Pentecost 14 - Year B

There are some words that pierce your soul, that can jolt you out of comfort and compliancy, that can move you beyond compassion into desperate inadequacy... those words are...I beg you. I beg you...

The implication is more than desperation, more than aggressive asking. The plea comes from a situation actually beyond hopelessness - because hopelessness creates not the effort to ask. But the next step from hopelessness is to beg - because there is nothing of yourself left, you have abandoned all pretence of hope and hopelessness. It is beyond finding solutions; to beg is to expect almost nothing, because begging is so starkly of nothing, of no identity, no power, no control, of worthlessness beyond description. There is nowhere to go; and you beg.

We encounter two extraordinary stories of healing by Jesus today, and they seemingly come about because they are begged for. The Gentile woman begs Jesus to take the demon out of her daughter, to heal her from her mental malaise. And the people around the deaf man begged Jesus to lay his hand on him, to cure him of his disabilities. The mother begged. The people begged. Jesus responded and healed.

What does this mean? Does it mean we literally have to become beggars for Jesus to heal us, or those whom we ask for? Does it mean that God only works in situations of utter desperation - and thinks it is good that we get to that point? That is, the situation of the dominance of God expecting servility?

They are hard questions. And, to top it off, we are confronted with the really hard question of what does that first part of the reading really tell us about Jesus? Jesus, who is meant to be sweetness and light; well, compassionate and fair at least. And Mark and Matthew both tell us this story which puts Jesus in a very bad light. He is derogatory and rude to this woman, because she is a Gentile and not a Jew. And she ticks him off, telling him in no uncertain terms that all humans are worthy of God's love.
Did Jesus sin here? Wow, what an amazing question. But if we look at the words of James today, it would seem that Jesus has not loved his neighbour in this instance....
You do well if you really fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself'. But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.

The question of whether Jesus showed partiality is debatable; but he certainly quotes it. Gentiles are less than Jews, that is the understanding of the day. He knows that unwritten law; the woman knows it as well.

But look at the reality - she has come to him because she had heard about him. She came to Jesus and she recognised the law that is above all laws; the compassion and love of God. She recognised that in the person of Jesus Christ. And she begs him to share it with her daughter, to heal her child. Jesus challenges her with the common understanding of the hierarchy of the day; she responds with the faith of a universal, creative and loving God. That is her begging ground; and Jesus immediately recognises the truth of it. There is nowhere he can go with that truth but to respond in the same truth. And he does. Sometimes he says "your faith has made you well"; this time he says "for saying that, you may go - the demon has left your daughter."

Jesus did not show partiality, nor did he sin. Both are impossible with God. And he wasn't testing the woman either. He was responding in the only way he can - love meeting love. The love of this woman for her daughter was the acceptable begging ground - and it jolted Jesus Christ right into his identity as the personification of love. He had left the land of Jewish settlement and gone into Gentile territory. Perhaps he wanted a break; perhaps he wanted anonymity. I think we can all relate to that, to be in a place where people don't know us and therefore don't have expectations or preset images of who you should be.

But the woman heard about him, and went. How did she hear? Because it is very interesting, the tense of how this is told. It wasn't "she had heard about him and immediately went to him"... it is "she...immediately heard about him". A Holy Spirit movement? perhaps a direct response to Jesus' continuous invitation... those with ears listen. The woman recognised Christ's power, and she bowed at his feet. But she also asserted her own power - that of a parent's love for a child. Arguably, the greatest power. And so love incarnate met love desperate - and that within each, Jesus and the woman, recognised the other as equals. That is, of loving beyond reason, of loving unconditionally, of loving fully as God's commandment requires.

In his response, in this alien land to his human forefathers, Jesus recognised in himself the universal nature of God's love. This is an epiphany story, a story of the light of Christ being for all people, with no partiality of race, gender or creed. It is also an epiphany story for us all to claim our equality with God Godself in the unfolding of the God story here on earth.

We claim that relationship, believe it or not, by begging. Which seems totally a skew-iff relationship, doesn't it. But Jesus is saying that he can't recognise us until we have done that complete stripping away of all pretence, of all expectation, of all self-sufficiency, of all self-pride and reliance, of all self-love. It's like being with someone who hears perfect pitch; it is the most amazing thing to realise they cannot recognise a tune unless it is perfectly sung or played to them. Me, I can usually recognise what people are trying to sing... but not someone with perfect hearing pitch. They would be hopeless on Spicks and Specks, wouldn't they....

But in the same way, Jesus can only recognise our prayer, our authentic voice, when our begging ground is love beyond our self. Again, returning to James' words, he says For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable. Fails in one point..... and then he goes onto say... what good is it.... if you say you have faith but do not have works? And we know that Paul puts it in the opposite, yet complementary, way as well.... works alone are no good either. Works without faith are empty, partial God-actions.

So it has to be both - and the actions, the works, of Christ perfectly show us the way. Where there is faith, there is healing; where there is faith, there is understanding of his teaching. Where there is love, there is Christ-equality. Expounding faith in theory, and doing works without faith-connection simply can't be seen by Christ. We don't have to be perfect, but the mustard seed of love and faith has to be part of all we are and do. You can't be a parttime Christian, and you can't put conditions on your love for others. We also are to rise above status, race, gender, creed and prejudice.

Eleanor Roosevelt said:
Where.... do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere.

We can't be expounding human rights for children in Tanzania if we are saying judgemental things about the person who lives in our street. We can't pack a bag with love for a child in Buttala if we are not loving unconditionally our own children. You can't rail against the devastating action of global warming if we are wasting water and other things in our own home.

Well, I guess you can do all those things. But God, for the life of God, can't see what we are doing ‘right' because it's not been done on the right begging ground. Jesus Christ loving ground - his love for you and me, has to become our only playing field, our only living field.

May the Lord be with you. +