Old Dogs Can Learn New Tricks, By Rev Steven R Mitchell

Old Dogs Can Learn New Tricks
By Rev Steven R Mitchell
Mountain View United, Aurora, CO 9/9/2012
Based on Mark 7:24-37
 Let me ask you a question before we get into this morning’s discussion:  Is Jesus capable of using “racist” language?
Too often, the church has portrayed Jesus as this incredibly generous person, endlessly giving of himself and always open and approachable to anyone who is requesting help, yet today’s readings do not hold up to these high exaltations.  Here we have two negative revelations about Jesus.  The first is the racist language that he uses toward the Syrophoenician woman, who approaches him asking for a healing of her daughter, the other, is Jesus’ apparent reluctance of healing a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment.  Both of these situations took place in a foreign land, outside of the Hebrew culture.
Today’s lection reading tells us that Jesus set out from the region of Bethsaida to the coastal city of Tyre.  He had just finished teaching and ministering to a large crowd of five thousand men and additional women and children and was needing some alone time.  This was all occurring about the same time of King Herod having John the Baptizer beheaded and I suspect that Jesus was trying to put as much distance between him and Herod as possible.  By going to the city state of Tyre, he would be out of the legal jurisdiction of Herod.  Jesus discovers his reputation had preceded his arrival and he was not able to be lost in the crowd in Tyre.
Let’s look at the first of these two stories.  What did Jesus mean when he responded to the Syrophoenician woman’s request that he heal her daughter with, “It is not right to take the children's bread and give it to the dogs.  First let the children eat all they want.”  In this past week’s lection bible study, I was reminded that not everyone understands this response to be a “tongue and cheek” response of the lowest types.  The “bread” that Jesus is referring to is the “gift” from God that is provided to the Hebrew people.  The reference to “dogs” is that of gentiles, which from a Hebrew cultural perspective, the use of the word “dogs” is a metaphor for being the lowest of creatures.  Jesus was in effect telling this woman that because of her being a non Hebrew, she wasn’t good enough to receive any of the gifts that God has to offer.
When I was in seminary, Billy Graham was coming to Kansas City, where I was living at the time, to do one of his famous revivals.  When discussing this upcoming event with a student who was older than I by fifteen years or more, I was shocked that she was in no way going to give any support to Rev Graham and the reason was, back in his early days of preaching revivals in the 1950’s in the deep South, the African American person was relegated to having to sit in the balcony.  This discussion was happening in the 1980’s and African Americans no longer had to sit in a designated part of the auditorium because of the success of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s.  Yet in her eyes, Rev Graham was a spokesman for God and God would not have condoned that type of cultural behavior.  The truth was, Rev Graham whether or not he agreed with the double standard, operated within those standards, thereby effectively condoning that racist behavior.
Jesus, I believe was just as influenced by the cultural standards of his day as was Rev Billy Graham in the 1950’s.  The Phoenicians were of the Canaanite culture, which was deeply hated by the Hebrew culture.  Queen Jezebel was a Canaanite, who not only brought her god Baal to Israel, but influenced her husband to turn away from the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 
Jesus was also a student of John the Baptizer.  John believed that the Messiah was coming to carry on the message of “turn and repent”, a “hell, fire, and brimstone” type of message.  So in the early part of Jesus’ ministry, his teachings and healings were for the people of God – meaning the Hebrew people.  It is in this encounter, as I read and understand this story, that Jesus is encountered with his own message and exactly who is this message available to.  Up to this point, all those that Jesus encountered were Hebrews, but after this point we can read in scripture where Jesus expanded his ministry to include the Gentiles. 
The second story, again has Jesus encountering a gentile man who has some friends (we really do not know who the “they” were; it could be the disciples, friends of this man, or possibly the towns folk) who bring him to Jesus requesting that Jesus heal him.  Almost all of Jesus’ miracles are done in the presence of people; sometimes a small group, and other times in front of a large crowd.  Yet Jesus takes this man away from everyone and performs this healing in private.  “Why?”
One of the obvious behaviors of Jesus that was commented on in this past week’s lectionary study was the seeming reluctance on the part of Jesus to do these healings, as well as his insistence that people not talk about these healings.  One would think that His ability to heal people would be a great calling card to increase the awareness of his ministry.  When you read through most of Jesus’ ministry, we can read that Jesus almost always seemed reluctant to perform acts of healing.  On the other hand, you never read in any of the stories about Jesus being reluctant when it came to his speaking about God and the relationship that we are encouraged to have with God.  It is my believe that the reluctance toward the healing acts that Jesus performed, actually distracted from the message that Jesus was trying to express to his audience.
I believe we have this tension today, as the church in general struggles with the question of, “how do we make worship relevant to the larger non-churched audience without it becoming distracting as to the true reasons for being in worship?”   In the movie “Sister Act”, these two view points are discussed between Sister Mary Clarence and The Mother Superior.  Mother Superior was focused on making sure people were attending church for the “right” reasons – which in reality meant very few people were attending worship, while Sister Mary Clarence believed in updating the message through music and how it was performed in order to get the people out in the streets into the pew where they would then have the opportunity to hear the word of God.
Our mainline denominations today, struggle like Jesus with issues of “who is included” and “who is not included” in the community of believers.  During the 1960 – 1970’s, the debate was over the color of a person’s skin, and where were they allowed to sit during worship, as well as discussion as to ethnic marriages.  In the 1980- to present, the discussions of inclusion have been focused on sexual orientation and gender identification, as well as what constitutes a legally recognized marriage.  We have over lapped this conversation in the 2000’s through the next ten years or so on discussing who is allowed to enter and live within our boarders as we struggle with the topic of immigration.  Almost all these topics boil down to the fear of losing something, of not having enough to go around, of scarcity thinking.  We call it racism, we call it bigotry, or we call it Nationalism. 
We at Mountain View, as we search for the future of this ministry, have to be open enough to look at what it is that we have been doing and truthfully examine our culture, the DNA of this body of believers and see if we like Jesus need to make some changes in order to broaden the audience, so we may better share the word of God.  Are we willing to only keep the message, the bread for those who are like us, or are we going to share this bread with the larger community?  Jesus changed his focus once he got out of the Hebrew culture and was touring the land where the gentiles lived.  Old dogs can learn new tricks; we just need to be willing to walk outside in the land of the gentiles.  Amen