(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on September 30, 2018, Proper 21)
Walking Past the Parish Drunk
One night several years ago, back
in England, I was walking home from church when I encountered a familiar
face. Gary, the parish drunk,
disheveled as ever. Sitting on the
curbside by a convenience shop, Gary called out to me with slurred speech. I ignored him. I knew what this would be about. He persisted, though, and shared with
me his latest pity story. Tomorrow
was his sister’s birthday and he had nothing to give her. Could I spot him a few quid so that he
could run in the convenience shop and grab her a pint of her favorite drink? At this point Gary was nearly in my
face, and I could no longer ignore him or his heavy, alcohol-laced breathing. So I looked him in the eyes and shook
my head. “I’m sorry, Gary, I can’t
help you.”
Suddenly his jaw clenched and his
lip pursed into a thin, angry line. He raised his two hands karate style. “You think you can just walk by
me? I know karate!” For a brief moment, I felt fear. Was Gary really going to attack me? I sized up my chances of running
away. Gary was twice my age and
drunk. I shouldn’t have much
trouble leaving him in the dust.
All of this speculation, however, was needless. As I was weighing up my options, Gary
was precariously trying to lift one of his legs to complete the karate
pose. It was a regrettable
move. Tipsy as he was, he lacked
balanced and stumbled backward into the shadows. I laughed and walked by him. I wonder now if he heard my laughter. If he did, I imagine it was salt in a
deep, deep wound.
Jesus and I: Ignoring, Refusing, Insulting
First I ignored him.
Then I refused him.
Then I insulted him.
As astonishing as this may sound,
I was following in the footsteps of my Lord Jesus Christ.
For in today’s scripture, Jesus first
ignores the Canaanite woman. He does
not answer her.
Then he refuses her, saying, “I
was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”
Then he insults her, calling her
a dog.
As one of my favorite theologians
puts it, Jesus had to learn to be human just as you and I did. His family and his culture had to teach
him how to walk, how to talk, how to use the potty. They also happened to teach him about the inferiority of the
Canaanites, how they were unclean, how they had historically persecuted the
Jewish people, how they were enemies of God.
So when Jesus ignores and then
refuses and then insults the Canaanite woman, it’s not pretty but it’s also not
much of a surprise. It’s a
lifetime of learning now lived out in the flesh.
Perhaps in a similar way, my
response to Gary was no surprise either.
After all, growing up in a culture deeply steeped in a Protestant
work-ethic, I have “learned” that persons like Gary are a lost cause. There’s no reasoning with a person who
sits around all day and routinely throws what little they have at the
drink. Why give them the time of
day?
Jesus Repents
Earlier in the gospel story of
Matthew, Jesus sends his disciples out on mission to proclaim the good news of
the kingdom of God and to heal. He
gives them explicit instructions: “Go nowhere among the gentiles, and enter no
town of the Samaritans, but rather go to the lost sheep…of Israel” (10:5-6).
At the very end of the gospel
story of Matthew, however, when Jesus again sends the disciples out on mission,
his instructions have changed: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (28:19).
His instructions change, I
believe, because he himself changed.
Somewhere between the first mission and the last, Jesus sheds the tribal
thinking of his culture and begins to understand that all people belong to God,
are beloved by God, are worthy of relationship with God. I think today’s scripture is a glimpse
into this change of thinking. I
would even go so far as to say that in today’s scripture we see Jesus himself
repenting.
The word “repent” means literally
to change your mind, to turn around about something. If you’re like me, you’ve probably thought about repentance
as having to do with private morality.
Perhaps you’ve repented before from snapping at people in anger, or from
greed, or from lying or spreading rumors.
But in today’s scripture, repentance is about something much bigger than
a personal habit. Repentance in
today’s scripture is about unlearning the lopsided values of your culture. When Jesus exclaims to the Canaanite
woman in today’s scripture, “Woman, great is your faith!” he repents. This repentance might even be said to
make Jesus an “outlaw” inasmuch as it draws Jesus outside the law and custom of
his day. For in today’s episode, he
steps outside the law of his people, which had memorialized the Canaanites as
the enemy. He turns around from
the idea that God’s good news is the exclusive property of one people group,
and as we see at the end of the gospel, he comes to believe that the good news
is for all nations, that all people deserve the time of day and so much
more. (If you’ll allow me this
moment of mischief, I’d just like to wonder aloud if we have any laws and
customs today we might repent about.
Are there people we turn our backs on, whom God does not? Laws that we follow, that God does
not? Having heard stories from the
communities of the disabled and the sick and immigrants, where folks face
inordinate challenges to enjoy the life that I take for granted, I do
wonder. Are there people about
whom we might change our minds and join Jesus in saying, “Great is your
faith!”)
Where I Stopped Following Jesus; Or, the Next
Step
You may remember that a couple of
weeks ago, I began with the observation that God’s good news in the Bible is
for the poor, and I’m not (poor).
This left me asking, where am I in the good news? Last week, as I read Jesus’ story about
Lazarus and the rich man, I found myself standing with the rich man in front of
a chasm, a chasm fixed by security and self-sufficiency, a chasm made by money
and mastery and the lure of more. I
found myself feeling the rich man’s loneliness and wondering how I might
receive the embrace of poor man Lazarus, which is the communion of God. I wondered how I might begin to see him
as my brother.
That brings me to today. The good news that I find in today’s
scripture is that even Jesus faced the problem that I face. Like me, Jesus learned from his culture
that certain people don’t deserve the time of day. I know that Jesus learned
this because I see it in his actions.
First he ignores the Canaanite
woman.
Then he refuses her.
Then he insults her.
But the story doesn’t end
there. Next Jesus listens to her. And when he hears the depths of her cry,
somehow that changes his mind. He
repents. He unlearns what his
culture taught him. And he
recognizes the Canaanite woman’s faith as part of his own faith. He recognizes her as a child of God.
The good news, then, is that
Jesus changed and so can I.
Years ago on that night in
Sheffield, I followed in Jesus’ footsteps.
I ignored Gary in his drunken
poverty.
I refused him.
I insulted him, my laughter salt
in a deep, deep wound.
But that’s where I stopped
following Jesus. If I were to
continue, then I would do what Jesus did next. I would listen to Gary. I would see his deep, deep wound, and I would recognize it as
my own. I would recognize his hope
as my hope, his faith as my faith, him as my brother, despite all that my
culture has taught me. It’s
difficult not to race ahead to questions like, Can you really help a person
like Gary? How can situations like
this be fixed? But perhaps those
questions are short-circuiting the first and most important step. Which is the step that Jesus takes, and
which is precisely where I find myself today in God’s good news to the
poor. I am at the step of
listening to the Canaanite woman.
I am at the step of being touched.
I am at the step of repentance, of my mind being changed. I am on the threshold of communion with
Gary—and with Christ.
Prayer
Companion Christ,
Who grapples with culture now
As with culture long ago:
You know how deep our learning is
And how deep the wounds it
inflicts.
Grant us grace to follow you,
To unlearn as you did,
To be changed
By the faith of others,
And to enter into their
communion,
Which is yours also. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment