Sermon for the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Texts:
Isaiah 4-7a;
James 2:1-10 [1-13] 14-17;
Mark 7:24-37.

In 1968 a teacher in a small Iowa town shared the tragic news of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. with her class of third graders. The teacher, Jane Elliott, asked them how they would feel about what had happened if they were a “Negro” child. But these Midwestern children had never known a black child; had never felt racial discrimination themselves. Ms. Elliott decided to provide some experiential learning.

The teacher divided the children into groups based on brown and blue eye color. One Friday and then the following Monday each group in turn was held up as superior to the other, treated as such, and encouraged to discriminate against the other group. Despite the short duration of the exercise, the affects were dramatic.

Children who had been good students struggled. Children who had been outgoing became withdrawn. Attitudes changed. Friendships were altered. Signs of anger and depression appeared. Today we would call these trauma responses. And we might wonder, did the end justify the means?

Teaching is as much art as science. Creativity can push boundaries. It may also lead to controversy.

From the perspective of education this was an exercise or simulation. But in even in 1968 some observers considered it an experiment that violated ethical standards. There was no parental involvement. No informed consent. Learning did occur, but what kind, and at what cost?

Jane Elliott is still alive at 90, a lecturer and outspoken anti-racism teacher. Her work is both honored and vilified. Discussions about what she did in her third grade class in 1968 can be awkward. But her commitment to a more just world is not in question.

There is awkwardness to the story of the woman who brought her daughter to Jesus for healing from demon possession. The woman approached Jesus respectfully, asking for his help. Jesus’s response was not at all gracious. In fact it was dismissive and discriminatory.

It’s clear that the woman was desperate to get help for her daughter. Jesus had helped other similarly desperate people, including non-Jews. She knew of him by his good reputation. And Jesus had come to her land – Tyre was in Gentile territory.

In her own land, those ugly discriminatory words came right out of Jesus’s mouth. He said that his work was to feed the children. It would be unjust to give that food to the dogs.

This story is found both in Mark and Matthew in nearly identical form. There’s no getting around it, Jesus used a very common and unkind word for that woman and her child. Dogs. Second class humans.

Over the millennia the church has found many ways to deconstruct, explain, and even celebrate what Jesus did. Because it seems, the end justified the means. We all agree that Jesus was teaching a lesson here. But what lesson? Faith? Persistence? Breaking boundaries?

Was Jesus was testing his disciples, checking to see how they responded to an obvious injustice? But there is no mention that they were even with Jesus in that place. Perhaps it was an unguarded moment when Jesus was worn out and irritable. We insist that he was fully human, after all.

Was Jesus testing the Gentile woman’s faith? He whose own faith was so frequently and unfairly tested from the very beginning of his ministry onward. If so, she more than passed the test.

Was there some kind of humor in this scene? Something obvious to the first century audiences of Mark and Matthew but undetectable to our generation? Was the Gentile woman’s lack of fear and quick wit something they appreciated, while we simply cannot crack the code?

All we can really say in the end is this: we don’t live in the same learning context as this gospel story. Just as we don’t live in the same learning context of Jane Elliott and her class of third graders in 1968. But in each situation previously secure assumptions are shaken.

She was just a Gentile woman. Just a dog. Just. Being treated as such might have pinned her down and made her helpless. But she was not to be deterred or discouraged from coming to God. And that is a lesson for us all.

No matter how desirable our pedigree of faith may be, we are none of us perfect in our practice of it. (James has a lot to say about that subject.) So it is necessary that God’s good news should still call us out of our comfort zone. Jesus finds a way to cast out our oppressive demons and open our closed eyes and minds. God’s business is deliverance, as Isaiah said. And that’s always good news.