Beloved of God,

Fall is in the air, and in this election year that means a good deal of attention on the air to campaigns for office at every level, as well as referendums and initiatives on the ballot. Of particular attention in our state is Referendum 74 on marriage. We’ll be hosting a congregational forum on this referendum September 9th after worship. I hope you’ll come. The gospel for that Sunday comes from Mark 7, the story of Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman. (Read quote above.)

Do you feel yourself cringing at this story the way I do? “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” OUCH! Even 20 centuries after the fact, his words still sting. Here is a view of a Jesus we hardly ever see, and it’s a bit disconcerting to say the least. He seems prepared to dismiss this woman and send her away with nothing. It’s easy to imagine the woman leaving that house humiliated and ashamed; kicking herself for thinking that Jesus would somehow be different than the others. But if this woman is caught off guard by Jesus’ rejoinder, she doesn’t show it! Without missing a beat she delivers the best comeback in the entire New Testament:

“Lord,” she says, “you may look upon us as dogs, but even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

As silence envelops the room, Jesus takes in her words and is challenged to re-evaluate whom he has been called to serve, to revisit the boundaries between Jew and Gentile and to move beyond an ancient barrier.

In every other encounter recorded in the gospels, Jesus wins the debate. But here this mother bests him. His NO becomes a YES. “For saying that,” he tells her, “you may go. The demon has left your daughter.”

I once heard Presbyterian missionary Harold Kurtz speak powerfully of how the gospel serves as a catalyst of transformation in every culture it encounters. He shared an experience he’d had with the Maji, a people who sit at the bottom rung of the ladder, ethnically, culturally, and economically, in Ethiopia. The Maji are people of the land, who stay as far away from the modern world as they can and are treated like second-class citizens by their fellow Ethiopians. When they come in to market to buy something to drink, they are forbidden from drinking out of a glass like all other customers. Instead, they must bring a leaf and it is into that leaf that the market vendor pours their drink. Harold had an opportunity to go to a Maji settlement and speak with the people who had been learning the gospel story. In the midst of the meeting, one man from the community rose to speak.

LOOK AT ME, he told Harold. And pointing at himself, he asked: IS THIS A FACE OF A DOG? IS MY FACE LIKE THAT OF AN ANIMAL? IS NOT MY FACE A HUMAN FACE? ARE NOT MY EYES AND EARS AND NOSE THOSE OF A HUMAN? YET, he told Harold, WE ARE TREATED LIKE DOGS. BUT I AM LEARNING THAT THERE IS ONE WHO DOES NOT SEE ME AS A DOG, BUT AS HIS CHILD. I AM LEARNING THAT IN THE HEART OF GOD I AM WORTHY OF LOVE.

The story of the encounter between Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman could easily have been tossed out by early Christians as an unfavorable portrayal of the one they had come to know as their Lord and God. But it wasn’t. The story was remembered and passed on. There is something here that is fundamental to understanding the gospel. And if we, dear sisters and brothers, can witness Jesus himself growing in his understanding of how wide God’s mercy and justice extend, can we not imagine ourselves, too, being changed? It’s worth thinking about.

When it comes to politics, our choices on candidates and referendums will never be unanimous. But as citizens and as people called to be salt, light, and leaven, we ought to grapple with the questions nonetheless. And as we grapple, it will be our “duty and delight” to be generous with one another, practicing the arts of listening and loving as a witness to the world of the sure bond between those who follow Christ.

With you on the way,

Pastor Erik