September 8, 2024 - The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Beginning as far back as 2017, when I filled in for Michael Ryan, Epiphany’s Rector at the time, during his three-month’s sabbatical, quite a few of you have heard me talk about Fierce Conversations, a leadership practice I’ve found very helpful over the years. A Fierce Conversation, as defined by the book of the same name, is one in which we come out from behind ourselves, into the conversation, and make it real. You might say that it’s a conversation in which we take off our masks.
One of the book’s claims is that, while there’s no guarantee this will happen, any single honest, engaged conversation can change the course of a life, a relationship, or an organization. I know this to be true. The value we place on this quality of conversation here at Epiphany is one of the reasons Epiphany is thriving. It’s important to note that these conversations are not only about how we speak, but are also about how we listen. There are two fierce principles that, far from encouraging us to be assertive in speaking, encourage us instead simply to listen. The first of these principles is, “Let silence do the heave lifting.” Talk less; listen more. For some of us – and I’m one of them – this can be hard to do. But I know that keeping silent, when silence is making us uncomfortable and we’re dying to speak, can move relationships forward.
A second principle related to listening, this one from the book Fierce Leadership, is this: Seek to become a person to whom others are willing to speak the truth. This one is really difficult for most of us; and no one is likely to tell us honestly how they see us, unless we are open to hearing and being changed, rather than being defensive.
After hearing today's Gospel passage about two incidents of healing by Jesus, we may be tempted to jump to the end of the story and join the crowds who, according to Mark, "were astounded beyond measure" and proclaimed, "He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak." But I’m going to say, "Not so fast!" If we pay close attention to the details of this story, early on we will notice a surprising difference between our expectations and what actually takes place prior to the healings that Jesus performs.
This is where the challenge to listen, and to listen with an open heart and mind, comes in. In this story, the deaf man isn’t the only person who receives his hearing. Before that can even happen, Jesus himself has to have his ears opened to hear in a new way. At the beginning of today’s passage, he is trying to get away for a little peace and quiet. After doing verbal battle with a group of Pharisees to whom, contrary to Jewish custom, he declares all foods clean, Jesus escapes – or so he thinks – to the region of Tyre, in today’s Southern Lebanon.
Once Jesus is there, wishing to be alone, a Gentile woman enters the house where he is staying and approaches him on behalf of her sick daughter. From the perspective of our culture, we can easily miss the scandal of this encounter. It would have been inconceivable for an unrelated woman, and a stranger, to approach a man in the privacy of a home. Even worse, it was unacceptable for a Gentile to solicit a favor from a Jew.
Jesus responds exactly as any Jewish male would be expected to. His words are similar to a rabbinic saying of that time: "He who eats with an idolater is like one who eats with a dog." His precise words in response to her request are metaphorical: "Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." It doesn't require a keen intellect to figure out who are the children and who are the dogs here. But if this cheeky woman is a dog, as one writer puts it, "she yaps right back. She says, 'Okay. You want to do metaphors? I can do metaphors. Sir, even the dogs under the table get the children's crumbs.'"
This unnamed Greek woman is one of my very favorite characters in all of Scripture. Metaphorically, she anoints the ears of Jesus and says, "Be opened!" And in this seminal moment, she gives him a whole new perspective. Not only does she open his ears, she also opens his eyes to see in a new way. She helps him take a major step in his own growth toward inclusiveness. Just as Jesus has urged the Pharisees to become more inclusive, by not treating as outcasts those Jews who don't follow the strict purity laws, she says to Jesus, you can't stop there. Those Gentiles whom you have called dogs are also God’s children and deserving of God's gift of healing.
If viewing Jesus as a person who evolves makes you uncomfortable, you're not alone. Several years ago, after I preached on this same passage, I invited a newcomer to St. Paul & the Redeemer in Chicago, a new graduate student at the University of Chicago, to have breakfast later that week. When we met, he told me right away that he would not be returning to my church. When I asked him why, he answered that he thought I was a heretic; for he did not believe that Jesus evolved, but rather he was perfect and all-knowing from birth.
If we look at the later Gospels, we may get a sense that their writers were also uncomfortable with this story. Luke omits it entirely and Matthew alters it in a way that makes the encounter less shocking and gives Jesus more respect. In Matthew, it isn't because she helps Jesus become more inclusive that the woman's request is granted, but because she has great faith.
What I love about the earlier version of the story – the one that we just heard from Mark – is how Jesus is revealed as a person of amazing openness both to people and to God. Whenever I bristle at someone's efforts to give me honest feedback, I find it helpful to recall the Jesus of this passage. He's a marvelous model. I wouldn't judge a person – including myself – too harshly for being able to accept and use criticism only after having time to absorb it. What’s more, this takes a lot of practice. But I do aspire to the remarkable model Jesus presents here, when he immediately recognizes the truth with which the woman is confronting him, and allows himself to be stretched.
We may by tempted to embrace a Sunday school version of Jesus, which would give us one kind of security. But Mark gives us a person of enormous dynamism and integrity, a person who is divine not because he possesses magical qualities, but because he exhibits a deeply evolving humanity that leads him to profound solidarity with others, and thus to profound intimacy with God. Far from being remote and unattainable, this is a humanity toward which all of us can grow throughout our lives.
As if showing us that what has taken place between Jesus and the Gentile woman is something to celebrate, rather than something to view with uneasiness, Mark then presents us with the fruit of the encounter. The Savior who has received healing now goes forth to heal others. Not only is the woman's daughter healed, but Jesus, whose own ears have been opened, then goes to a Gentile man, and using a Gentile technique for healing, opens the man’s ears and heals him of deafness. It’s a remarkable conclusion to a story that is all about having our ears opened in order that we might offer this gift to others.
Quite simply, Jesus’ example offers us a wonderful model for our own evolution as people and as Christians. It reminds us that we come here to Epiphany to have our ears and eyes opened by one another, in order that we may become agents of healing in the community of South Haven, and wherever else we live and work and study.
Going further, as we approach the anniversary of the horrific events of September 11, this passage offers a model that all Americans would do well to emulate in our relationships with the Arab and Muslim world. Before we too easily echo those who view outsiders – in this case Muslims – as dogs, we should first open our own ears, listen, invite healing for ourselves, and then consider how we can offer healing to a world filled with brokenness and despair. Amen.
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