I Wish Jesus Hadn’t Said That

Transcripts are computer-generated and may not be 100% accurate.

Welcome everyone. Hello Gino. Well, thank you Gino. Thank you. One person with a little enthusiasm. Well, I'm going to, I'm, I'm going to make sure you get a little more enthusiastic about tonight.

Hey, guess what? My name is Debbie Manning. I'm one of the pastors here at the table and we have a new intro video for our table worship services. Maggie's really nervous right now. She's the communication director and she knows nothing about this. Patti play it!

Video, little girl’s voice: “I'm preaching today. I'm preaching in the today. I'm preaching today. I'm preaching today. I'm preaching today.”

Debbie: What do you think? “I'm preaching today. I'm preaching today.” And I got to tell you this story because I honestly had nothing to do with it. Honest truth. He can swear to it. I got this, we got this video in this picture this week, and guess what happened?

That little girl, my granddaughter, Sammy, dressed herself for school. They took her to her little Montessori sunshine school. She walked in the door, she looked at one of the dads and said, “Do you like my sweater?” And she has her little tiny sweater buttoned up. And he said, “Well, I do, but more importantly, do you like it? How do you feel in it?” And she looked at him just kind of like that and went, “I feel like a preacher.”

So I don’t know you all, if I want to take that as a compliment or not, I could like look at me, maybe spiff it up a bit, a little more color. But I will tell you with adult daughters who for years got on me for wearing my cardigans and buttoning them one place right here. I'm thinking it's not a compliment, but all that to say,

Hey, we continue on in the book a mark and, uh, I got a question for you all, and I want you to take a moment and really think about this. What is it that makes you cringe? Kind of wince, you know, that like, that feeling when you go, oh, and even your core kind of squeezes like, oh, oh, I don't want to see that. And I asked you, Hannah, what did you say? Poor grammar.

I mean, it can be anything from the simple things, right? Like nail biting or, um, what other kinds of things that just kind of freak people out, like bad singing that kind of can make you go, ooh. Or things like being part of an embarrassing moment when you just kind of like, oh, or an awkward social moment where you're right in the middle of it and it's like, oh, I can't watch. I cannot watch this. It's too painful.

And maybe if it's even watching someone in physical pain, like seeing them get hurt or injured, and this is one of the ones that all my life, especially as a 60 something female that you were just supposed to smile is inappropriate jokes. You know, those moments, you're in those situations, you're just kind of like, I don't want to make them feel bad, but I'm really uncomfortable and oh, I'm cringing.

But I think one of the hardest ones are really, um, uncomfortable conversations and whether you can think of just general things like this or real ones. I was the first thing that came to my mind. I was with an elderly gentleman a week ago having lunch in a restaurant and he was talking really loud because he didn't hear very well. So I was very conscious of that. And he starts telling me about his great nephew who is just kind of a strange guy. And you know, he picked up tap dancing and then when he was in high school, he turned gay.

And I'm like, oh my gosh. People in the restaurant around, like, I don't want them thinking I'm associated with this person in any way. But it was one of those cringe moments and I think we've all had them, right? So what makes you cringe? Well, if you don't have anything that you can come up with the text tonight, will, it may, it will make you cringe, I promise you.

So for the second time in Mark's gospel, Jesus, like in his traveling ministry, heads over into Gentile territory. And last week we heard from Maggie, Jesus was teaching on unclean and clean things. And Jesus' pronouncement that all foods, uh, being clean not only fulfills the Old Testament dietary laws, but symbolically was preparing Mark's audience for what's ahead. And that's gen Jesus's ministry to the unclean. And that means the Gentiles in this situation, Jesus has traveled, um, to a radically different area than where he is from peripheral, um, peripherally outside of Israel proper.

And his encounter with this gentile woman, um, continues the discussion from last week on what's unclean and clean, what's impure and pure. And it actually symbolically, it moves us from that text and prepares us for where Jesus is at now. And that's, um, moving from these acts of cleansing and prescribed foods to living persons to the gentiles. Important to the story is this ancient division between Jews and Gentiles. It's core to what goes on here.

And here we are in Mark 7:24-30: From there, he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there yet. He could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him. And she came and she bowed down at his feet. Now this woman was a gentile, a Phoenician, and she came and bowed down and she, and she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, let the children be fed first for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs. But she answered him, sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs. Then he said to her for saying that you may go, the demon has left your daughter. And when she went home, she found the child lying on the bed and the demon was gone.

Oh, just wait, just wait. As we get into this text tonight, because it starts out with Jesus seemingly looking for a little break from the action, a respite from the crowds, from the controversy, um, and I think Mark's observation of Jesus, um, wanting to be alone, it gives us a good picture of Jesus and his humanity.

His vulnerability is the son of God, that he's actually weary, that he actually needs a break from all the pressures and the demands of the crowds. And Jesus wants to be anonymous here, but his reputation precedes him. That's not new. We've seen that happen before. And despite his attempts at privacy, this woman, a mother hears about him, hears about his healing abilities and she seeks him out.

As this story unfolds, what becomes clear is this is not a story necessarily about Jesus needing solitude. It's not even a necessarily, uh, the prime piece of it being this miraculous act of healing or the persistent faith of this woman, which is really a cool part of the story. But it's way bigger than that. And that big piece of the story is connected to the conversation between Jesus and the gentile woman, the mother of the demon possessed child.

So I want you to keep in mind this, that Jesus is from, which is gentile territory or he's in Tyre. He's from Galilee, which is Jewish territory. The woman is identified as a, as a Greek Syrophoenician by birth. Now that would be someone that is a native Phoenician, but she's currently living in the Roman province of Syria. She's not an ethnic Greek, but rather a Greek speaking. Gentile considered the other, considered a pagan.

While Jewish or while Jesus is Jewish, she's a gentile, she's a female. Those are boundaries that a pious Jewish man would never ever cross. So this woman, this mother, she comes and she lays down at Jesus's feet, desperate to save her daughter. She comes forward in this act of supplication. This story is familiar, right?

Do you guys remember when Maggie preached a few months ago on Jairus? He came forward too to Jesus in this spirit of um, just humbling himself because he too was asking for Jesus to heal his daughter who ended up dying and Jesus ended up raising from the dead.

And there's a parallel in this story that's beautiful, but there's also a big contrasting feature of it. And that is that male Jairus was a male and he was Jewish in this woman is a female and she's a gentile. And she would've considered, she would've been considered to be a pagan. And she's unnamed in this story.

Let's picture this mother, what she was feeling, what she was experiencing, desperate to save a daughter. We can imagine that she's watched her tormented daughter, that she's hurt her, cries, that she's felt her pain, that she's held her in the middle of those fits and she had no power to save her. She sets herself aside. She sets those boundaries aside and seen who Jesus is.

She begs for his help and his initial response, his refusal for her request, here's what he says and it's in Mark 7:27: “He said to her, let the children be fed first for it's not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs.”

Everyone you can cringe. It's cringe-worthy. As my little grandkids would say, well that's not kind. That was not kind. That wasn't a kind statement from Jesus. He refuses the request. And what he is pointing to is the priorities of the Jews as described by the Jews of the children. And the Gentiles are the dogs. The Jews have a preferred status. And just to be clear, the Gentiles as dogs is a huge insult. It's about as big of an insult you could have given in those ancient times. It's still a huge insult in the East actually. But Jesus' words are dismissive and the woman's ask is denied.

So there's a couple things I want to point out. A couple ironies in this Maggie was talking about last week. We saw the Jesus criticizing the Pharisees, right for worrying too much about all these cleanliness rules and the food laws and about defilement. Yet he seems to have his own concerns about those who are unclean by implying that the woman and her daughter are like dogs rather than children. He groups them with the ritually unclean that are unwelcome at the table.

The second irony involves his use of the word children. The woman begs Jesus to heal her daughter, her child. And while he agrees that children need to be fed, he also indicates that her daughter doesn't count as a child. She's nothing but a dog. What are we to make of Jesus's response to this woman? What do we do with Jesus? His apparent hostility. And even what sounds like rudeness in the story, let's be honest, it's a part of the text you kind of want to skip.

I don’t know about you guys, but I haven't heard it preached about a lot. And it's a hard text because this is not the Jesus that I know and love. This would be antithetical to that Jesus. Are Jesus's words a straightforward rebuke or is this some sort of teaching device? Does the conversation actually show us some glimpse of God's wisdom that we're to discern? Or is this just a bad moment for Jesus where he himself is part of his own cultural bias?

There's a pastor in New York, there's a story about a pastor in New York, his name is Ernest Campbell. And he wrote a sermon in which he, which he entitled, “Things I Wish Jesus had Never Said.” I kind of like that. I actually agreed with him while I was prepping this week.

And Jesus's an initial response to this woman's plea. Plea had to have been high on that list. It had to have been. It just doesn't make sense because this is the Jesus who in the gospel of John said, anyone who comes to me, I will never drive away. This is the Jesus that in the story of the Good Samaritan and the prodigal son, open the door wide to include everybody, all of humanity. And the contradiction between that Jesus and the Jesus who contracts contrasts Jewish children to gentile dogs is hard for me to reconcile. I really don't get it. It makes no sense to me.

And if you think about all the words and actions of the Jesus we know in the gospels, it's out of character. It is out of character. So how do we understand Jesus's words to this woman? And as a side note, it's likely that no one would've even blinked, let alone winced or cringed whoever was in the room at the time that would've been commonplace. She was a gentile centuries of bad blood, probably a social cast or two lie between she and her Jewish neighbor. But this is Jesus.

So interpreters over Christian history have taken all sorts of different tacks with this. And one of the things they ask is, are Jesus's words, are they a straightforward rebuke or some sort of way of teaching aimed at the woman herself or those that might be overhearing what's going on? Maybe giving the, giving the woman a chance to show her faith.

Or maybe is it a teaching moment about faith and and persistent prayer or a lesson to the audience that they better be looking at their own prejudices? Or maybe for Jesus it was a matter of timing. because there was a plan here. You're going to hit the Jews first with the gospel, then you're going to spread out to the Gentiles. So maybe he was just sticking with God's agenda.

And rightly so, more recent interpreters have suggested that we see a fully human Jesus. Because that's what we believe, right? Jesus is fully human and fully divine. And we know that fully human Jesus, right? The one in the garden, take this cup from me, the one on the cross. Why have you forsaken me? Is this that fully human Jesus that's limited by his own culture, by his own prejudices. And maybe it's as simple as understanding that Jesus was a Jewish man of his time.

Because since the time of David and Goliath, Hebrew writer had used the term dog to describe opponents enemies, anyone that was non-Jewish. So whether we're justifying or sidestepping or ignoring or making light of Jesus' words to the woman, we have to acknowledge that 2000 plus years later and only the text to look at, we cannot make a good educated guess on Jesus' tone and his intent. We're guessing friends, we don't know that.

So here's my suggestion instead of the why, let's take a look at the what. What's happened, what happens? This woman needs Jesus. She needs Jesus now. And so this is how she answers him in Mark 7:28: “Sir, even the dogs under the table eats the ch, eat the children's crumbs.” She's respectful, she's humble, she's bold, she's persistent. She doesn't take no for an answer. She is a mother of a suffering child.

And this is what I love about this. She sets her pride aside. She sets herself aside. She sets all those boundaries we were talking about. She just takes him, she sets him aside, she throws herself at his feet. And while this is a troubling text, it's one of just a few that shows Jesus's ministry going beyond the bounds of Jewish community. Yes, he initially turns this woman away and I think this is what's important, ultimately heals her daughter. Something changes. But what is it? Is it the woman that changes? Has she passed some sort of test? Is her persistent hanging on her, continued fight for her daughter, her refusal to give up? Has that changed her in some way? Shaped her in some, into somebody that was blind?

Now to those boundaries, to those things that held them apart, that maybe when you're in that situation, all those things fall aside and all you're able to see is truth. And maybe all she was able to see was who Jesus really was. Or maybe it's Jesus. In the beginning he treats this woman like a gentile, a non-Jew. Then he looks at her kneeling at his feet and he tells her for, for what you've said, go your daughter's healed. But something in her words makes him see differently. It changes something in him, right? Because he no longer sees a type, a category, a demographic, a race, a religion, a gentile. He sees her, he sees her as a mother putting her trust in him. And for whatever his reasoning is for his initial response, maybe he's trying to stick with this plan, an agenda. He ends up healing the girl anyway. Because it's one thing to have an agenda or a strategy about a group, a class, a nation.

It's one thing to have a policy, an agenda about gentiles, about the homeless, about the immigrant, about a woman, about the gay community, about Palestinians, Jews, Muslims. But it's quite another thing to see the person that's right in front of us, to see that person, to hear their cries, to hear, feel their pain, to witness their faith. And sometimes we see a little bit of ourselves in that person. And then we experience this connection, I think a divine connection that binds us together as one shared humanity. And when that happens, compassion grows. And it's that compassion that changes us, that helps us to see clearly.

So what do we make of this story? A hard story. I think we land on, here's what we know. Jesus' compassion widens the circle of his mercy. His plan will include everybody. Everybody who comes to him and all will be his children fed at his table. That is what we do know.

You know, I started this out asking you what makes you cringe? And I shared a little story about someone I was last week, but I haven't asked my husband. I'm always like, what do you think? How about this? And it was so interesting. I have to tell you, it was kind of convicting because I was thinking about all these things I'd experienced like other people that were making me uncomfortable. And here, here's what he said right off the top, he goes, oh wow. Just a few days ago I was at the grocery store and I walked in and there was a woman, um, sitting on the side and she had a sign and she obviously was having a really hard time. And I ran in because I was in a huge hurry. And I was like, okay, I have a few dollars in my pocket, but, and he said I was just cringing, like, oh, I should not be running by her and just giving her a couple dollars, like I should go back in and go to the cash machine and get more. But I'm super busy and I got so much to do. So I stopped and I gave her that. And I did say, I hope you know, things get better. And, but he said “I was cringing the whole time.”

And here's why I felt convicted. Oh, I wasn't really thinking outside myself like that. I was kind of thinking about all the people that make me cringe. And it was a reminder to me to reflect and take a look at what those things are. Those places that I've misspoke or misstep miss thought that make me cringe.

And it reminded me of when I started seminary at Bethel and we had to take all these tests for like a week, like personality tests and you name it, we took the test, you know, what are your strengths? What is this?

And there was one piece of the test that was talking about your racial bias. And um, me being the white woman from Wisconsin and then living in Minneapolis with all white people, I'm like, oh, oh yeah, I I don't see color. Like that's who where I was 15 years ago. I'm like, I just like everybody. If you're not, if you're kind, you get that back.

Um, and then the test came back and literally they're like, either you are the least racist person to ever exist in the world, or you totally don't get this at all. And guess where I landed did not get it at all. But when I remember that story, my story, I cringe. I cringe at that person. And how I've, you know, slowly been evolving, but I cringe.

And we all have those cringe worthy moments that I think it's important to look inward. Because I think that's a piece of this too. This is a story about boundaries broken and barriers that are removed. It's a story that anticipates and justifies the Gentile mission in the gospel community. It points to a and i most importantly the story. It points to this great boundary, a difficult boundary that had to be crossed in order to start the mission.

That's why it's important to look inward. What are the boundaries? What are the barriers in your life that are keeping you from moving forward to maybe seeing yourself and seeing the other, to including everybody in the community of God? because as hard as Jesus's words were here, ultimately his actions changed. All that. Pray with me.

Holy God, we are, uh, grateful to be here. And as we gather together, God, we are reminded that you are a God, a mystery that there's a lot of stuff we don't understand. That we walk by faith and we continue to move through your love. And we hang onto the truth that we do know that you are Jesus Christ, the son of God, the son of love, A God that calls us to follow you, to love you, to love our neighbors, to include all people, to continue to grow and evolve and see you more clearly and see one another more clearly. God, we know we need your help for that I thank you, thank you for the way you love us and teach us and ground us. Thank you for the call to keep growing and to keep loving one another. We pray in your name. Amen.