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Pastor George Detweiler's sermon for Sept. 10, 2006:

Mark 7:31-37                                        

The church historian, Roberta Bondi, in her book, "Memories of God," shares the struggles of growing up female and Christian in the 1950’s. “[I assumed] that my heavenly Father was like my earthly father, only more so.  My earthly father, whom I worshiped and resented in equal measure, was a remarkable man. He was brilliant, funny, and full of life. He was a loving man, but in those years of his youth, he also tolerated no imperfections or weakness in other people, no laziness, no disobedience from his children or his wife, no sullenness, no arguing with him or asking ‘why.’” 

“As for his attitudes toward women and men, he held to an exaggerated version of the cultural stereotypes of the forties and fifties.  He only respected men who were highly intelligent and would stand up to him and argue with him.  These same qualities in a woman, however, he found contemptible. The woman who won my father’s approval could not win his respect. A good woman was sweet and compliant, quiet and obedient. I not only knew I could not be sweet, pliant, quiet and obedient; I also knew I did not want to be that way. But I had to be!  How else could I be, if I were female?”

“I loved my father so much, yet I knew I could never please him. I was angry with him and guilty over my poisonous secret, anger. I could not possibly believe my human father loved me as I was. And if this was true of my earthly father, how much more must this be the case with my heavenly Father. Surely, my heavenly Father’s standards for females had to be stricter than my earthly father’s.” (p 24 & 25)

Enter the Syro-Phoenician woman from today’s gospel, who does not seem to share Roberta’s fears.  We are not told her name, but she is remembered through the centuries of the Christian Church as one who was not afraid to speak up even though in that time she should have been afraid.  Women were not to address men they did not know.  In addition, she was not a Jew or even from the related group of Samaritans, but a Gentile of mixed heritage.  The term “Syro-Phoenician” was not a compliment.  It meant that she was among the despised at the bottom of society.

But she was determined that Jesus could heal her daughter and unafraid to make her request. She begged Jesus to cast out the demon from her daughter.  What follows in the gospel is described by one commentator as a “brisk conversation.” Jesus says, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She is up to responding to this put down, and turns Jesus’ words back on him: “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

Jesus is impressed with her mature humility.  She is happy with crumbs and does not assert her right to what he can give, only her trust in his grace. Jesus responds: “For saying that, you may go – the demon has left your daughter.”

It was the discovery of this kind of humility that opened the way for Roberta Bondi to develop a mature relationship with both her heavenly and earthly fathers. She began to learn about it when she was researching the obscure 13 Ascetical Homilies of Philoxenus of Mabbug, one of the Egyptian desert hermit monks of the 2nd Christian century. She read there “an exhortation to those early monks not to criticize or judge one another, but rather, to treat one another with the gentleness of our heavenly Father, who especially loves the ones the world despises, and who is always so much more willing than human beings to make allowances for sin, because God alone understands our circumstances, the depths of our temptations, and the extent of our sufferings.” (p. 31)

Roberta read and was astounded. “God the Father is gentle and makes allowances? God the Father especially loves the castoffs? What could this mean, if this really were true? Was God really uninterested in sin? Could God the Father expect less of me than my human father?”

She discovered that “for the monastic teachers humility is the key virtue that is both the starting point and the enabler of the whole Christian experience. What they meant by humility, however, had little to do with the modern, everyday use of the term. For them, (and for the Syro-Phoenician woman) humility was not about groveling before God or other human beings. It had nothing to do with being passive, being a doormat, or glorifying having a poor self-image. It was certainly not a virtue recommended to women or poor people so that they could accept their place in society.”

No, humility for the ancient teachers meant accepting ourselves and others just as we are, limitations, vulnerabilities, and major imperfections included, as already valuable and beloved by God without our having to prove our worth by what we accomplish, what we own, what we do right, or by our status in society and in the church.  This meant that humility was about slipping underneath the whole hierarchical social web of judgments by which we limit ourselves and one another in order to love and act fearlessly with power and authority.” (p.32)

Which is just what the woman in today’s gospel did: she slipped underneath the whole hierarchical social web of judgments by which we limit ourselves and acted fearlessly with power and authority. Jesus responded to the power of her focus on her daughter’s condition and his ability to help.

I don’t know about you, but if Jesus had spoken to me the way he spoke to her, I would not have known what to say. His brusque answer certainly confounds our accustomed images of him as someone who went around being nice to people. He was certainly not nice to this woman by calling her a dog.  She, though, was on a mission and not to be deterred. Her request was a prayer, and she was determined that it be heard.

Bondi says she always assumed that she had to be a very little child toward God. She assumed that “when Jesus told us to call God “Father” he had meant that as God’s children we were to relate to that Father as very little children relate to the kind of benevolent, dominant parent who prefers toddlers to adolescents because toddlers are so sweet and adolescents are so complicated.”(p. 43) She discovered that Jesus wants an adult relationship with his followers, like the one he had with the Syro-Phoenician woman.

This changed Bondi’s relationship with her earthly father as well.  Her new insights about God and her relationship with him made it possible for her to begin to relate to her father not as a little child but as an adult. She writes “...being able to see him for the first time through adult eyes, I began to be able to see, not my childhood image of my powerful, mythical father, but rather my actual, flesh and blood, real human father. …I began to learn that my father had changed over the years. …I argued with him, for the first time in my life. He told me frequently he was proud of me.  I found that as I no longer needed God to take care of me as I had before, as a little child, so I no longer needed my father to take care of me. …My father needed my friendship.” (p. 45)

Jesus invites us into a mature relationship with God where we recognize our shortcomings, our sins and failings, and ask God’s forgiveness - a relationship where we trust his unshakeable love for us and his help to follow more faithfully. He invites us to recognize God as his Father, not necessarily as like our earthly father.   

Like the Syro-Phoenician woman we can exhibit true humility, which is accepting ourselves and others just as we are, limitations, vulnerabilities, and major imperfections included, as already valuable and beloved by God without our having to prove our worth by what we accomplish, what we own, what we do right, or by our status in society and in the church.  It is about slipping underneath the whole hierarchical social web of judgments by which we limit ourselves and one another in order to love and act fearlessly with power and authority. The example of the Syro-Phoenician woman can make us bold in prayer, in accepting ourselves and others, and in trusting God’s grace in Christ.

Aug. 20, 2006 Sermon