All Saints Lutheran Church
Pastor Raita Neely
September 6, 2003
P13B Isaiah 35:4-7a; Mark 7:24-37
Expanding the Circle of Love.

One of the delights of summer is to pull out one of the 1000 piece or more puzzles and see if we can finish it by the end of summer. Some of our favorites are now framed and hanging on the wall in our cabin. It is always with some trepidation that we face the last few pieces of the puzzle. There is always a touch of anxiety, what if the manufacturer failed to include a piece? What if you mistakenly forced in a piece in the wrong place, and so your last piece won't fit? What if the picture is not perfect?

Like a puzzle piece that won't fit, today's scripture story about the Syrophoenician woman shows us a side of Jesus that doesn't seem to fit. We have a portrait of Jesus who is acting differently than the Jesus Mark has been describing since the beginning of his Gospel. We want to make Jesus act differently, we wish we had a tape, or a DVD of the story so we could hear the tone of voice that Jesus used, or see his body language. Maybe then we would have the Jesus we love, our compassionate, welcoming, immediately responsive Jesus. But all we have is Mark's written word, and Mark's presentation of Jesus in this story is as a very human person. A man who was tired and needed some time alone. A man who was very much a person of his time in history, of his culture and of his religion. His initial indifference to the mother and the little girl jars our picture of Jesus as the compassionate healer.

Jesus has just arrived in Tyre, a city on the Mediterranean coast of Syria, populated primarily by descendants of the Jew's ancient enemies, the Philistines. This was a region where Gentiles predominated. Tyre was a city where there was a melting pot of cultures and a different god was invoked and worshiped at every street corner. On that day, Jesus did not seek out a synagogue, but stayed indoors, hoping to keep his presence a secret.

Yet Jesus' reputation for healing has spread even to this pagan city. A woman whose young daughter is ill, somehow learns he's in town and she finds a way to enter the house. The only thing the mother can think of is, the agony of her child, and Jesus' healing power that she has heard about. The mother knows, unless the girl is cured, she has nothing but a life-long nightmare ahead of her.

That the healer is a Jew is of no consequence to the woman. The religious controversies he's embroiled in at home mean nothing to this woman. The mother is determined. If Jesus can do the kinds of things she's heard about, she doesn't intend to let him leave Tyre without doing something about her daughter.

She approaches Jesus, falls on her knees in front of him and makes her plea for her child. What Jesus says to her is harsh, "Look, woman, I didn't come here on your account. People like you and your daughter aren't included in my mission statement. I can't waste my time and energy on you. My own people take everything I've got. Helping you would be like taking food out of the children's mouths and feeding it to the dogs. You can't expect me to do that."

But the woman has grown a thick skin, as those who are the forgotten ones in our midst often have to do in order to survive. She has probably heard worse than this. Gentile, a woman, a single mother, she has absolutely nothing to lose. She neither flounces off in a huff, nor shrinks back. Instead, she speaks right up. "True enough," she says, "but even the dogs get to clean up the crumbs that fall under the table." Her need is so great, she has no time for social and cultural niceties. The only thing on her mind is Jesus' power to heal her child.

She doesn't want the whole loaf of the bread Jesus offers to his own people. She doesn't even want a whole slice or half a slice for that matter. The woman is begging Jesus' permission to have a chance to retrieve a crumb from such bread as falls to the floor.

Here is a woman who believes strongly and deeply in Jesus. Here is woman who knows that a mere crumb of Jesus' love, a small scrap of his healing power, a minute amount of his leftover compassion will be more than enough to heal her daughter. The woman has no doubt that even a remnant piece of what Jesus brings from God will deliver her daughter from the awful torment that has possessed her young life.

At this very place in the story, God acts and brings a change. Jesus changes his mind about who this woman is, and what God wills for her and her daughter. Here God refashions the shape and changes the size of a puzzle piece that, up to this time in the story, does not fit.

Jesus grows in his understanding of God's will. Jesus suddenly sees his ministry as broader than he had thought.

I wonder if the next words from Jesus surprised him, they certainly surprise us. Jesus is once more the compassionate healer. He says to the woman, "Go on home now. Everything is all right. Your daughter's going to be fine."

I wonder, if the woman later wondered about where Jesus' power came from. She had not been "evangelized," preached to, instructed, or asked to adopt a new way of living and become a Jew herself. She knew she was not one of "the children" the rabbi had spoken of, nor would she ever be. So why had Jesus decided to help an outsider like her?

I wonder if her story is part of the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah: The God who saves, who heals, who makes whole has come. Could she be the thirsty ground being filled with springs of water?

Mark uses this story of Jesus to show all the world, including you and me, that the gifts of mission and ministry of God are not given to or for a few choice persons, but are for all.

There is a part of us that finds it very hard to welcome those we do not know, especially if they do not look or act like we do. There is a part of us that is prejudiced and so we place all sorts of restrictions on whom we can love and help. We create all kinds of excuses why we should not or cannot reach out and ease the pain or meet the needs of others. We rationalize why we at times ignore the empty lives and empty spirits right next to us, much less those on the other side of the world. Vestiges of 9/11 cause us to be even more fearful and suspicious of strangers in our midst. More than ever, we seem to want to make distinctions, express preferences and to value some while rejecting othrs, to help some and at the same time persecute others.

The good news of God, as we worship this morning at All Saints is that there is hope for each of us and hope for all of us. There is a place in God's world for the size, the shape, the color, the style, and the beautiful variety of people and the gifts that God has given them. Each of us is unique, but we are all needed as pieces of the total picture of God's unfolding kingdom within our midst. The challenge for us is to be open to learning about other people, to care more not just about the people we know and love, but about the whole global village, to take more risks to widen the circle of whom we are willing to call brother and sister, and to share more with the rest of the world from the abundance with which God has blessed us.

God' love changed Jesus and he grew and faithfully fulfilled God's will. Even to dying on the cross, though he struggled in his soul with the cup of suffering he had to empty.

God's love can change any life in so many different ways, even yours. Once God's word opens you to new possibilities for generosity, compassion, inclusion and love, you will want to reach out with your life and add so much to the lives of others around you.

It is dangerous for us to be here today and listen to God's word of change and healing. To gather here in Jesus name is to risk being changed by him. You may come to realize that you do not need a whole loaf to be happy, that the crumbs are enough, and even the crumbs need to be shared. When this happens to you, you can no longer remain deliberately silent. The many injustices in the world will jump out at you and you will want to speak. You will no longer see yourself at the center of the world, but realize how interdependent we all are. Take the risk of God's touch of love. Listen deeply to the life changing Lord and his particular challenge to you today. Let Jesus move your heart, and then let us all move out from this congregation opened and ready to tell the good news, to sing God's joy and praise, to invite others to drink with us from God's life-giving stream, to find a place for everyone in the puzzle we call God's reign.

For every day, you, Jesus followers are scattered throughout the community, and throughout the world. You are people who have many relationships, in offices and at school desks and in cafeterias. In your communication by e-mail, and your face to face conversations at breakfast tables and in your family rooms. Every day there are stories that show us just how small our planet is and how often we need to stretch the boundaries we have erected to protect us from other nations, other races and other cultures. As we take seriously who God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are in our lives, we are surprised to discover that their circle of love, which they have shared from all eternity is ceaselessly and shamelessly inclusive. None are excluded except those who refuse to enter.

Today, someone you know is waiting for a good word , maybe even a healing word. Someone is waiting for you to speak, maybe even to act. Go then in Jesus name, expand the circle of your love and be a good word in all God has given you to do. Amen.