Year B
Isaiah 35:4-7a
Psalm 146
James 2:1-10, 14-17
Mark 7:24-37<\/p>\n\n\n\n
May the words of my mouth O God\u2026 speak your truth\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’m about to retire\u2026 I’m about to make a transition\u2026 cross a divide\u2026 of sorts\u2026 from one way of spending my time\u2026 to another\u2026 from one way of being a priest\u2026 to another\u2026 from one pattern of activity\u2026 to another\u2026 and in spite of everything I’ve done to prepare\u2026 there will be surprises\u2026 there will be things I didn’t think of\u2026 or anticipate\u2026 there will be situations which catch me off guard\u2026 ] from what’s been said about retirement\u2026 from what’s been written about it\u2026 to what it is\u2026 ] and yes\u2026 there’s a book called\u2026 Retirement Planning for Dummies\u2026 it’s the second edition\u2026 so it must be complete\u2026 it must have all the answers\u2026 to all the questions I might have asked\u2026 if only I’d thought to buy it a couple months ago\u2026 ] it must be so complete\u2026 that those of you who have already retired\u2026 will wish you had had it when you were getting ready to retire\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And so one other thing\u2026 I realize I’m about to do\u2026 is flip the narrative\u2026 from what culture says retirement is all about\u2026 or what people say it should be all about\u2026 to what it actually is all about\u2026 ] from what I believed it would all be about\u2026 to what it’s really all about\u2026 ] and whatever that will be\u2026 it will not only change what I do on the outside\u2026 but will change how I am on the inside\u2026 in how I think\u2026 and how I feel\u2026 in how my Spirit speaks to me\u2026 and in how I perceive and discern\u2026 ] the narrative I’ve accepted will flip\u2026 from hearsay to testimony\u2026 from conjecture to reality\u2026 and almost like when you’ve had your cataracts removed\u2026 from blurriness to clarity\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And as I go through this transition\u2026 I need to remain vigilant\u2026 I need to remain open to what I can still learn\u2026 to how I can still be formed\u2026 ] to what I can give to\u2026 and do for others\u2026 because if I think I’m too busy getting ready to not be too busy at all\u2026 I may miss out on opportunities that may come my way\u2026 on something that will flip another narrative I’ve been telling myself\u2026 and which also turns out to not be true\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Professor Raj Nadella writes\u2026 a few years ago\u2026 I saw a cartoon\u2026 in it\u2026 there’s a CEO\u2026 a laborer\u2026 and a foreigner\u2026 sitting at a table\u2026 the CEO has a huge plate-full of cookies in front of him\u2026 the laborer has one cookie\u2026 and the immigrant has none\u2026 and the CEO turns to the laborer and says\u2026 Careful mate\u2026 that foreigner wants your cookie!<\/em>\u2026 it\u2019s a clear attempt to shift attention away from the CEO\u2019s hoarding\u2026 and to create division\u2026 and Empire continues to do that even now\u2026 by asking questions like\u2026 Who’s a real American\u2026 and who deserves its benefits<\/em>\u2026 and it creates additional division by pitting marginalized communities against each other\u2026 so it’s that much harder to address this oppression\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first-century historian Josephus\u2026 describes the ongoing tension between Jews and the residents of Tyre\u2026 these two colonized communities fought over several issues\u2026 but primarily\u2026 over the limited resources that were left\u2026 after the Roman Empire siphoned off what it wanted\u2026 and Rome deflected attention away from its selfish economic practices by convincing these oppressed communities\u2026 that they could survive\u2026 only by eliminating the competition from the other oppressed groups\u2026 with whom they lived\u2026 and this led to a mindset of scarcity among these communities\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Syrophoenician woman\u2026 and the deaf man\u2026 were both people on the fringes\u2026 like the foreigner at the table whose plate was empty\u2026 but the woman spoke up\u2026 out of desperation for her daughter\u2026 and those who brought the deaf man to Jesus\u2026 spoke up on his behalf\u2026 ] and there’s no record of any dialogue between Jesus and these advocates\u2026 he simply takes the deaf man aside and heals him\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n But today’s Gospel records the back and forth between Jesus and this woman\u2026 and I wonder what we can learn from Jesus\u2019 reluctance to grant the Syrophoenician woman\u2019s request for a miracle\u2026 was it fear that if the food\u2026 in other words\u2026 the benefits of this new Kingdom\u2026 were to be extended to her community\u2026 that the Jewish people would have less\u2026 would lose out\u2026 that it would be a zero-sum game\u2026 in which only one\u2026 or the other can benefit\u2026 but not both\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n And at first\u2026 this is just how Jesus reacts\u2026 and it may possibly have been\u2026 at least partly\u2026 that he was simply exhausted\u2026 that his inner resources were depleted because of the miracles and healings he’d been performing\u2026 ] after all… the text says\u2026 that he didn’t want anyone to know he was there\u2026 ] but he spoke harshly to this woman\u2026 saying\u2026 it’s not fair to take the children\u2019s food and throw it to the dogs\u2026 as though the Kingdom could somehow be depleted\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now The Jesus Seminar folk\u2026 were a group of biblical scholars whose goal was to establish the authenticity of what Jesus actually said and did\u2026 and they believe that Jesus must really have said this\u2026 because it was kind of unflattering\u2026 and it would have been so easy to leave it out of the bible\u2026 but if it really could be attributed to him\u2026 well\u2026 you wouldn’t want to lose any of his actual words\u2026 would you\u2026 so we’d better leave it in\u2026 ] and maybe\u2026 taking the children<\/em>\u2019<\/em>s food and throwing it to the dogs<\/em>\u2026 maybe that was an expression that people knew\u2026 which referred to someone who couldn’t appreciate what was being offered to them\u2026 that it would be wasted on them\u2026 kind of like casting pearls before swine\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the woman\u2019s insightful response affirms\u2026 that even if her community gained access to the gifts of the kingdom\u2026 Jesus’ community would not be deprived of theirs\u2026 ] and remember\u2026 in the two stories which bookend this one\u2026 of the feeding of the 5,000 and of the 4,000\u2026 Jesus himself flips the narrative by challenging popular notions of scarcity\u2026 ] so what this woman invites Jesus to do\u2026 is challenge his own narrative about who’s in and who’s out\u2026 ] what she is able to accomplish\u2026 is get him to question who he believes can be included\u2026 and who can be healed\u2026 and whether belonging to any particular group\u2026 or tribe\u2026 disqualifies you\u2026 ] and Jesus flips his own narrative\u2026 and says no\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now we all belong to different tribes\u2026 we all belong to different groups\u2026 some of them are of our choosing\u2026 like those who have similar faith journeys\u2026 or the hobbies we share\u2026 like exercise groups\u2026 or gardening clubs\u2026 or amateur astronomers\u2026 or various kinds of support groups\u2026 ] but other tribes are not of our choosing\u2026 like where our ancestors came from\u2026 and the genotypes we’ve inherited\u2026 our inclination to develop certain kinds of diseases\u2026 like Parkinson’s\u2026 but our participation in any of these “so called” tribes\u2026 ought not be divisive\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n But empire knows how to create division\u2026 because the best way to bring folks together\u2026 is to give them a good enemy\u2026 and promoting this kind of mindset\u2026 only increases the difficulty we have in working together to solve our common problems\u2026 and it is an affront to the values that Jesus espoused\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n And if we’re courageous enough\u2026 we’ll be able to acknowledge that we all have some unclean spirits within us\u2026 we are all deaf to some things we don’t want to hear\u2026 many of us can’t speak when there’s something that really needs to be said\u2026 and we need to recognize that we all need to be healed\u2026 ] there are many narratives that we need to flip\u2026 and if\u2026 in today’s Gospel\u2026 Jesus is having a hard time getting it\u2026 it’s no wonder that we sometimes do too\u2026 but while we may be daunted by the enormity of the worlds grief\u2026 and while we may not be obligated to complete the work we are called to do\u2026 we must remember\u2026 that neither are we free to abandon it\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Year B Isaiah 35:4-7a Psalm 146 James 2:1-10, 14-17 Mark 7:24-37 May the words of my mouth O God\u2026 speak your truth\u2026 I’m about to retire\u2026 I’m about to make a transition\u2026 cross a divide\u2026 of sorts\u2026 from one way of spending my time\u2026 to another\u2026 from one way of being a priest\u2026 to another\u2026 from one pattern of activity\u2026 to another\u2026 and in spite of everything I’ve done to prepare\u2026 there will be surprises\u2026 there will be things I didn’t think of\u2026 or anticipate\u2026 there will be situations which catch me off guard\u2026 ] from what’s been said about retirement\u2026 from what’s been written about it\u2026 to what it is\u2026 ] and yes\u2026 there’s a book called\u2026 Retirement Planning for Dummies\u2026 it’s the second edition\u2026 so it must be complete\u2026 it must have all the answers\u2026 to all the questions I might have asked\u2026 if only I’d thought to buy it a couple months ago\u2026 ] it must be so complete\u2026 that those of you who have already retired\u2026 will wish you had had it when you were getting ready to retire\u2026 And so one other thing\u2026 I realize I’m about to do\u2026 is flip the narrative\u2026 from what culture says retirement is all about\u2026 or what people say it should be all about\u2026 to what it actually is all about\u2026 ] from what I believed it would all be about\u2026 to what it’s really all about\u2026 ] and whatever that will be\u2026 it will not only change what I do on the outside\u2026 but will change how I am on the inside\u2026 in how I think\u2026 and how I feel\u2026 in how my Spirit speaks to me\u2026 and in how I perceive and discern\u2026 ] the narrative I’ve accepted will flip\u2026 from hearsay to testimony\u2026 from conjecture to reality\u2026 and almost like when you’ve had your cataracts removed\u2026 from blurriness to clarity\u2026 And as I go through this transition\u2026 I need to remain vigilant\u2026 I need to remain open to what I can still learn\u2026 to how I can still be formed\u2026 ] to what I can give to\u2026 and do for others\u2026 because if I think I’m too busy getting ready to not be too busy at all\u2026 I may miss out on opportunities that may come my way\u2026 on something that will flip another narrative I’ve been telling myself\u2026 and which also turns out to not be true\u2026 Professor Raj Nadella writes\u2026 a few years ago\u2026 I saw a cartoon\u2026 in it\u2026 there’s a CEO\u2026 a laborer\u2026 and a foreigner\u2026 sitting at a table\u2026 the CEO has a huge plate-full of cookies in front of him\u2026 the laborer has one cookie\u2026 and the immigrant has none\u2026 and the CEO turns to the laborer and says\u2026 Careful mate\u2026 that foreigner wants your cookie!\u2026 it\u2019s a clear attempt to shift attention away from the CEO\u2019s hoarding\u2026 and to create division\u2026 and Empire continues to do that even now\u2026 by asking questions like\u2026 Who’s a real American\u2026 and who deserves its benefits\u2026 and it creates additional division by pitting marginalized communities against each other\u2026 so it’s that much harder to address this oppression\u2026 The first-century historian Josephus\u2026 describes the ongoing tension between Jews and the residents of Tyre\u2026 these two colonized communities fought over several issues\u2026 but primarily\u2026 over the limited resources that were left\u2026 after the Roman Empire siphoned off what it wanted\u2026 and Rome deflected attention away from its selfish economic practices by convincing these oppressed communities\u2026 that they could survive\u2026 only by eliminating the competition from the other oppressed groups\u2026 with whom they lived\u2026 and this led to a mindset of scarcity among these communities\u2026 The Syrophoenician woman\u2026 and the deaf man\u2026 were both people on the fringes\u2026 like the foreigner at the table whose plate was empty\u2026 but the woman spoke up\u2026 out of desperation for her daughter\u2026 and those who brought the deaf man to Jesus\u2026 spoke up on his behalf\u2026 ] and there’s no record of any dialogue between Jesus and these advocates\u2026 he simply takes the deaf man aside and heals him\u2026 But today’s Gospel records the back and forth between Jesus and this woman\u2026 and I wonder what we can learn from Jesus\u2019 reluctance to grant the Syrophoenician woman\u2019s request for a miracle\u2026 was it fear that if the food\u2026 in other words\u2026 the benefits of this new Kingdom\u2026 were to be extended to her community\u2026 that the Jewish people would have less\u2026 would lose out\u2026 that it would be a zero-sum game\u2026 in which only one\u2026 or the other can benefit\u2026 but not both\u2026 And at first\u2026 this is just how Jesus reacts\u2026 and it may possibly have been\u2026 at least partly\u2026 that he was simply exhausted\u2026 that his inner resources were depleted because of the miracles and healings he’d been performing\u2026 ] after all… the text says\u2026 that he didn’t want anyone to know he was there\u2026 ] but he spoke harshly to this woman\u2026 saying\u2026 it’s not fair to take the children\u2019s food and throw it to the dogs\u2026 as though the Kingdom could somehow be depleted\u2026 Now The Jesus Seminar folk\u2026 were a group of biblical scholars whose goal was to establish the authenticity of what Jesus actually said and did\u2026 and they believe that Jesus must really have said this\u2026 because it was kind of unflattering\u2026 and it would have been so easy to leave it out of the bible\u2026 but if it really could be attributed to him\u2026 well\u2026 you wouldn’t want to lose any of his actual words\u2026 would you\u2026 so we’d better leave it in\u2026 ] and maybe\u2026 taking the children\u2019s food and throwing it to the dogs\u2026 maybe that was an expression that people knew\u2026 which referred to someone who couldn’t appreciate what was being offered to them\u2026 that it would be wasted on them\u2026 kind of like casting pearls before swine\u2026 But the woman\u2019s insightful response affirms\u2026 that even if her community gained access to the gifts of the kingdom\u2026 Jesus’ community would not be 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