Changing Jesus

 This sermon was preached on our Sunday morning service on 8th September. The gospel was Mark 7:24-37. I hope you enjoy reading it!

The Jesus of the first half of today’s Gospel is – I have to say – a Jesus I don’t really recognise. I don’t know if you feel the same?

It starts off normal enough; in our gospel, we hear that Jesus leaves his own community and sets off travelling. Maybe he’s visiting extended family, or perhaps he’s on a tour, spreading the Good News to other members of the Jewish faith (or, potentially more apposite to today’s Gospel, the Jewish race). Either way, he’s in foreign climes. Whilst there, he finds a place to stay.

He’s approached by a local woman who asks for his help. Not for her, but for her daughter, who, she says, is possessed.

And here’s where Jesus looks to go off the rails.

He says ‘no’.

 

Jesus and the Syrophoenician Woman

 

 

He says ‘no’, and really not politely.

He’s rude to her. His language is discriminatory. He says that “it is not fair to throw the children’s food to the dogs”. The ‘children’ Jesus is referring to here are the children of Israel – the members of the Jewish race. And the ‘dogs’? Well, they are not. They are the foreigner. They are the other races. Jesus is clearly drawing a line here – and it is not one I’m comfortable with. “My people come first” he says.

Some commentators try to soften Jesus’ insult here. They say that Jesus is using a common phrase, and that he uses a diminutive to refer to the dogs when he does so. And this (latter part at least) is true – he does say the children’s food should not be thrown to the little dogs.

But I fail to see how this makes his comment much better, to be fair. Even taking into account he said ‘little dogs’.

You see, Jesus would not have had a view of dogs like we do now. We love our dogs. They live in our homes, they sleep on our sofas, and sometimes on our beds, they even come to church with us – some of us, anyway!

Dogs, in biblical thought, though, are not clean animals. They live outside, not inside. A search of Bible verses that reference dogs is not a pretty picture. They’re often linked with evil-doers, they lick up blood and vomit and eat the dead. Even the little ones.

I can’t see how the phrase that Jesus used to refer to the daughter of this foreign woman – from modern-day Lebanon – was anything other than racist. And – as I said – that is not a Jesus I recognise. That’s not the Christ I know.

 

But, here’s the thing. And this is the absolutely amazing thing about this morning’s Gospel when you get your head around it. That is not the Christ we know, because that is not who Jesus became.

This Syrophoenician woman argued with Jesus, and she changed his mind.

That’s an odd thing to think about Jesus, isn’t it? Jesus changing his mind, and learning? But, if we really think about it, we know it must be something that happened. There are different theologies as to at what point in his mission, Jesus became the Christ, but we surely know that Jesus was not born knowing fluent Aramaic or how to walk. He was not born with his theology fully-formed – we only need to read the Magnificat, Mary’s prayer, upon finding she is pregnant – about casting the mighty down from their thrones, and exalting the humble and meek, to see how his mother’s view of God and justice, and the world clearly impacted on Jesus’ worldview. And here, in today’s passage, we have another woman - another ignorable woman - teaching Jesus a lesson; helping Jesus the miracle worker on the road towards becoming Jesus the Christ. Changing Jesus from a man, who puts the people of Israel first into the Christ, who puts people first. All people.

And thank God she did; for in this passage, Jesus’ worldview suddenly widens. He realises that there is food falling off the table, such that it can be eaten from the ground – enough to feed thousands and thousands. Jesus learns that there is more than enough of God to go round, and it is time, in the words of the famous quote, to build a bigger table; one for all peoples. In today’s passage, Jesus realises he is the Messiah, not just for the Jews, but for all of us. For the insiders and the outsiders. And he goes on immediately to prove it, in the second half of our Gospel, by healing another foreigner, without questioning, or looking for Jewish people to heal first. God has been changed by his encounter with a woman, so unimportant, we don’t even know her name.

 

And isn’t this just the way of God? God, it seems, really does get a kick out of using an outsider to help him make a difference. He loves to use people ignored by the Church and ignored by society and ignored by the world to change the world.

 

God speaks to the Church from outside. He always has done; from the prophets of the Old Testament, right to the present day. Buddhism says change comes from within, but not so for the Church; instead, the calls for us to change so often come from people standing outside – the people who we keep outside.

The mark of the actual Church, though – and not just of the people playing power-games – is whether we listen.

It is never a failure to be corrected; it’s Biblical. And – as we have seen today in our Gospel this morning, it’s genuinely Christ-like – to be told our attitudes and values are wrong, and to change.

 

Because, after all, if it’s good enough for Christ, it’s definitely good enough for us. And it is how we then go on to change the world.

 

Amen.