Hands and Feet and Eyes and All

Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29

Psalm 19:7-14

James 5:13-20

Mark 9:38-50

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I was chatting with a friend last night about this morning’s Gospel, sure I knew where the sermon was going to go, when he reminded me of his history of self-harm. He is now in recovery, it has been years since he last cut himself for stress relief, but today’s words from Jesus make me wonder about how we’ve misused scripture. It makes me wonder, in much the same way that I wonder how a person wrestling with anorexia might hear teachings about the importance of fasting as a spiritual practice. It’s only been two weeks since our community gathered here to talk about Heroin, and the importance of building support networks, of refusing to allow shame to cut us off from each other when we are hurting. But this morning Jesus seems to be telling us to go ahead and chop ourselves up for the sake of heaven. Any time the Bible talks of how we treat ‘the body,’ I wonder if it means just our individual bodies, or the corporate, community, body, or both. This whole image of cutting off hands and feet, or dropping someone into the sea with a millstone around their neck, seems very old-school Gangster. This is not what we mean when we tell parents to find Godparents for their children.

What we do mean, though, is that the witness we bear, the way we live out our faith and our wrestling with faith, must have in mind how children see and hear and learn. Remember last week’s reading when Jesus brings a child into their midst and tells them to receive children as they receive him? Today’s reading picks up right after that, so the kids are there when John comes running up to Jesus to tattle on somebody who’s not part of their inner circle but is still casting out demons. The disciples couldn’t cast out demons the last time they tried, and Jesus had to do it for them, so they probably felt a little foolish for failing, and now they see this outsider doing what they couldn’t do. No wonder they tattled. 

But the children were watching. And listening. And learning. And Jesus didn’t like what they were picking up from this behavior, so he gently corrects John. And reminds the rest of them not to cause these little ones to stumble. What in the world would cause them to stumble, since all that John said was that someone outside of their clique was doing God’s work? Okay, well, perhaps that’s really all it was. Do you have to be a Christian to do God’s work? Does God only work through, and love, those who subscribe to a particular set of beliefs?

In the ancient church, discipleship happened in a certain way: first you belonged to the community, then you learned how to behave, then you were taught what the beliefs were that shaped that behavior. Nowadays we seem to try to go about it backwards: learn the rules, act right, then we let you in. But abstract thinking about theology isn’t how children’s minds work. The doctrine of the Trinity won’t serve a factory worker very well when the plant shuts down. We don’t all believe exactly the same thing even when we use exactly the same words to talk about what we believe! Cutting someone off from the community, as John was trying to do, just because they’ve gone about the work of God by a slightly different set of steps, only ends up with all of us cut out of the picture eventually. 

Because this is God’s church, not ours, God will do amazing things without regarding the boundaries we set up. The Pope has inspired many and challenged many in this visit to our country - even folks who aren’t Catholic are listening to what he has to say and how he says it! You and I are part of this work of God, not only here in the liturgy and the ministry we do in the name of Christ our Emmanuel Lutheran Church, but out in the rest of the world, in the places where we work and vacation and struggle, and even those situations where we’d really rather not think about God. 

I love this reading from Numbers that we have for today: Eldad and Medad prophesying outside the camp, against the expectations, out of order, without express permission to do so. But the verses that are missing from our lectionary reading, mostly to keep the story short and to the point, also include a bit of God’s stubborn character. The people have complained about not having enough meat to eat, so God promises meat. Not just a little. Not even simply the morning corned beef hash and hamsteak to go with the manna. No, in our missing verses this morning, God promises so much meat that we will be sick of it, so much meat that it will come out of our nostrils and they will decide it is better to be vegetarian after all. Then God pours out the spirit of prophecy on the seventy chosen and the two who remained in the camp. It’s a sort of challenge from an irritated God tired of hearing the complaints of an ungrateful people he’s given so much to. “Plagues and Passover and Promises, and all they can say is ‘where’s the beef’? I’ll give them beef, I’ll give them the entire herd of cows!”

God goes overboard with gifts, both physical sustenance and spiritual gifts. But too often we try to hold God back, to put restrictions and restraints on where God is allowed to show up, like Joshua complained to Moses and John complained to Jesus - these folks aren’t properly vetted! They can’t be doing what God wants us to do! John and Joshua are complaining about a grace that is bigger than our imaginations, in front of the very children whose imaginations are looking for the promised land, the kingdom of heaven. Moses tells Joshua to seek more of this gift for all people. Jesus tells John to go ahead and cut off his hands and feet if he thinks it’ll get him into heaven to do so, just don’t discourage the children.

We have used texts like these for ages to put strict holds on the works of God in the world. It hasn’t helped our thirst for violence or vengeance. It hasn’t cured our warring madness or calmed our fears. If anything, we have cut one another off, cut one another into pieces, for the sake of being right and righteous. After so many generations of wars and so much of history repeating itself, we ought to know by now that it is not hands and feet that cause us to sin, but hearts. Hearts which only God can remove and revive, hearts which God does in fact bring back to life over and over again, every time we succumb to fears and anxieties about our belonging.

My friend who is in recovery from self-harm made a fascinating observation about this Gospel text. Even if we end up in hell, hands and feet and eyes and all, Jesus Christ descended into hell, hands and feet and eyes and all, for our sake. Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, God in our flesh, whole and complete, entirely alive and entirely crucified and entirely alive again, entirely to welcome the world into God’s kingdom.  Whatever you believe, wherever you are and wherever you come from, whatever credentials you don’t have, you will not be cut off from the love of God. Like a child, you are precious to God, who will forever claim you as God’s very own.

Kids

Mark 9:30-37

30[Jesus and the disciples went on] and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it;31for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” 32But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.
  33Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” 34But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. 35He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” 36Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, 37“Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

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I don’t know about you, but I have been avoiding these GOP debates for the sake of my blood pressure. I know why people think we shouldn’t talk politics in polite company, or religion, for that matter, even though our emotions betray how important these things are to us. On the other hand, I don’t know if it really is religion and politics that get us worked up as much as it is our fear about being wrong and the absolute survival instinct that kicks in when we have to prove ourselves right at all costs. We have lost the ability to listen to one another and public discourse has gone from respectful disagreement about issues to personal attacks and outright bullying. Then again, I’m not sure we’ve ever been far from our worst selves. One of my favorite movies, 1776, shows how the first continental congress fought while trying to have a conversation about independence, and it came to blows between John Adams and John Dickinson once they started calling each other names like “coward” and “landlord” and “lawyer.” Not sure if that’s a historically accurate conversation, but it’s sadly not surprising. This past week was the saint day for Hildegard, who was an Abbess, composer, scientist, and visionary in Germany at the start of the second century. The German film adaptation of her life shows how many obstacles were in her way as she tried to deal with the Abbot and find a cloistered place for her sisters, away from the brothers who they shared space with. When her visions were first made known, the higher authorities were terribly nasty to her, angry and jealous because she had a gift they did not have, and they treated her with contempt.

In this morning’s Gospel reading, I think we have a picture of the disciples arguing on the way from much the same sort of fear. Jesus has just told them, again, of his upcoming crucifixion, death, and resurrection. They don’t get it. They don’t understand what he’s talking about, they remember Peter was rebuked and called ‘Satan’ last time he spoke up in confusion, and they are afraid to ask Jesus what he means. After all, the disciples were not exactly the cream of the crop when Jesus called them. If they had been the best and the brightest students, they would have been apprenticed to important Rabbis after they made Bar Mitzvah, and wouldn’t have been working in the family business, or reduced to collecting taxes. If the community had thought these disciples smart and holy, they would have some extra measure of respect, but when Jesus called them they were basically nobodies. 

I posted on Facebook awhile back an article about how little we seem to value labor in our culture. For all of the talk of pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps, getting our hands dirty, earning our bread, we have it in our culture that if you want a respectable job you’ve gotta go to college and get a degree and work at a desk. If you work with your hands you don’t get as much respect as if you wear a suit and tie. When I was in High School, I was in honors classes, but wanted to learn how to work on cars my junior year. We had a whole wing of the building for ‘vocational tech’ classes, from mechanics to electrical work to marketing. But because I was on the college track, I was discouraged from those classes. The mocking chant from the geeks to the jocks was usually something about who was going to pump gas for whom when those nerdy kids who got picked on for being smart ended up working for Microsoft. As though there’s a difference in whose job is more important! Or, rather, as though there is a difference in how important a person is, based solely on their job.

The disciples had finally made it, they thought, by being disciples of this very important Rabbi who was shaking everyone up. They had gone from smelly fishermen to sought-after teachers. Except that now, this one lesson their teacher kept returning to didn’t make sense, and they were afraid to ask him what he meant. They didn’t want to look dumb. Didn’t want to make Jesus think he’d made a mistake in choosing them. Didn’t want to be known as hypocrites or frauds.

So what’s the next thing they do? They argue about who’s best. They’ve gotta build themselves up, make themselves more important, prove their worth to the movement, secure their place in the spotlight.

We do this so often when we get wrapped up in every little thing we fight about, don’t we? Do we actually have the answers when we argue about what’s going on in the world, or do we just want to have something to say so we feel important? Sometimes we do need to name big problems, work together toward solutions. When we had the gathering of folks here on Monday to talk about what to do with our local Heroin addiction, we needed to start that conversation, and hope it will continue with some community support for the sake of some much-needed healing. But when we take our public discourse into areas of blame and shame, we lose track of our hearts. Kim Davis has been all over the news for refusing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. This is a problem, now that it’s legal according to the Supreme Court that those licenses be made available, and she does get paid to work for the government. But even more of a problem is the amount of public shaming of Kim Davis that came out of that conflict, and continues still. What good is it to argue that her claim to Christianity is true or false based on how she looks or dresses or how many times she has been married? What good is it to make a mockery of her character for an argument about the right to love another person?

But we are afraid. So afraid that if we don’t make ourselves big and important that no one will notice us or care about us. Afraid that we have to constantly prove our value or we will get thrown away otherwise. That is, after all, the way the rest of the world works. 

But that’s not how Jesus does things. That’s not what the kingdom of God looks like.

In Jesus’ time, children were not really people. Far from the Hallmark vision of adorable, squeaky-clean little cherubs all gathered on his lap with perfect hair and straight white smiles, children ran around like dogs, who also weren’t domesticated pets. Children may or may not live to adulthood, so there wasn’t a lot of energy wasted on them. They had no power. They were raised by women who had no power. They were completely dependent, often thrown away. Remember that slaughter of every child under the age of two after Jesus was born? Children of an occupied people are given even less care. It’s like Lord of the Flies all the time.

Children, however, are the object lesson Jesus gives his adult disciples for what the kingdom of God is like. Welcome this child, and you welcome me, he says. Welcome this one who is socially worthless, this one who is typically ignored if not beaten, this one who still runs wild and cannot be controlled yet by the ‘proper’ way of doing things. Welcome this person who is not yet counted as a person, Jesus says, and that is where you will find God. 

Children just exist, no matter how we try to put them into boxes, market to them, shape them into good little consumers, or bully them out of asking questions. They’re curious and not ashamed about it. They’re themselves even while they imitate the adults around them as they learn how to move around the world. They are dependent for many things, and they can surprise us in the questions they ask and the generosity they model. They can sometimes be little snots, too, and we welcome them anyhow, because we’re just bigger snots.

But more than that. Even in places where children are unwelcome, unwanted, intrusive and only in the way as collateral damage, Jesus is exactly all of those things, too. The Christmas manger and child Jesus in the temple may bring to our minds adorable images, with problems no bigger than a scraped knee, but children in this world are thrown away all the time, which is far from adorable. Children are beaten, mistreated, bullied, abused, neglected, sold, traded, and used for terrible, hurtful things, because grown ups have power and children don’t. So Jesus comes to us as a child. Jesus lives among us as a child. The kingdom of God is right here in our midst in the very ones we so easily discard.

It’s not about proving our worth, or making sure we have the loudest, most important voice at the table. Jesus was thrown away, nailed to a cross for public humiliation, for every time we throw one another away, every time we throw ourselves away into the fray of proving our importance rather than trusting the God who loved us into being. Jesus comes to us as a child who has been beaten. A child who has been bullied. A child who has been ignored. A child who still wakes up every morning, with or without dinner the night before or the promise of breakfast today, just to keep living in this hurting world. Jesus lives among us as that very child, to welcome each and every child who has known the pain of that experience, no matter if that child is five years old or sixty-five years old. If that child wears a suit or a pair of coveralls or the only shirt they own since running away from home. Jesus runs with the children, weeps with the children, laughs with the children, carries the children, died for the children, lives again for the children, loves the children. Jesus welcomes the children. Every last one of us.

Who is Jesus? Who are we?

Isaiah 50:4-9a 

The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens - wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught. The Lord GOD has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward. I gave my back to those who struck me, and my checks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting. The Lord GOD helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; he who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who are my adversaries? Let them confront me. It is the Lord GOD who helps me; who will declare me guilty?

Psalm 116:1-9

I love the LORD, who has heard my voice, and listened to my supplication, for the LORD has given ear to me whenever I called. The cords of death entangled me; the anguish of the grave came upon me; I came to grief and sorrow. Then I called upon the name of the LORD: “O LORD, I pray to you, save my life.” Gracious is the LORD and righteous; our God is full of compassion. The LORD watches over the innocent; I was brought low, and God saved me. Turn again to your rest, O my soul, for the LORD has dealt well with you. For you have rescued my life from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from stumbling; I will walk in the presence of the LORD in the land of the living.

James 3:1-12

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For all of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect, able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle. If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies. Or look at ships: though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, an dis itself set on fire by hell. For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, but no one can tame the tongue - a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. from the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water? Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters, yield olives, or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield fresh.

Mark 8:27-38

Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him. Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

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Addi May and Ella Jayn, you have been joined to Christ today in a way that we have been celebrating for generations. People of God, we have promised today to live that life of faith together in a way that we have been promising for generations. We will spend the rest of our lives together learning what Jesus means in today’s Gospel reading: how to take up our cross and follow. How to save our lives by losing them. How to trust that Jesus is in fact the anointed one of God. Not an easy task, by all accounts. Anyone who has lived will tell you that life can be a mess sometimes, with moments of high victory and moments of deep tragedy. We try awfully hard to stay in those high and happy places, far from the madding crowd, but life doesn’t let us, as much as we strive to avoid suffering. 

So Jesus is talking with his disciples about his reputation. He has healed many sick, fed lots and lots of people, walked on water, already gotten into a few confrontations with the religious authorities, and he wants to know what the people are saying about all of this. One of the prophets, maybe? The prophets were always going on about justice and care of the poor. John the Baptist, maybe? That baptizer got into a lot of trouble for his preaching. But the disciples who have been walking most closely with Jesus, who do they think he is? Well, the Messiah, the anointed one. Any day now going to take back the kingdom of Israel from those Roman oppressors.

Well, they’re only half right, then. Yes, Jesus is the Messiah, or the word we use more often is “Christ.” But, no, the baggage attached to that claim is not the work Jesus is about. Ultimate power does not lay in destroying one’s enemies, but in building reconciling community with them so we are enemies no longer. This work of Jesus will lead to his being arrested and killed by the people he loves, and he knows that. The world so full of fear does not know how to reconcile itself to being loved so deeply, and Jesus knows that those striking out in anger and violence will make him their target. Yes, Peter, Jesus is the Messiah of God, but that does not mean what you think it means. It does not mean an end to the suffering of this life.

Because Jesus doesn’t save us from the sorrow of this life. Jesus saves us in all of this life.

Some would say that Baptism has become for most people nothing more than a crude form of ‘fire insurance’, protecting folks from the fires of hell after death. As though a dip in the pond and the right magic words will protect our eternal souls from eternal separation from God and the torment of just punishments for sin. As though this means if we just believe hard enough everything will turn out alright and life will forever be good and comfortable. As though we have made a choice to devote our souls to heaven and forget about what that means for our day to day life because, well, “at least I know I’m not going to hell.”

And they’d be right, but only half right. 

Baptism is a once and done thing. Even if you switch denominations, you’re baptized in the triune name of God, not in the name of the presiding bishop of your church, so you never need be baptized again. And, yes, you are able to point to your baptism as the sign that God has saved you and you will not be spending eternity in the fires of some hell we’ve been told might await those who remain unrepentant. Luther often called on the witness of his Baptism when he felt the devil tormenting him with his unworthiness to be saved. Because it was God’s action to claim him, to claim all of us, in the first place, not Luther’s own choice to sign up. But this is not some magic we can manipulate and control. And it is not disconnected from the rest of this life here and now and in the days to come. It does not mean life will forever be grand, or that we have to pretend it is.

The beloved community of God, into which you Addi May and Ella Jayn, have been Baptized, celebrates together and suffers together. To be a Christian means that we carry each other and allow one another into our lives of ups and downs. It means we are joined together as a people across the world with lives of every stripe and sort. When we are sealed by that Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever, it is our constant reminder of the love that first carried the cross for us. That Jesus the anointed one, Jesus the Christ, loves this world with such a fierce and unending love that we didn’t know how to deal with it, so we put him to death, but he didn’t let even that stop him from loving us. This is the promise which claims us, that the love of God will never stop chasing us, never stop calling us, never stop moving us deeper into community with the world God so loves.

Baptized, we live. We will watch these two girls grow. They will help us grow. We will together burrow deeper into the love of God for the world, and that love will draw us into the world, where we will celebrate and weep and ache for one another. Grounded in the deep and abiding and suffering love of Jesus, we will never be alone in our suffering. We will be called, again and again, into the suffering of others through the compassion of Christ. Tomorrow we will open our doors again and reach out to the community of God’s beloved, especially those who happen to be addicts and the ones who love them. We will not fix them, we will not be the answer they are looking for, we will simply be with them, offering what we have and listening as they share. Because the love of Jesus carries us all together.

Jesus does not save us from this life, but in life and for life. Life together with God in the here and now, just as much as life after resurrection. It is given freely, it is not something we earn, it is for the whole world, without reservation. It is the very life of God, given that you might live.

Dogs are people, too

Isaiah 35:4-7a

Say to those who are of a fearful heart, "Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.” Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the dead unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water.

Psalm 146

Hallelujah! Praise the Lord, O my soul! I will praise the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. Put not your trust in rulers, in mortals in whom there is no help. When they breathe their last, they return to earth, and in that day their thoughts perish. Happy are they who have the God of Jacob for their help, whose hope is in the Lord their God; who made heaven and earth, the seas, and all that is in them, who keeps promises forever; who gives justice to those who are oppressed, and food to those who hunger. The Lord sets the captive free. The Lord opens the eyes of the blind; the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous. The Lord cares for the stranger; the Lord sustains the orphan and widow, but frustrates the way of the wicked. The Lord shall reign forever, your God, O Zion, throughout all generations. Hallelujah!

James 2:1-10, 14-17

My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or “sit at my feet,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you? You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, “You shall love your neighbor 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. [For the one who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery but if you murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment. What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

Mark 7:24-37

Jesus 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 bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. 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.” So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone. Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Ten Cities. They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hands on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened." And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”

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Sunday morning comics were part of my routine every week after worship. Dad would separate out the ads and sports section and leave the important stuff - front page, comics, Toledo living - so after church we could get to the good stuff. As much as I love reading the comics, I devour graphic novels, which are drawn in lots of different ways but are their own type of storytelling altogether. For example, there is a two volume set of graphic novels called "Maus" which tells the story of a man gathering Holocaust stories from his father who lived through it. I was a little slow at getting the connection when the storyteller and his family are drawn as mice, until the Germans showed up drawn as cats. Of course the Jews would be drawn as mice, because at the time popular media called them rats, so they would be easier to kill.

People are so much easier to dismiss when they’re not considered people. Kim Davis isn’t a person according to social media: she's a bigot and a hypocrite. The people she denied service to weren’t people, they were gays whose marriages were against the law of her god. Then there are the cops, and the bleeding heart liberals, the old dead white guys and the angry feminists, the sluts and the rednecks, the politicians, the tea partiers, the poor, the kids, the grieving, the thugs, the addicts, the alcoholics, the one percent, the government, the IRS, the schizophrenic… the myriad of names and labels we put on one another so we can get away from each other. I spent a summer working as chaplain in a psych ward and was there when one of our people got a diagnosis of schizophrenia - he was crushed. He said, ‘nobody’s gonna hire a crazy schizophrenic’. The occupational therapist reminded him he is a ‘person with schizophrenia,’ and one of the other patients started to list off the names of famous artists and musicians who also had schizophrenic brains. A few days later, while the television in the common room was blaring, one of the other people said we ought to write the network and complain about their Law & Order-type shows, that it was always those mental patients off their meds who were the victims or the criminals, never the heroes or ordinary folks. The labels made it easy to pigeon-hole them, to further feed into the stereotype, to expect that we knew everything about their value based on a diagnosis or cultural background.

Jesus was trying to get away from the crowds and rest awhile, but this foreign woman was desperate to save her sick daughter. Jesus dismissed her outright. He called her a dog, maybe she would go away and bark up some other tree and leave him alone. She wasn’t even one of his own people. Wasn’t a Jew. Wasn’t a man. Shouldn’t have been talking to him in the first place. “Feed the children, it’s not fair to take from them and feed dogs.” My dad used that same reasoning to explain why we would never have a dog at home when I was growing up. Too many kids were hungry to spend money feeding domesticated animals, he said. And that’s all the foreign woman was, an animal. Easy to dismiss, to throw away. Not even ruined goods because you’d have to first be valued goods to be ruined. She just didn’t count in the first place, not being Jewish. Wrong culture, wrong gender, wrong class, wrong time, just wrong. And our dear, sweet, lovely Jesus… well, can you imagine the babe born in a manger using the n-word today? Or any other ethnic slur? Because that’s what he did then. Or maybe this Labor Day weekend we can connect the idea with a factory worker coming to the boss because an 80-hour work-week wasn’t healthy for 12-year-olds who ought to be going to school, and that boss responding with a pink slip.

How have you experienced being thrown away? Being ignored, dismissed, not taken seriously? I know it’s been a rough summer for Fred while the dumpster outside his home is being filled over and over again with a lifetime of collections ruined by the elements. It’s hard to see a loved one put into a nursing home without feeling a little guilty about not being able to do what’s needed to care for them. To complain about being harassed and have no one believe you. To only get your parents’ attention when you’re in trouble and not have your struggles heard or taken seriously because you’re just a kid. To be left outside of the church because you haven’t dressed properly for the occasion, pushed out of worship with disapproving stares because a child is a bit too squirmy or talkative. Physically left out because there isn’t a lift or a ramp for your wheelchair or crutches. Denied access because you don’t speak the language and no one is trying to help you or learn from you.

I imagine this Syrophoenician woman a bit like Moses, calling God to account for God’s own promises and reputation. You say you’re compassionate and merciful? You say you’re bigger than any one country or kingdom? So why should your power to heal stop at the entry gate to the temple? Why should your forgiveness and grace only go as far as the Jews and no farther? Surely even the slightest outpouring of God’s presence on the earth can spill into neighboring territories!

The woman calls Jesus to account. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the children’s table.” She holds up his own character in sharp relief against the dismissal he’s just uttered. Everyone else already talks like that, calls her ‘dog,’ this man is supposed to be different. So be different, Jesus! Keep your promise, bring the Kingdom.

And he does. The Kingdom spills over even into Gentile territory, freeing that little girl from the power of that demon which held her. Freeing Jesus, too, it seems. In case we might forget that Jesus was also a human being who was part of a particular culture, this story shows a tired and cranky racist who learns from a cultural minority how to open his heart just a bit more.

So it makes a sort of story sense that his next immediate miracle is to open the ears and loose the tongue of a man who can neither hear nor speak well. When the man is brought to him, Jesus takes him aside, away from the crowds, probably still a bit tired himself, and I imagine him thinking of that Gentile woman when he sighs “be opened.” Maybe the kingdom of God is breaking open upon the world, bubbling up from the dreams and the demands of the oppressed and the outcast. Ears opened and tongue loosed, the man is restored to his community and can’t seem to stop talking about how it happened. Just as the prophet Isaiah foretold, the “eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the dead unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water.”

Dry ground will have to break open to the power of water, as dry and tired hearts are broken open in the welcome embrace of Baptism. The solid and too-stiff boxes we stick one another in with all of those labels and expectations, they will melt under the flowing stream, under the waters of grace and forgiveness. Those waters run over us like water over sharp rocks gradually rubs them smooth, tumbling us against each other as we are formed in community, with all of our differences and complexities. We will have some baptisms here next week, celebrating that promise of God to break open our hearts to one another, just as God’s own heart has broken open for us. Water will flow, promises will be made, the kingdom will sigh and expand and grow around us and within us. And just like Jesus, we will learn to listen, and like the man who was healed, we will not keep silent, and just as God has promised, we will be forgiven every time that we fail at this. For we are not the labels we put on each other. Not dogs, not bigots, not progressives or tea partiers or independents, not dismissed as useless or inadequate or irrelevant, but children, all - children of God who feast on the crumbs of Grace at this Table, at the Lord’s own invitation. And the lame will leap and the speechless will sing, for the kingdom of God has come near.