The Rev. Ann R. Lougee September 10, 2006 James 2:1-17; Mark 7:24-37 Saying and Doing Most of us don't know our ancient geography well enough to know that Tyre and Sidon were in pagan territory, although for some of us they have become familiar place names, tragically, in events of recent weeks, as bombs have been exchanged all these centuries later by two sides of an ancient struggle. But the earliest Christians would have known that Jesus was in enemy territory. If we focus on the exchange between Jesus and the pagan mother, it can make us feel pretty uncomfortable. Jesus' words offend our modern sensibilities. After all, how can Jesus, the loving and tender, tell a desperate mother that she and her little girl are "dogs"? The far more surprising thing about this story to first-century people would have been the healing of a pagan child, not the words of Jesus. And yet it apparently happened, because of the persistence, the tenaciousness of this mother who had been raised in neither Judaism nor Christianity. She had probably heard rumors about Jesus. Not able to bear the suffering of her child one minute more, she not only broke into Jesus' retreat, she broke a number of Jewish conventions, including the one forbidding a Jewish male to be touched by a Gentile woman. It may be that this story is a great turning point of the Gospel of Mark, and it could be that the early church which produced this narrative is itself visible in the tension it expresses and resolves. We may be reminded by this glimpse of the early church that what we do and how we go about our lives, not the words we profess, are the real and sure signs of our being followers of Jesus. It's not about our words or our doctrines or our self-image as "good Christians," if we neglect the heart of the law of compassion and love. Before it became a religion, being a follower of Jesus was simply a Way of life. It's curious, by the way, that some interpreters speak of this Syro-Phoenician woman's faith. (The later Gospel of Matthew refers to her "faith," but this gospel, Mark, the first to be written, doesn't). We might ask, how could a pagan woman have faith in an itinerant Jewish preacher? It's perhaps more accurate to speak of her passionate love for her child, a love that was not to be discouraged or deterred even by insult or rejection. We parents can imagine her thinking Who cares what he says to me if he has the power to heal my child. And think she did, so cleverly that, in that age and culture of riddles, her answer won Jesus over and changed his mind, not only about one child, her child, but about opening up his vision to a new inclusiveness of all of God's children in the gifts of grace. Perhaps the "firstness" of the Jews is expressed well in the image of bread, but the crumbs are abundantly overflowing and nourishing for all. Apparently, the heart of Jesus was touched, even moved in new directions, not by the woman's "faith" but by her love, the mother-love that is at the heart of God's own love. We can surmise that something deep inside Jesus remembered and recognized this. Jesus has just had a contentious conversation with the scribes and Pharisees at the beginning of this chapter, and Mark makes a side, explanatory comment that would have shocked the earliest Christians. "Thus he declared all foods clean," says Mark. What seems so ordinary to us was abhorrent in the religious practices of the Jews, and many early Christians were faithful Jews. But Jesus points to the heart of the matter: it's not what goes into your stomach but the evil things that thrive in your heart that defile you. Jesus then follows his words with actions. And so, just as Jesus declared all foods clean, he declared all people "clean," acceptable, fit to be included at the table. The healings and feeding that followed make his words true in actions, just as our own words and statements of faith must be followed up by action. Isn't it ironic, in a nation and world where so many of God's children don't receive even the crumbs from our table, that churches are still arguing over who's included, who's acceptable, who is inside and who is born outside the embrace of God's grace? There was a horrendous example of this on Wednesday at a public event that was supposedly to commemorate 9/11, with a couple of people purporting to speak for Christians in a way that denigrated another faith, speaking of a spiritual warfare in which either Christians or Muslims would prevail. Isn't this exactly what Jesus spoke and acted to deny? As we follow the one of whom it was said "he has done all things well," let us purpose to behave in ways of which it can be said that we also have done well. May our ears also be opened, our tongues also released, and may we, also, speak plainly when faced with injustice and discrimination. Amen.