EVEN THE DOGS EAT THE CRUMBS THAT FALL FROM THEIR MASTER’S TABLE (Mark 7:24-30)

The Gospel lesson on August 30 was about washing hands and about what defiles us – whether what goes into the body or what comes out of it.  Among other acts, Jesus identified slander as something that renders people impure and cut them off from God.  I notice with a great deal of surprise and disappointment that Jesus himself seems not to have taken to heart his own teaching. In response to the plea of a woman from the Syrophoenician city of Tyre who begged Jesus to heal her daughter, he denies her request, saying that he only tends the children of Israel.  Excuse me!  Is this the same man talking who said that God’s Kingdom is for everyone? But wait, there’s unfortunately more. Jesus, whom we love so much, throws out a mean, even racist zinger:  “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”  Dogs.  “Dog” was a terrible slur in the ancient world.  Calling someone a dog in ancient Palestine was as bad as calling someone the “n” word in contemporary America. So, why in the world would Jesus speak to this poor, terrified mother in such a horrible way? 

Well, for one thing, the ancient Jewish people considered their pagan neighbors evil and to be avoided.   For another thing, Jesus has up to this point proclaimed he has been sent to the Children of Israel only.   And finally, maybe Jesus was tired and in need of a break and simply snapped when his much-needed rest was interrupted.

In any case, the Syrophoenician woman does not accept any of the filth coming from Jesus’ mouth; and she does so in a remarkable way. Without missing a beat she rebuffs his insult.  She answers him not in anger, but with a sharp, funny retort:  “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” That single line does the trick and Jesus immediately grants her request, even adding, “Woman, great is your faith!”  Not only was her faith great, but she was able to move Jesus beyond his ethnocentric mission, witnessed by the fact that after the parallel story in Matthew’s gospel  Jesus no longer claims to be “just for Israel."  In the end of Matthew’s gospel, we find Jesus standing on a mountaintop, commanding his disciples to go to the ends of the earth to teach, serve, disciple and love.  As is so often in the stories of our Bible, the least likely person – in this case a pagan woman -- ends up being God's Messenger. 

This is, more or less, what I was going to preach.  But then a photo went around the world, the photo of 3-year old toddler who had drowned in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea.  Alan (orinially identified by Turkish authorities as Aylan) Kurdi’s, mother loved her child and wanted him to be healthy and safe, just as the woman in our gospel story did. Unfortunately, safety was no longer to be had in the Kurdi family’s home town of Kobane and the Kurdis packed up their two sons, aged 3 and 5, and left home, hoping to make a new home somewhere else- just as so many Syrian families have done over the last 4 years of fighting.  Many of those who survived the journey now live in refugee camps the majority of which are located in Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon. Alan’s family paid a smuggler and boarded one of the rickety boats or rubber dinghies.  What happened then, we know – some 7 bodies were recovered on a Turkish beach, among them that of Alan, his older brother, and his mom. By now, the dad has returned to the ruins of his hometown in Syria and buried his wife and two sons.

I read this week a poem by a British Somali poet by the name of Warzan Shire titled “Home.” In it she reminds us that:

               "no one leaves home unless
               home is the mouth of a shark
               you only run for the border
               when you see the whole city running as well

               you have to understand,
               that no one puts their children in a boat
               unless the water is safer than the land
               no one burns their palms
               under trains
               beneath carriages
               no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
               feeding on newspaper unless the miles traveled
               mean something more than journey.
               no one crawls under fences
               no one wants to be beaten
               pitied."

Alan has become the visual symbol for the current refugee crisis. The tragic death of this 3-year old tugs on our heart strings more than the deaths of the 2,500 people who have drowned this year alone in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea on their search from safety. In a horrible way, the refugees stranded in makeshift camps, on railway stations, and at borders serve as God’s messenger to us and our hardened hearts.  In Mark 7, God’s messenger to Jesus and to us is a woman who did not give up, a woman who refuse to shut up, even though she was a foreigner whom Jesus derided.  She did not give us, and in the end Jesus healed her son. 

In our words and actions we so often resemble the Jesus of this story. We resemble him each time that we use bad images and bad language to refer to people who seek to come to the US, whether as migrants or refugees.  And we in the US are not alone in this.  Most European countries, with a few exceptions, have fortified their borders, trying to keep out the growing number of refugees and migrants.  In result, unimaginably bad situations have arisen all over Europe, whether in the French city of Calais, the Hungarian capital, or on the Greek island of Kos, to name just a few examples. The magnitude of the crisis is mind-boggling. Approximately 4 million Syrian refugees have fled that country’s civil war, which means that nearly one in 4 among the world’s refugees has fled Syria. The vast majority of them are in the Middle East and Turkey, with Turkey alone hosting 1.6 million people.

Jesus had his mind changed by a persistent woman who defied the conventions of her day. What will it take for God to change our mind? What can we do in response to God’s call coming to us via the millions of refugees? One way to help might be to ask our government to offer asylum to a greater number of Syrian refugees. Over the last 4 years, the US has welcomed less than 1,500 Syrian refugees.  Take a moment to consider just how small a number that is: less than 1,500 people! The entire student population of Cupertino’s Lynnbrook High School is just 250 more than that.  Those less than 1,500 people wouldn’t even fill three 747 jets. And 1500 people is just over half the number of refugees who have drowned in the Mediterranean this summer during their desperate flight to safety.   We know what doing the right thing looks like. As a nation, we're just not doing it.  The Lutheran Immigration and Refugee service has developed a petition on its website (www.lirs.org), so that we can ask our political leaders to offer asylum to a greater number of Syrian refugees.  Another way to help might be intentionally welcome Syrian refugees into our congregations. Recently, Pope Francis called on each Catholic parish in Europe to host one refugee family.  What would happen if each ELCA congregation were to host a family?, I wonder.