September 6, 2009
14 Pentecost, Year B
Christ Church Cathedral
The Rev. Canon Allison St. Louis

EVEN THE DOGS

As she usually does when we are out walking, my dog, Faith, prances from place to place sniffing all the interesting things she could find.  One morning, as she was doing her usual dance, she dashed off into a nearby patch of grass.  I paid her no attention until she resumed walking slightly ahead of me.  As I looked down at her, there seemed to be something inside her mouth pushing against her cheeks.  Although most sane people might give me a strange look, most dog owners would resonate with my next move.  Looking intently at her, I asked: “What do you have in your mouth?” Keeping her mouth clamped shut, Faith turned ever so slightly towards me, glanced in my direction, and, never having made eye contact, turned away quickly. That, plus the guilty look on her face, gave her away.  So I said “drop it! Drop it now!” She immediately opened her mouth and deposited her hidden treasure at my feet: a smooth, unbroken, dirty hotdog. 

My actions were prompted by my concern that Faith might get sick from eating food that came from only God knows where.  In last week’s gospel, Jesus’ actions were prompted by his concern that the religious authorities not only had a distorted understanding of cleanliness, but they were using their traditions to keep the Israelites in bondage.  Recall that, when the religious authorities derided some of his disciples for eating without washing their hands, Jesus seized the opportunity to challenge their distortions.  He instructed them, and us, that “there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile, for it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come.”

After upsetting the so-called apple cart, Jesus withdraws. . . and what better place is there for him to go unnoticed than a Gentile city?  So this week we find him in Tyre, a port city along the Mediterranean coast, modern day southern Lebanon.  Perhaps there he can have some peace and quiet, or so he thinks.  But no sooner does he enter a house than a Syro-Phoenician woman hears about his arrival, follows him in, and starts begging him for help.  It reminds me of a mother who goes to the one place in the house where she thinks she can get a few moments of peace, only to discover that one of her children has followed her in, and is demanding help with one thing or the other.    

Unlike that mother and child, however, Jesus does not view this woman as one of “the children.”  She is, in fact, a member of a group that his culture has taught him to look upon as unclean.  So here is Jesus, in an unclean, Gentile house, in an unclean Gentile city, with an unclean Gentile woman begging him, a clean Jewish male, to cast out an unclean spirit from her unclean, Gentile daughter. 
Jesus’ response to the woman’s plea comes as a shock to most of us: “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” Dogs. Did we hear correctly?  Did Jesus just call the woman a dog? 

Is this the Jesus we cheered on last week when he confronted the hypocrisy of the religious authorities?
When he told them that they were abandoning the commandment of God and holding fast to human tradition?
So what’s he doing now if not letting his own bias override God’s commandment?

True, Jesus believes that his primary mission is to the Israelites – “let the children be fed first.” So he may have seen the woman’s plea as a distraction from his mission to the Israelites.  But, does that really explain why he resorts to calling her a dog?

Here’s a side of Jesus many people haven’t seen or prefer not to see.  Last week he challenged the scribes and Pharisees about clean and unclean hands and pots and cups and kettles and stuff from the market, but this week he comes face to face with his own preconceived notions about those unclean Gentiles.

Have we been taught that some folks are inherently clean, while others are inherently unclean?
Who are the unclean ones in our society?
And what biases do we have about them?

But back to Jesus!  Some biblical scholars say that, because Jesus has come to Gentile territory in an effort to get away from the public, he was irritated by the woman’s intrusion – and that’s why he spoke to her so harshly. 

Others say he really didn’t mean any harm – he was referring to her as a cute, cuddly puppy, not as one of the wild dogs that run around in packs, eat dead bodies, and were often the brunt of stoning. 

In a similar vein, others say that, because calling the woman a dog does not fit with the larger picture we have of Jesus, he really wasn’t being mean – he was only teasing. 

And, of course, there are those who retreat into the safety by saying that Jesus didn’t say it at all.  But why would something that has the potential to vilify Jesus be added to Mark’s gospel?  So there it is.  Still, it’s not surprising that some people want to deny that Jesus ever called the woman a dog.  After all, it doesn’t fit the picture that many people have, or would like to have - of Jesus – the one we saw so well last Sunday – confronting religious hypocrites, challenging false priorities, and including the outsiders.  And even if that’s a Messiah we have trouble living with, at least he’s what we expect of a Messiah.  But this?  How can we live with this?

The Syro-Phoenician woman isn’t willing to live with it, either. 
Whether Jesus was rebuffing her or teasing her,
whether she should or should not be offended,
whether she should or should walk away from him
is not what’s most important to her, and she does not allow it to distract her from her primary mission.  What matters most to her is that her little girl is in need of healing, and she believes that Jesus is the one who can heal her.

So she seizes the opportunity to take Jesus’ words and use them to her advantage.  Her comeback, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs,” gets straight to the point – she’s willing and ready to take the crumbs if the crumbs will heal her daughter.  Jesus graciously concedes, and her daughter is healed.

It’s the first time that Jesus has lost an argument – but notice that he doesn’t lose it to the learned scribes or Pharisees or Sadducees – he loses it to a gentile, and a woman, no less.  Perhaps, then, for those who labor under the delusion that Jesus never made a mistake, this story allows us to catch a glimpse of his humanity. 

A human being like you and me, Jesus sometimes wants to get away from it all;
A human being like you and me, he can become tired and irritable;
A human being like you and me, he is influenced by the prevailing – even the parts of that culture that hold prejudices towards those who are different.

So, even though this is a difficult passage for many of us, it is also a passage that can give us hope. 
It can give us hope because here is a Messiah who understands what it is really like to be human;
It can give us hope because here is a Messiah we really can relate to, and
It can give us hope because here is a Messiah who models for us openness to learning
and growing beyond what our culture teaches us.

Recall that, when the woman challenges Jesus, instead of further closing himself off from her, he listens, learns and changes his mind.  I suspect that, through her call to look beyond the stereotype, he not only saw a fellow human being, but he gained a clearer picture of the God he served – a God who listens to all, shows mercy to all, and includes all – even those unclean gentiles. 

What about us?
    
How open are we to listening to, and learning from those who are different?
To those we’ve been told have little or nothing to teach us?
To those who, like the woman who called Jesus to a higher level, can remind us of who we really are, and how we are really called to live?