taunting wet-willie of a bumptious big brother.

Earlier I said that Jesus’ injunction ‘not to tell’ was temporary – in effect only until Jesus had completed his work of the cross. But we now live beneath the cross, we don’t need to keep our mouths shut – and like the once “deaf, dumb, and blind kid” we just can’t help but go and tell, we can’t help but be the desperate who tell other desperate folks where to go to receive life-giving bread, healing, and wholeness. And I must tell you – the only reason I’m here in this place is that, in my awful brokenness, in my overwhelming weakness, this is the place where life keeps being given to me, where healing keeps happening to me, where I, in my hunger for something more, am continually received and fed. And that is why all of you are here too, whether you’re aware of it or not. You are here because you too keep on experiencing as truly life-giving those Words of Eternal Life that know no social nor physical boundaries. We are the company of the beggars who are forever telling other broken, overwhelmed, and desperate beggars about what we keep on receiving. We tell them that the One-who-is-Light-from-Light never wearies of beggars – be they poor or rich; male or female; same-gender lovers or not; transgressive of gender or not; unclean and uncouth or not; democrats, republicans, libertarians, socialists or completely apolitical; young, old, people of every degree of physical and mental ability; regardless of culture, skin color, ethnicity, language, or citizenship – we keep on telling the broken – who are in fact just like us – we keep on telling them that Jesus has no boundaries. We go and we tell the rest of the desperate beggars about the Wholly-Odd-One who welcomes with open arms all those who shake their fists in the Divine Face and cry out: “But God – you promised!!”

But please, do warn them when they do demand that God keep God’s promise, sooner or later, they are going to hear the sound of God . . . the sound of God . . . laughing . . . in divine delight, pleased as can be at such audacious . . . . irreligious . . . . . . . faith.