Church of the Incarnation

I'll admit it - today's gospel makes me horribly uncomfortable.

In Jesus' defense, he's really tired. We've been following his travels pretty closely this summer, so you know that everywhere he goes in Jewish territory he's mobbed. If it isn't the poor needing healing and teaching and feeding, it's the religious leaders with their probing questions, trying to trap him into saying something outrageous. He needs a break.

So he leaves Jewish territory and goes to Tyre. I don't know how he had a place to stay there - maybe the house belonged to the business associate of a Jewish merchant he knew or something. But he goes to Tyre, where no one will know who he is and where those who have heard of him won't have any interest in what he has to say, and he holes up in this house to get away from it all.

But of course, no sooner has he taken off his sandals and stretched out on a pallet to take a nap, then there's a knock at the door. He opens it to an obviously important woman. She's dressed in the latest style, with gold bangles jingling on her arms and jewels glistening in her hair. Jesus must think she's looking for the owner of the house, but immediately she says she's come to find him. She bows down at his feet. Jesus is, I'm sure, accustomed to having people bow down at his feet. He often looks down to the heads of the needy: those whose heads bear the sores of leprosy, those whose heads bear the grime of poverty and hunger. But here he finds himself looking down to the perfectly washed and styled head of this woman. She's surrounded by the latest ideas in philosophy and the arts and science. She worships a whole pantheon of gods. And she can purchase the services of all the best sorcerers and magicians. What can she possibly want from a poor Jewish rabbi?

She doesn't leave him in suspense long, reaching up for his hands and begging him to cast the demon out of her little daughter. And Jesus does something that I find shocking and appalling. He looks down on her and says, "Let the children (meaning the Jewish people, the people like Jesus) - let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." He calls her a dog! And he doesn't mean a cuddly lap dog - animals were valued then based on the usefulness. And a dog doesn't produce milk or eggs or even enough meat for a good meal. Dogs were considered ritually unclean, so to touch one would contaminate a person. It's like he calls her... a cockroach. A filthy, useless pest. This poor rabbi looks on this wealthy Greek woman kneeling before him and calls her a cockroach.

It makes me uncomfortable that Jesus says this, and it makes me uncomfortable to think about all the times I've said essentially the same thing. I've been thinking a lot this week about whom I call cockroaches, whom I value less than others, whom I treat as unimportant. I know I look down on those outside Incarnation who come to me every month for financial assistance. I don't always return their phone calls, leaving it up to them to reach me. That's horrible. I wouldn't do that intentionally to one of you. And I assume they've come to me because they aren't as smart or as capable as those who aren't having trouble; I assume they need me to teach them how to get along. I'm supposed to love all equally, but I know I don't. It's clear when I take a walk: my body goes tense when people who look one way walk toward me and it doesn't when others approach. And it's clear as I pick a check-out line in the grocery store: I'm certain from looking that some checkers are going to be slow and inaccurate while others are more skilled. By not picking their lines, I'm calling them cockroaches. What must they feel - and especially if I have my collar on!

The woman in Jesus' encounter, interestingly, doesn't even flinch when Jesus calls her a cokroach. She agrees with him. She says, "Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." Somehow she recognizes that all her fancy clothes and her great education and her family's position don't make her any more valuable than anyone else. Before this poor Jewish rabbi, before God, she's just another beggar.

I wonder what happens inside Jesus at this. Does he feel small and petty before this faithful woman? Is he mortified by his behavior toward her? Does he look around to see who else heard him speak so rudely to her? Does the color rush to his cheeks? All we know is that he humbly commends her faith and declares her daughter healed.

I'm just glad our reading for today doesn't end there. Because I've been at that point all week: chagrined by my actions and trying to make faltering amends when there's really no way to take it back.

But our reading goes on. We meet a deaf mute, a man who can't hear the cries of those around him, who can't respond to others' needs and distress. He can't hear the faith that is in those who don't look like the faithful are supposed to, and he can't hear the needs of those who look like they have it all together. He's like I feel after hearing the story of the Syrophoenician woman. Deaf and mute, stuck in my own world of silence and distance. But Jesus doesn't leave him there. He sighs the word he sighs to each of us, and to me most of all. He sighs, "Ephphatha," "be opened." Jesus offers us healing from our deafness to those around us. He offers us a new start.

In a moment we'll bring to the altar symbols of our life's labors and we'll ask God's blessing on the work we do in his world. It's my prayer that God will sigh "Ephphatha" on us, opening our eyes and ears and tongues so that our labors will lift up all those around us and bring God's kingdom a little closer.

Amen.