A Widening Circle
Robert E. Dunham
September 8, 2024
James 2:1-13; Mark 7:24-30
Did you notice anything odd about the lectionary’s pairing of the two passages we just read? Stephen Fowl says that putting these two texts together betrays “a wicked sense of humor on someone’s part.” Did you feel that way as you listened? What Fowl notices is that the reading from James begins with an assertion that faith in Christ is fundamentally incompatible with partiality in human relationships and goes on to list ways in which believers typically display such discrimination. Then, in the Gospel reading, Jesus seems to engage in the very sort of partiality that James warns against, when he refuses to heal a very sick child because she and her mother are outsiders. What are we to make of this paradox? That’s our question for today…and a very important one indeed.
For our purposes here, let’s start with Mark’s story of Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman. Our modern sensibilities bristle a bit at this story, don’t they? It describes an awkward moment, made memorable by what seems to be Jesus’ rude rebuff of the woman’s request for help. Here, as one scholar famously noted, Jesus seems to get caught with his compassion down. What is worse, when this Gentile woman comes to him pleading for healing for her daughter, Jesus puts her off with a painful proverb about Jews, whom he likens to children at the table, and Gentiles, whom he dismisses as dogs. It is not right to feed the dogs with the food intended for children, he says.
But she will not relent, and says if I am a dog, then at least treat me as you would a dog by giving me the crumbs from your table. Her words are not angry, though anger would be justified; she’s heard it before, but she is as persistent as she is wise. And because of her unusual but gripping claim on Jesus’ compassion, her plea is heard, and her prayer is answered.
Many commentators have proffered theories to explain Jesus’ uncharacteristic and abrupt response to the woman. In the end, though, it’s all conjecture, and none of it very satisfying. Most scholars do agree, though, that if we focus only on Jesus’ initial response, we may miss the point of the woman’s persistence and his ultimate acquiescence. This Gentile woman chides Jesus into changing his mind, into seeing that his mission extends beyond the house of Israel. In response, Jesus begins to widen his circle of compassion and concern and hospitality, and from this point on, there is no stopping the widening mission. So, it’s important to note that this woman is not a contestant with Jesus, not his antagonist; she is in league with the very interior of his mission; she simply presses him to claim the fullness of that mission. There is much to learn from this woman whose faith is a lively, vigorous, and insisting power that doesn’t give up easily.
We sometimes equate faith, I think, with passive acceptance of a doctrine, or a quiet acquiescence or calm that consoles us in a time of sadness and loss. Less often do we think about faith as an assertive, insisting power … or as a force that has the capacity to influence the mind of God. Yet this woman’s faith was both those things. She had a deep-seated confidence that Jesus could do what she was asking, indeed that it was his nature to save and to heal, and that he had to grant her request, even if she was a Gentile and a woman and speaking out of place. This is a story about tenacity of faith.
But, wait! There is another important point to this story, for fundamentally this is a story about God’s grace and the widening circles of those who receive it. Jesus’ initial response to the woman was wrapped up in his own understanding of his mission as first and foremost to his own people, the Jews. Jesus didn’t apologize for that fact. He was a Jew, sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But in this woman’s insistent reminder of the breadth and nature of his purpose, Jesus began to see the true expanse of his mission.
Her persistence and his ultimate embrace of her request serve as a reminder to the church. One of the recurring questions the church is asked to address is the question about its mission: whom do we serve? Chris Chakoian says it all boils down largely to one starting point: we gather to take care of ourselves and to take care of our own, because we know that within the community of faith the needs we bear and the burdens that our loved ones carry are likely to be met with compassion and grace… because we believe that here we will encounter Christ in one another. We need not apologize for focusing on the needs of this congregation and of those who come to be a part of who we are. It’s a big part of why we are here. But at the same time the persistent voices of others beyond these walls compel us to embrace a mission beyond the near, the comfortable, or the obvious. It can’t be an either-or; it is always a both-and.
Jesus’ widening mission to the Gentiles did not negate his mission to His own, any more than our commitment and mission to the world negate or diminish the ministries that happen within these walls. We start here, but like the rippling circles that move outward from a stone tossed into the water, the ripples of faith and service always move us outward from the center. What we learn over time is that it is not a competition: it is not a matter of ministries to our own versus ministries to the world out there. Indeed, our ministries here are precisely to equip us to take our faith to the world… through ministries of healing and wholeness, of mercy and justice, of love and compassion and peace. The model for such movement is none other than Jesus himself, and the love at its core is none other than the love of God.
The story of the Gentile woman and her tenacious pursuit of grace is thus also a story about a God who wants to share such grace with all the children of Earth, and of a Christ who, despite his initial reluctance, opened the door for such grace to be extended to the Gentiles… which is to say, to us. It is the story of Jesus, who was convicted by the earnest petitions of a young mother in need. It is the story of a God who, despite our own unworthiness, still meets us across a Table, at which boundless grace is shared, so that we can then take it into an often-graceless world. That is our calling, our mission. It is what we are about.
It’s also what our passage from the Letter to James affirms, albeit with a more precise focus. It, too, is about a widening imperative in mission, but James is not so much concerned with expanding mission in general. He takes specific aim at how the church treats the poor. As New Testament scholar Margaret Aymer notes, James here “invites reflection on what it means for us to love our neighbors, especially those of a lower economic class from us. James’ challenge [invites] examination of how we treat all classes of persons with less social power.” He decries the church’s age-old partiality to those of means and its disregard for those who have little. It is a hard message to hear, for James calls us to check the narrowness of our graciousness in light of Christ’s ever-widening call and claim, and to think beyond our present practice to the way Christ calls us to live.
The Quaker scholar Parker Palmer calls the chasm between the world as it is and what should be “the tragic gap.” He speaks of the gap between the way we are and the way we are meant to be. There are many gaps in our day, but none more tragic than the chasm between those who have and those who have not, between those who know the privilege of the “inside,” and those who must live on the “outside.” The gap is everywhere to be seen, from the stark dichotomy of the faces we see around town to the racially-charged debate on immigration in this nation. Palmer says the church’s calling is to stand in the gap… the gap between what is and what God intends.
Presbyterian pastor Trace Haythorn told once the story of one who stood in that gap and embraced the expanding imperative of God’s claim. His name was Sandor Teszler.
Teszler left Hungary for the United States after escaping from a concentration camp with his family in the early part of World War II. Trained as a textile worker, he made his way to Spartanburg, SC… long a center of the textile industry [and later took ownership of a textile factory]. In the 1950s, after [the Supreme Court decided] Brown vs. Board of Education, Mr. Teszler became anxious as he watched the rise and the reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan and as he heard the racist rhetoric [and fear-mongering] around him begin to intensify. He recognized it from his days in Europe, and he could not simply ignore it for the sake of business. He went to his foreman and asked where the racial tensions were most hostile in [that] area. The foreman replied that he wasn’t sure… but it couldn’t get much worse than around King’s Mountain. Mr. Teszler announced that day that he would be building a new factory in King’s Mountain.
When word got out, the white mayor of King’s Mountain came to see Mr. Teszler, asking if he planned to hire white workers. Mr. Teszler told him to recruit the best workers he could find, and if they were good enough, he would hire them. Shortly thereafter, the black pastor of a large African-American church came to Mr. Teszler and expressed his hope that Mr. Teszler would be open to hiring black workers. Again, Mr. Teszler encouraged him to find the best workers he could, and if they were good enough, he would hire them.
In the end, Sandor Teszler hired 16 new employees: eight white and eight black. In the mill, there was one bathroom, one set of showers, one water fountain. After initial introductions and a tour of the plant were complete, one white worker … asked, “Is this gonna be some kind of integrated plant?” Mr. Teszler replied, “You are being paid twice as much as any other textile worker in the area. You can work with us here in the way we work, or you can go somewhere else. Any other questions?” There were none, and all 16 employees stayed.
Several months later, the plant had grown in production such that a new group of employees was hired. And after their tour, the same question was raised by a white applicant: “Is this some kind of integrated plant?” And this time, the white foreman replied, “You are being paid twice as much as any other textile worker in the area. You can work with us here in the way we work, or you can go somewhere else. Any other questions?”
Trace Haythorne says, “James tells us not to choose between rich and poor, not to choose between black and white, not to choose between young and old, [global north and global south], free and imprisoned, [gay and straight], sick and healthy, naked and clothed, hungry and fed. In the end, these are all false dichotomies, for we are all beloved children of the one God. James calls us to stand with the cross of Jesus Christ – to take up residence in the … gap between what is and what should be.” Gentile
Like Jesus, in the presence of that persistent Gentile woman, we may be uncomfortable at such a suggestion. We may hesitate at first. But if we listen, we may come to see that standing with Jesus means discovering what that woman helped him discover – that our calling – our mission – is so much wider than we had figured and, if we embrace it, is capable of building a bridge across every kind of gap.