I’m thinking about the Beatitudes this week, and what they tell us about who the saints in our lives have been.
Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking about the sixth chapter of Luke’s Gospel (Luke 6:20-31), the opening to what Luke called the Sermon on the Plain. That is not the regular Gospel reading found in the Revised Common Lectionary for this coming Sunday. You see, at Church of the Holy Cross we observe All Saints Day on the last Sunday in October. This reading is from the All Saints portion of the lectionary.
It seemed suitable because we will be remembering those who have blessed us with their lives. And so it seemed right to go to the Beatitudes: blessed are the poor, blessed are the meek, blessed are those who weep, blessed are those who are hated for Jesus’ sake.
More than that, though, there was Jesus’ advice (once he had gone through the blessings and, in Luke, gone through the woes). He said, “I say to you that listen: love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who abuse you.”
Isn’t that the difference between the ones who made our lives better and the ones who made our lives worse?
There are plenty of people in the world — and plenty of people who will tell you that this is a virtue — who require evil for evil. They demand to be paid back for what has happened to them. Or they are out in front of it. “Do unto them before they do unto you,” is one way I’ve heard it expressed.
That’s not Jesus. For Jesus, it’s bless those who hate you, do good to those who seek to harm you.
And this is the advice, the direction, the demand that Jesus made of us who claim to follow Christ. Do good. Don’t hate. Don’t harm.
Isn’t that why we honor those we call saints? Isn’t that what we saw in them that makes us miss them? That made us love them? That makes us love them still? They did good for us and for others around them. They followed the directions of Jesus. They were and they are the Saints of God.
So we will remember them and honor them coming Sunday and, yes, with every moment of memory in our lives.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
The four Gospel writers had a common task – to help their readers understand the nature and significance of Jesus the Christ – but each had different notions of how to go about it. All four chose a different way to describe Jesus’ entry into ministry after his baptism and the gathering of his first disciples.
Last week we heard John’s version. He told the story of Jesus turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana, the first of his signs. What did it signify? Jesus’ power, yes, but also his compassion and his abundant grace.
Mark, probably the first of the Gospel writers, had a similar idea. He focused on Jesus’ healing ministry to begin his account. Matthew took some time, lingering over the stories of John the Baptist and the forty days in the wilderness, before giving us the words of Jesus in what we call the Sermon on the Mount.
For Luke, the best way to introduce Jesus was to hear him read these words: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
And then to hear him say, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
The quote came from the sixty-first chapter of Isaiah. Five hundred years before Jesus, the grandchildren of those taken into exile in Babylon read those words and took heart that they might be able to return to Jerusalem. They were the captives; they were the ones oppressed. They hoped and prayed for a year in which God favored them.
Their prayers were answered. The Babylonian Empire fell to the Persians, who felt no need to retain custody of their former enemies’ former enemies. The reading we heard from Nehemiah this morning is the account of a celebration held in the rebuilt Jerusalem. It was the people’s rededication to their faith, a day which brought such a range of emotion. As Debie Thomas writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “It’s an astonishing image of a communal Bible reading experience that takes a diverse group of people on a journey from attentiveness to comprehension to affirmation to wonder to grief to worship to joy to celebration. I read it over and over again with an aching sense of need, desire, and envy. When was the last time I read the Bible with such sustained attentiveness and expectation? When was the last time I savored the sweetness and the sorrow it contains?”
In the reading of the Law, the people of Jerusalem affirmed their identity as people of God.
Jesus, likewise, chose to identify himself with this reading from Isaiah, speaking in the synagogue of his childhood. Karoline Lewis asks at Working Preacher, “What would be the words that could sum you up? How much are you willing to reveal about yourself, to the world, to others, even to yourself? I know it’s Jesus, but still, these are bold words. You want to know who I am and why I am here? Well, here you go, and no euphemistic, metaphorical, or figurative hermeneutical gymnastics allowed. What if Jesus really means what he says because it says who he is?”
Bold indeed. Jesus declared that his ministry would be one to bring good news to the poor. He would proclaim release to the captives. He would bring vision to the blind. He would set free the oppressed. He would proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
That message went over well. For a bit. The next sentence in Luke reads, “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.” Not to give anything away, especially because I believe Rev. Weible may preach on the next part of this story next Sunday, but it went downhill from there. I admit that Jesus said some rather pointed things, but by the end of the story, the people with whom he’d grown up wanted to push him off a cliff.
I guess that’s what happens when you ask people for mercy.
As you know, this is my last Sunday leading worship before beginning a three-month sabbatical. I can make a case that this is following the example of Jesus. Just before he spoke in that synagogue in Nazareth, he’d spent forty days on a wilderness retreat. A sabbatical is sort of my wilderness retreat, though I hope to avoid lengthy encounters with the Tempter during it. It is a time to prepare for resumed ministry. As for why it will take me eighty-eight days where it only took Jesus forty, well, I’m not Jesus.
I almost cancelled the sabbatical. I strongly considered it after the election results in November. I anticipated then that we were in for some very hard times, and I didn’t and don’t want to abandon you in them. I told the Council this, but I also told them that I’d decided to take the sabbatical. The simple truth is that we’ve gone through a lot these last eight years and my reserves are getting pretty thin. I do think we’ve got rough times ahead and I need to be at my best to get through them with you. I ask for your prayers that I can be the pastor you need me to be.
Just so you know, I will be guided by these words of Jesus. I will speak good news to the poor. I will call for release for the captives. I can’t do much about blindness of the eye, but I will do my level best to increase the vision of the heart. I will shout for liberty for the oppressed.
These are the things that make a year of the Lord’s favor.
May they be fulfilled in your hearing.
I was not going to speak about events this week. There have been a flurry of actions of which I disapprove, things that I think are bad policy, things that I think are potentially catastrophic in their folly, things that I think will cause great harm to people. If I am guided by these words of Jesus, I will have a good deal to say about such things over the next few years. Oh, yes. But I thought I’d let it wait. It was enough, I thought, to reflect on the implications of Jesus’ adoption of Isaiah’s commitment.
I thought I’d let it wait even after hearing the words of the Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde. Bishop Budde does not need me to supplement her or explain her. She preached the Gospel. She said, “In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.”
She asked someone to have mercy. I don’t need to add anything to that.
“(1) it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the sermon given at the National Prayer Service on January 21st, 2025, at the National Cathedral was a display of political activism; and
(2) the House of Representatives condemns the Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde’s distorted message.”
To be clear, the House has not yet passed any such resolution. It’s been introduced and referred to committee.
She asked for mercy.
They said, “No.” Not only that, they’re claiming that the mere request for mercy, delivered by a pastor from her own pulpit, is political activism and a distorted message. This is literally a branch of government seeking to define what is true religion.
Maya Angelou wrote in Letter to My Daughter, “My dear, when people show you who they are, why don’t you believe them? Why must you be shown 29 times before you can see who they really are? Why can’t you get it the first time?”
Jesus told us who he was: one who would bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, vision to those who would not see, liberty for the oppressed. Jesus told us, and Jesus fulfilled it before the people of Nazareth, of Galilee, of Judea, of the world.
This scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.
Bishop Budde did the same. She asked for mercy. This scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.
Please God that when I’m back with you, I will bring good news, calls for release, vistas of vision, and the promise of liberty.
May this scripture be fulfilled in your hearing.
Amen.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Sermon
Pastor Eric makes changes while he preaches, so the prepared text above may not match what he actually said.
The illustration is “The Rejection of Jesus in Nazareth” (“Prophets are not without honour, except in their hometown”); 18th-century tile panel by António de Oliveira Bernardes in the Igreja da Misericórdia, in Évora, Portugal. Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=97133284.
What is the purpose of Christian gathering? To encourage love and good deeds. It’s that simple and that important.
Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking about the tenth chapter of the book of Hebrews (Hebrews 10:11-25).
Hebrews concentrates on theology. Specifically, Hebrews makes the case that in Jesus’ death and resurrection God’s forgiveness is fully accomplished, fully realized, fully obtained. There is no reason to continue older religious practices — ancient religious practices — that invited God’s forgiveness, that requested God’s love. In Jesus, the author of Hebrews says, we have obtained all the forgiveness we could ask for and more.
So Hebrews is not a terribly practical book. It is not oriented towards giving us advice about how to live a faithful life.
At the end of this section, however, much of which is concerned with Jesus granting us forgiveness, the author did invite us to some fairly practical things. The author invited us to consider how we might encourage one another to love and good deeds, and the author also advised that we not neglect to gather together as apparently some were staying apart.
Love and good deeds: these are staples of ancient religion. They go back to Moses and Abraham, and of course it was a central message of Jesus himself.
The gathering together, however, that is an interesting one. It reveals the purpose for which we gather together. We gather together so that we can encourage and support one another in the love and in the doing of good things. It’s harder to love people when they are at a distance, not just because of heartache, but also because of lack of knowledge, of lack of encounter, of lack of that special sharing between people who are dedicated to one another’s welfare.
Didn’t we, in the last four years, experience so much loss in not being able to gather together? And yes, gathering was risky, dangerous even, but in less risky times in gathering together we can encourage one another to love and to acts of mercy.
Christians have been struggling to do this for 2000 years. People of faith have been struggling to do it for millennia. So let us make it as easy upon ourselves as we can.
I invite you to our Sunday gatherings in person or, if you must ,on line. I invite you to be there so that we can encourage one another in love and deeds of mercy.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
The healing of Bartimaeus has some distinct differences from other healing stories in the Gospel of Mark. Just to start, Mark knew – and so we know – Bartimaeus’ name. Most of the time in this book we never hear the names of those healed. We don’t know the name of the first person Jesus healed in the synagogue in Capernaum, nor the name of the man whose friends lowered him through a hole in the roof of a house. We don’t know the name of the man whose demons Jesus banished into a herd of pigs.
Until… Bartimaeus.
Bartimaeus took more initiative than most of the others. People tended to bring their family members and neighbors to Jesus for healing. Bartimaeus, however, shouted from his place at the side of the road. Those around him – presumably his friends and neighbors – tried to silence him rather than assist him to Jesus.
This is also the first time that someone has sought healing using a Messianic title. “Son of David” meant someone who was part of the ancient royal line descended from King David. To call someone “Son of David,” declared them to be the legitimate ruler of the nation. It was a cry of rebellion against the Herodian kings and the Roman Empire.
Which is probably why they tried to silence him. “Son of David” was dangerous talk.
As Matt Skinner writes at Working Preacher, “For Bartimaeus, the title obviously indicates that Jesus is God’s designated agent, and it introduces the notion of Jesus as a royal figure, an image that becomes very important when Jesus enters Jerusalem (11:1-10), goes on trial (15:1-15), and dies (15:16-32) as a king. Bartimaeus, despite his blindness and all its connotations of spiritual ignorance (compare 4:12; 8:18), sees the royal dimensions of Jesus’ identity. As the story progresses, we discover that Bartimaeus also discerns that Jesus is specially able to show mercy and heal.”
Not only does this story offer plenty of contrasts with Jesus’ other healings, it offers a lot of contrasts with other events in this chapter, chapter ten of Mark’s Gospel. That question Jesus asked Bartimaeus? “What do you want me to do for you?” It’s the same question Jesus asked James and John in verse thirty-six. James and John, remember, asked for positions of power and privilege. Bartimaeus asked to see again.
Go back a little further in chapter ten and you’ll find that conversation between Jesus and a wealthy man. Jesus asked him to sell what he had and follow him. The man went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
Bartimaeus had one possession: a cloak. As Luis Menendez-Antuna writes at Working Preacher, “The cloak here is not only an aesthetic garment. For individuals living below poverty levels, the cloak is a piece that provides warmth in hostile weather conditions, a valuable piece that would allow them to sleep at night or to throw it in front of them to collect money. The garment is also a sign of status and power… the garment represents the little power he owns.”
Did you catch it? When Bartimaeus made his way to Jesus, he cast the cloak aside. As the story ended, Bartimaeus did what the rich man had not done: he left behind his possessions and followed Jesus.
And as D. Mark Davis observes at LeftBehindAndLovingit, “The last time someone shouted outside of Jericho, the walls fell down.”
There was something else Bartimaeus shouted. It wasn’t just the title “Son of David.” He called for mercy. In Greek, it’s only two words: “Eleison me.” “Mercy me.”
If that word “eleison” sounds familiar at all, it’s one of the most ancient Christian prayers. In Greek it goes, “Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison” – “Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.”
Have mercy.
Mercy.
The curious thing that stood out to me in this passage, among all the other curious things, is that this is the last story Mark told about Jesus’ ministry before his entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. The colt, the cloaks, the leafy branches, and the shouts of Hosanna – they’re the next thing in the book. So Mark used this story to close his account of Jesus’ words and actions prior to the climactic events of Jerusalem. The thing I noticed is that Mark also opened his account of Jesus’ ministry by describing a healing, the casting out of an unclean spirit in chapter one.
In Mark, the first thing and the last thing Jesus did was heal. Acts of power and compassion. Deeds of mercy.
Mercy.
Eleison.
There are a lot of ways to understand God. God is the great Creator, the Power that grants existence not just to the world but to the universe. God is the figure of Wisdom and insight who promises success and prosperity to those who follow. God is the freedom-granter, the Law-giver, and the community organizer who doesn’t just rescue people from slavery but gives them the structures which will permit them to live well. God is also the Judge, frequently the irritated judge, who responds to human rebellion and sin with warning, decision, and consequences.
God is all of those things. Emphasize one too much and you will have a distorted theology, and heaven knows we’ve seen that often enough. Jesus, however, demonstrated a fundamental quality of God in the way that he lived his life and exercised his ministry. Mark picked up on it and made sure we’d see it.
Mercy. God as revealed in Jesus Christ is merciful.
Think for a moment about the saints we honor today, the people whose loss we mourn but whose lives we celebrate. Why? Were they movers and shakers, wealthy and powerful? Did they speak and the world listened? By and large, no.
But I’m pretty sure that along the way, they gave us mercy.
They dried our tears when we wept. They sat by us in the storm. They showed us the way when we were lost. They fed us good things when we were hungry. They pitched in when we needed help. They gave us words of wisdom when we were confused. They visited us when we were sick. They did things for us and for other people because they cared.
Very few of them would have been called “great” by the world. You’ve heard people scorn the merciful as weak and inconsequential. You’ve heard them praise strength and power and ruthlessness.
The world doesn’t know what greatness is.
Think about these people you honor today. They had successes. They had achievements. They had triumphs. We honor them for it. But are those the things that won your heart? Are those the things you miss?
Isn’t it the deeds of love and mercy that made them great to you?
It’s the deeds of love and mercy that made them like Jesus.
As you come forward to light candles in their memory today, let your memories of their compassion be strong and bright. And as you return from lighting that candle, let your commitment to their compassion be stronger and brighter yet. Let their deeds of love and mercy inspire you to your deeds of love and mercy. From the first to the last, let the healing of the earth be your goal and your desire.
Be like Jesus.
Amen.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Sermon
Pastor Eric makes changes while he preaches, and he certainly made some changes this morning.
From first to last, Jesus grounded his ministry in mercy.
Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking about the tenth chapter of Mark’s Gospel (Mark 10:46-52).
This is the last story that Mark told about Jesus’ ministry before his entry into Jerusalem. Chapter eleven begins with that story of the triumphant entry into the city. So what did Mark use as the very last story he chose to tell before describing the events of Holy Week?
He talked about a healing.
A blind man who begged for his living called Bartimaeus heard that Jesus was near. He called out, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” — a pretty daring thing to say. “Son of David” was a royal title and speaking such words in Jericho, not far from Jerusalem, well. That was dangerous. People around him tried to keep him quiet, probably for their sake as much as for his, but Jesus heard the commotion and said, “Bring him to me.”
“What do you want?” Jesus asked Bartimaeus and Bartimaeus asked to see.
Another healing.
Mark began his account of Jesus’ ministry pretty much with a healing. Jesus went to a synagogue and there healed a man with a withered arm [Author’s note: it’s actually an exorcism; I got mixed up], and so began his account of Jesus’ actions and words in Galilee. From first to last, Jesus’ ministry among us was grounded in mercy.
“Son of David, have mercy on me.”
Jesus brought to the people around him not just power — plenty of people bring power. Jesus brought a willingness, indeed an eagerness, to use the power that he had for others’ benefit, to make their lives better, to bring them healing, to restore to them what they had lost and sought to find again.
Bartimaeus went away rejoicing.
Jesus went away to give his final act of mercy, challenging the authorities in the city, and at their hands going to the cross.
Mercy is what drove Jesus from first to last. Can mercy drive us from first to last?
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
“[Jesus] said to her, ‘Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’”
So much for “gentle Jesus, meek and mild.”
A lot of theologians and Biblical scholars over the years have done interpretive backflips – which is like interpretive dance, I suppose, except it doesn’t look as good – to make Jesus sound… appropriate… in this verse. As Cheryl Lindsay writes at UCC.org, “What do we do when Jesus seems to be as bad as everyone else… when the words he speaks cause us great discomfort and seem to be at odds with the God that we know and love? The passage in Mark is not the first time that someone—or even an entire group of people—gets othered by the one we expect to do and be better. But, this is Jesus doing that work, and his language seems particularly harsh. Readers and listeners surely ask the question, ‘Did Jesus just call that woman and her child and the people in their community… dogs?’ Even after reading, studying, and even preaching this passage, I am still asking. It’s that jarring.”
I don’t think we can give Jesus an excuse here. I think we have to deal with it just the way that the woman dealt with it two millennia ago. We have to hear it, swallow it, challenge it, and see if that makes a difference.
This Syrophoenician woman’s challenge made all the difference in the world.
Jesus wasn’t looking to heal anybody that day. He had come to Tyre, which is in present-day Lebanon. In the first century, it was outside the regions of Judea and Galilee, where Jews were in the majority. In Tyre, Jesus was a foreigner and an outsider. From what Mark says, that he was trying to avoid notice, that was deliberate. It looks, in fact, like another of Jesus’ always-frustrated attempts in the Gospel of Mark to get some time off.
When you’re on vacation in Las Vegas, do you really want to be doing your Hilo job?
Somehow – we don’t know how – she’d heard about him. Somehow – we don’t know how – she spotted him. She brought all her need and all her fear and all her love for her daughter and laid it at Jesus’ feet. She “begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.”
Jesus said, offensively, “No.”
She was the supplicant in that moment, and she was a woman confronting a man in a deeply sexist culture. He, on the other hand, was an outsider who couldn’t count on support from the people who were, after all, neighbors to this woman. This story doesn’t fit neatly into our categories of power and authority. Jesus’ statement about children and dogs makes it sound like he believed he was “in charge” in that moment. On foreign soil, however, that was something of an illusion, and she knew it. Her response, which has often been described as a moment of humble petition, sounds different to me.
I think she landed a blow right on Jesus’ hubris. I think she cast a dart that punctured Jesus’ pride.
It’s funny how people think better and more compassionately when their self-importance gets set aside.
They become open to mercy, to acting mercifully, to letting mercy triumph over judgment.
That’s how this story becomes about us even more than it is about Jesus.
It’s election season – well, campaign season. One of the things that frustrates me about campaign season is the way that so many candidates set out to prove that their opponent is a jerk, and how successfully they do it. The problem is, when someone sets out to prove that someone else is a jerk, they usually do so in ways that reveal that they, too, are jerks. When I need to choose between one demonstrated jerk and another demonstrated jerk, I make that choice without enthusiasm.
There’s another characteristic of much of American politics, though, that’s more frustrating than proof of jerkiness. It’s the insistence that a candidate’s proposals and policies have remained fixed and constant. No “wishy-washy” modification of position. No change. No growth.
No… learning.
Seriously? I’m supposed to be impressed that a person running for public office has never learned anything?
Debie Thomas writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “The ‘Good News’ is not that we serve a shiny, inaccessible deity who floats five feet above the ground. It is that Jesus shows us — in real time, in the flesh — what it means to grow as a child of God. He embodies what it looks like to stretch into a deeper, truer, and fuller comprehension of God’s love.”
Last week we looked at the stories just before this in Mark’s Gospel. In that sermon, I said, “Most of all, he [Jesus] would not mistake the trivial for the vital. He would not mistake the somewhat important for the greatly important.” It’s somewhat embarrassing to have said that, because Jesus mistook the trivial for the important just five verses later. It’s more embarrassing to have made the same mistake myself. Yesterday.
Yesterday I was attending an anti-racism training session. It’s something I’ve done before. So I shouldn’t have done what I did. I got focused for some time on some errors in history, which were, in the end, trivial. It took some time to realize what I’d done. When I did, I was embarrassed and ashamed. And I had some difficulties falling asleep last night.
Jesus thought he was willing to enter every aspect of human life and death.
Scorn, betrayal, suffering? Bring them on, but probably he never imagined shame.
Being human is to feel shame.
I don’t know for certain how Jesus felt. I know how I’ve felt – not just once but many times. Yes, being human is to feel shame. Which is a shame in itself.
But will we grow from it?
Courtney V. Buggs writes at Working Preacher, “The use of ‘dogs’ to refer to this woman (and her community) recalls the derogatory terms used to describe Black women in modern society. Vice President Kamala Harris, former First Lady Michelle Obama, tennis extraordinaire Serena Williams, and Presidential advisor Valerie Jarrett are but a few women who have been publicly maligned with harmful language.”
Will we grow from that?
Will we open ourselves to mercy? To giving mercy, but also to receiving it for our errors and sins?
Will we learn?
It’s a funny thing about the second healing in this morning’s reading from Mark. Jesus had left Tyre and returned to the region near Galilee, but this time to the eastern side, in modern Jordan. Like Tyre, the area was inhabited mostly by Gentiles. And as in Tyre, people came up to him asking him to heal someone who almost certainly was a foreigner to Jesus.
This time, Jesus offered no protest. He did things that, frankly, we really only tolerate from medical personnel. He put his fingers in the man’s ears, and touched his tongue. I mean, yuck.
He’d also touched a Gentile. That would have been frowned upon, certainly. But he chose the important over the trivial.
Yet Jesus showed the way of self-searching that faces the shame of rash judgement, acknowledges true words heard and respected. Brave challenge cast out demons of dishonour, healing healer and child.
There are so many demons of dishonor among us whose cries drown out the summons to mercy. Racism, sexism, heterosexism, elitism, greed, power, self-righteousness, the temptations of the trivial. These things and others would have us believe that there are good reasons to withhold mercy. Mostly, those reasons don’t hold up. Mostly, those reasons will end up shaming us, perhaps in private, perhaps in public.
If we turn away from those things, however, if we let the shame wash over us, if we acknowledge the guilt, if we perceive another way, if we choose another path, then we open ourselves to mercy and open ourselves to sharing mercy. As Jesus opened himself to mercy.
So he “cast out demons of dishonor, healing healer and child.”
Amen.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Sermon
Pastor Eric writes the sermon text in advance, but he has been known to improvise. The prepared sermon will not match the sermon as delivered.
The image is Christus und die Kananäerin (Christ and the Woman of Canaan) by Adolf Hölzel (before 1926) – Der Protestantismus der Gegenwart, Stuttgart 1926, Tafel nach S. 320, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46082202.
To whom should Jesus’ followers show mercy? If we follow Jesus’ example, we should provide it to people we do not expect.
Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking about the seventh chapter of Mark’s Gospel (Mark 7:24-37), the section we might describe as “two stories in which Jesus healed people” – because that is precisely what he did.
The second is fairly straightforward. Some friends brought a man to see Jesus and asked him to heal the man’s deafness. Jesus did a few actions, said “Ephphatha,” which means, “Be opened,” and sure enough the man could hear.
The first one has a couple of unusual features, however. The first is that it was a long-distance healing. A mother came to Jesus and asked him to cast a demon out of her daughter, but the daughter was still at home. When Jesus consented, the mother returned home to find that her daughter was well.
Now that, in and of itself, does not make the story unique in the gospels. What does make it unique is that the woman was specifically identified as a foreigner, a Syrophoenician, and when she asked for Jesus’ help, initially he refused. He said, “It is not right to take the children’s food and give it to the dogs.”
She replied, “Even the dogs are entitled to what falls from the children’s table. Then Jesus consented to heal the girl.
One of the great theological conundrums of this text is, did Jesus learn something in this moment? It’s probably unanswerable. If your theological perspective is that Jesus’ godhood, his divinity, was the greater part of him, than you’d have to read this is saying that no, Jesus was in some way testing the woman, testing his disciples, to see if they would recognize that grace can be given to anyone. But if you believe that Jesus’ humanity was the more important factor at play, than yes, Jesus learned something here.
In either case, Jesus presumably – because he repeated the story – and Jesus’ disciples – because they clearly repeated the story – and Mark – because he heard the story and set it down for us to read and repeat over the centuries, even the millennia – they wanted us to learn something.
We find it all too easy to set people apart for one reason or another: religion, nationality, skin tone, gender, the people to whom they’re attracted, all sorts of things. We set them aside and somehow they are no longer recipients of mercy. At least, not our mercy.
Did Jesus learn otherwise that day? I don’t know. But the woman asked for that mercy and she received it for her daughter, and Jesus’ followers since that time have known, even if we haven’t always done it, we have known that mercy is due to all people, not just the ones who are closest to us, not just the ones who are like us.
Mercy is due to all God’s children: the entire population of the world.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
