e-vo for week of September 2

Dearest e-votees-

This week's gospel text has the disturbing account of Jesus turning away a woman likening her and her demon-possessed daughter to dogs. (Whatever happening to welcoming the little children?). May we be blessed and changed and unsettled with this unsettling account of Jesus and his ministry.

Peace,
Karl

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From there [Jesus] set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He 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.” But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”

Mark 7:24-37, NRSV

I don't like this exchange where Jesus seems all too ready to dismiss a woman in deep need. It seems that she wins him over with the verbal exchange and he grants a pardon from his original indifference. Good thing she was quick with her wits. I wish this account hadn't made it into the canon.

Texts like these are hard to sanitize and difficult to swallow. So let's not try. Let's be open to Jesus not being as nice and friendly as we have been led to believe in Sunday school and elementary lessons of the faith. Jesus has an edge here. He unsettles this woman and he unsettles us.

When it comes to heavenly feasts and a place at God's table where do we imagine ourselves? Do we presume there is a place for us? If we walk into the banquet do we take the seat of honor up front or are we more humble taking the seat towards the kitchen? Jesus had some things to say about that--pointed things. Do we walk into church with our finery on and expect to be greeted well or are we more worried about how others are treated? James had some things to say about that--pointed things.

Bottom line, nothing that we receive is a matter of what God owes us but rather gracious gifts from God's gracious hand. We have no business being at God's table or in God's house save that God invited us. We are no better than that woman who pleaded for the crumbs from God's table. We are no better than the one turned off by faith in our country seeing way too much hypocrisy and greed. We are no more deserving than others who by poor choice or rotten luck ended up with no job and maybe no home. We are all beggars.

I have always been struck by the last words attributed to Martin Luther. Here is one who knew Greek and Hebrew and translated the Bible into the language of the people. He prayed more than most of us ever will. He wrote so much that in death his hand assumed a writing pose (you can see a plaster cast at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN). He worked so hard for so long on behalf of so many. Yet at the end of his life, he knew his place. Perhaps we too can walk in this world knowing our place and having the sense to invite others, as well, into the place of God's grace. Luther's final words are below.

No. 5677: Luther’s Last Observation Left in a Note

February 16, 1546

“Nobody can understand Vergil in his Bucolics and Georgics unless he has first been a shepherd or a farmer for five years.

Nobody understands Cicero in his letters unless he has been engaged in public affairs of some consequence for twenty years.

Let nobody suppose that he has tasted the Holy Scriptures sufficiently unless he has ruled over the churches with the prophets for a hundred years. Therefore there is something wonderful, first, about John the Baptist; second, about Christ; third, about the apostles. ‘Lay not your hand on this divine Aeneid, but bow before it, adore its every trace.’

We are beggars. That is true.”

These were the last thoughts of Dr. Martin Luther on the day before he died. (Luther's Works, Volume 54)


God, we are beggars. We plead for your mercy and your grace which sustain us daily. Help us welcome all to your gracious feast. Even your crumbs sustain us to life everlasting. And you give us so much more than crumbs--you sent us your Son. Amen.