St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD
September 5, 2021
Year B, Proper 18: The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23
Psalm 125
James 2:1-10, 14-17
Mark 7:24-37
In An Unfamiliar Land
Back when I first started preaching, I worried that sometime soon I would run out of things to talk about.
But, as you may have noticed, despite making my way through our three-year cycle of readings about five times now, in fact I have not run out of things to talk about – maybe just the opposite!
Over the years, I’ve discovered that, although these Bible passages remain the same, the world changes, our circumstances change, and we change.
And so, the Word of God speaks to us differently each time we hear it.
For example, the last time I heard and preached on today’s gospel passage, I was the rector of the Church of St. Paul and Incarnation back in Jersey City. Since both Sue and I were born and raised – and lived most of our lives – in Jersey City, it was and is the place we know the best. I certainly didn’t need my GPS to get around.
And, since Sue and I entered the Episcopal Church at St. Paul’s, that was and is the church we know the best – its history, its people, its challenges and possibilities.
But, of course, back in July we moved from Jersey City to be here with all of you.
And, arriving here in this beautiful place, and praying with you, and beginning to get to know you, has been an incredibly wonderful blessing.
But, the truth is that Sue and I do find ourselves in an unfamiliar land. We have only just begun to learn our way around and, yes, still need to use the GPS nearly all the time (though a little less each week). Supermarket shopping takes twice as long as it used to because we don’t know where everything is – lots of backtracking up and down the aisles.
We have only just begun to understand the history of St. Thomas’ and to appreciate the particular traditions and dynamics of this place. And, since you and I don’t share much history yet, I can’t make as many assumptions, can’t use shorthand or the occasional inside joke like I could back in Jersey City.
I’m in a wonderful but unfamiliar land. And, sure enough, I hear today’s unusual and challenging gospel lesson a bit differently than I did three years ago.
Because it turns out that Sue and I aren’t the only ones in an unfamiliar land.
At the start of today’s gospel lesson, Mark tells us that Jesus “set out and went away to the region of Tyre.” That sounds like a throwaway line - unless you know that it means Jesus has left his homeland of Galilee, where he was known and where he knew a lot of people, where the sights and sounds and smells must have been so familiar.
Jesus has left his homeland and entered non-Jewish territory – the region of Tyre, which would be in Lebanon today.
And, maybe because he’s in an unfamiliar land, at first Jesus just doesn’t seem to be quite himself.
We’re told that he is approached by a Syro-Phoenician woman. That little detail tips us off that she was not a Jew. She was a Gentile. And this woman’s daughter has been suffering from an “unclean spirit.”
Now, this is a pretty familiar situation for Jesus, right?
Once word had gotten out about Jesus, lots of people came to him looking for healing – happened all the time – and I can’t really think of a case where Jesus turns away anybody – except for what we heard today.
This Gentile woman, desperate for her daughter to be well, bows before this Jewish teacher and healer and begs him to help.
But, in maybe his least Jesus-like moment ever, Jesus spurns her.
Jesus says to this desperate mother, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
Because it’s so out of character it’s easy to miss what’s happening here. Jesus seems to be saying that his food is for the people of Israel – “the children” – and not for Gentiles like this woman and her child – “the dogs.”
Now, if Jesus seemed to reject me, said something like that to me, I’m pretty sure I would crawl away and weep, brokenhearted by the ultimate rejection.
But, not this amazing woman – not this bold and loving mother.
She goes right back at Jesus, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
Her amazing boldness and persistence seem to convince Jesus to heal the daughter.
So, what to make of this unsettling story?
Well, maybe, Jesus was testing the woman, to see just how much faith and persistence she had.
Maybe, but I think something else is going on here – something important for Jesus and for you and me and for everybody.
It seems to me that in an unfamiliar land, encountering unfamiliar people, our brother Jesus is challenged to stretch. Maybe it’s now, in this unfamiliar land, in this unsettling moment, that Jesus begins to understand that his mission is even bigger than he had thought – that his mission of love and healing and salvation is not just for his own Jewish people who he knew so well, but also for the people that even he might have been inclined to dismiss as outsiders.
It turns out that the Good News of Jesus is for the bold Syro-Phoenician woman and her suffering daughter.
The light of Jesus is meant to shine on the people in the region of Tyre - and the people of Jersey City and Owings Mills.
Jesus is a gift for the whole world.
I believe that Jesus’ encounter with the Syro-Phoenician woman changed him – and maybe we see – or better, hear – that change in today’s second miracle story when, while still in an unfamiliar land, Jesus heals the deaf man.
This time there’s no talk of dogs and crumbs – just the very Jesus-like gift of wholeness and new life.
So, it’s obvious that Sue and I are in an unfamiliar land – you may find us wandering the aisles at Giant.
And, in today’s gospel lesson we heard about Jesus’ momentous trip into an unfamiliar land.
But, I would suggest that today, even if you haven’t moved an inch, all of us find ourselves living in an unfamiliar land.
It’s a land where the culture changes so fast to make our heads spin – a land where we can no longer rely on the institutions we’ve usually taken for granted – a land that certainly seems so bitterly divided, though maybe not as polarized as some would want us to think.
It’s a land transformed by plague – and a land either parched or flooded by a destructively changing climate.
It’s a land where the church, which once sat proudly at the center of life, has been pushed – or maybe just drifted – to the margins.
Today we are all in an unfamiliar land.
And, yes, that is unsettling, but it can also be a God-given challenge to stretch.
I believe that Jesus was challenged – stretched - by his trip to an unfamiliar land and his encounter with that bold and persistent woman.
So, today, here in our unfamiliar land, maybe we can all hear these old Bible stories with new ears. Maybe we can see that our mission is wider than we had previously imagined – that, just like Jesus, we’re called to serve people usually dismissed as outsiders – the “dogs.”
Just like our brother Jesus, may our time in an unfamiliar land widen our vision, and make us even more loving, even more generous.
Amen.
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