Proper30 B - Bartimaeus

SERMON for 25 October 2009

By Sharyn Hall

Mark 10: 46-52

On Thanksgiving Monday, my husband and I decided to go to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto to see the Dead Sea Scrolls. We were fortunate that the traffic was light and the crowds were small, even though there was a special limited exhibit of the scroll of the Ten Commandments. The exhibits are very well presented with extensive displays about the region around the Dead Sea where the scrolls were discovered, and the political and cultural context of the time period.

I suppose someone could look at these brown fragments of ancient parchment with black writing and wonder, why all the fuss? Why such anxiety about preserving these bits of parchment? Why all the excitement about their discovery? Why the political disputes over ownership and control? Someone else could look at these fragments of ancient parchment and see the struggle of humanity to understand our relationship with God.

These fragments tell us that people in an age thousands of years ago turned to the same body of scriptures for inspiration that we read today, and yet these bits of parchment say different things to different people. I am amazed at their antiquity. To me, they represent the eternal wonder and search for God, which transcends nations, cultures and civilizations. Unfortunately, I cannot read Hebrew, but someone who has that ability would be able to compare the words and phrases in the scrolls to their own Hebrew Bibles and experience the link of faith over centuries. Someone of the Jewish race and faith would feel the link with their Jewish ancestors, who cherished these scrolls.

When people gaze at the scrolls, what do they see? Do they see only the past, or do they see something ancient, which speaks to us today? We see not only with our eyes, but also with our minds, our imaginations and with our spiritual awareness. In the ancient world, prophets were often called seers, not only because they might see into the future, but also because they could see the divine presence in the ordinary world. They could see significance and meaning beyond the visible reality.

We often use the verbs to see and to understand as synonymous. We might say to someone, ‘Do you see?’, when we really are asking, ‘Do you understand?’. And conversely, we might say, ‘Are you blind?’, when we really mean, ‘Don’t you understand?’. The link between blindness and lack of understanding was an ancient concept, which we find often in the Bible. A person who was blind was mistakenly believed to be incapable of understanding the world around him because he could not see that world. A blind man was regarded as useless because he could not do meaningful work, so he became a beggar. However, sometimes a blind man developed perception and insight, almost as if these gifts were compensation for the lack of physical sight.

We see an example of this in our gospel story. Bartimeus is a blind beggar. His blindness has relegated him to the dust of the road. He is dismissed as ignorant as well as helpless, and an outcast from the social order. To many, he is a nuisance and they try to stifle his cry for help. The people around Jesus can see Jesus, the preacher from Nazareth, but do they understand who Jesus is? Bartimeus cannot see Jesus, but he knows who Jesus is. He calls out, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me’. To call Jesus, Son of David, was to name Jesus the Messiah. The title, Son of David, was both political and divine. It signified the anointed one of God, who also was the rightful king of the Jews. Blind Bartimeus knew that the Jesus he could not see was the long-awaited Messiah. He had the gift of insight into the true identity of Jesus.

That word, ‘insight’, is so very appropriate to this story. Bartimeus did not have the ability to see out into the world, but he did have the ability to see into the presence of God in Jesus. Bartimeus had faith in God’s mercy and he knew in his heart that Jesus had the power to heal in God’s name. In both the Hebrew and New Testament scriptures, there are numerous examples of mercy for the blind, because it was considered one of the most common and debilitating afflictions. Blindness also was understood as a metaphor for the inability to recognize the presence of God. People lived by a detailed list of religious laws, but they were blind to the presence of God in acts of mercy, justice and love. People criticized Jesus for breaking the rules, but they could not see that Jesus fulfilled God’s covenant to love God’s people.

Being physically blind is a frightening hardship. To live in a world of darkness seems like a cruel fate, but to live without hope or faith in the merciful presence of God is a deeper darkness. Sometimes the pain, sorrow and afflictions of people seem beyond what a human soul can bear, but the worst affliction is hopelessness. Bartimeus had faith and hope in Jesus. He was healed, but not by Jesus. Jesus declares that Bartimeus was healed by his own faith, by his gift of insight, by his conviction that Jesus was sent by God to bring hope and healing to our world.

Some of you have already travelled to Toronto to see the Dead Sea Scrolls. A parish excursion is planned for later in November. It is an opportunity to see these ancient scriptures, which rarely are allowed to travel out of the Middle East. We can marvel at these ancient Hebrew scriptures, but what insight do we gain? How can seeing the Dead Sea Scrolls strengthen our faith in an unseen God? The answers to those questions will depend on how each one of us searches for God in our lives. We should be encouraged by the message given to us many times in those scriptures, the message that God always is reaching out to welcome us into a relationship filled with hope, mercy and love. Thanks be to God.

Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving Day

Matthew 6: 24-34 -

Sunday, 11 October 2009

St. Luke’s, Burlington

By Stuart Pike

Worry seems to be a permanent state of being for most people. We’re indoctrinated to it. It begins in grade school, when we’re taught to compete with one another. Later we are socialized to worry about social expectations. We have to measure up. No matter how we feel, we need to look the part.

Some of us can relate to the Charlie Brown cartoon that shows Linus dragging his blanket as he observes, "You look kinda depressed,." "I worry about school a lot," Charlie Brown replies. Then he adds, "I worry about my worrying so much about school." As Charlie and Linus sit on a log together, Charlie makes his final observation "My anxieties have anxieties!"

Early on I seem to have been a quick study in regards to worry. Worry became a natural part of my life. It was sort of like an old friend. Worry always provided me with a certain amount of energy – adrenalin, I suppose. And, strangely enough there is a certain kind of comfort in that. It was like always carrying a spare battery pack around with me.

When I was a kid and into my teenage years I used to seriously bite my nails, much to the dismay of my parents. It all had to do with worry and anxiety. Fortunately, I seem to have grown out of that stage, and, with maturity and experience my confidence has developed and it appears that I am beyond nervous behaviour and mannerisms. (Knuckles)

Today is Thanksgiving day. It has been the tradition for thousands of years to give thanks around the time of the harvest. The religious rites were developed around a great feast.

In the middle ages in every village in Christian Europe, the first fruits of the harvest were brought to the holy altar and blessed. And people would gather in thanksgiving for all that God had provided for them. For the people of the village this harvest was essential to them. It could mean the difference between life and death. In the early Church, the Priest of the village would bless the gifts of the harvest, and would bless the people and then the feast would begin.

I can imagine how meticulously the ceremony would have been planned. Everyone in the village would cooperate, and would be there, to make sure that every protocol was carried out. And there would be one good woman of the village who would have slaved for days preparing a feast to close the celebration: she would have organized everyone, made sure the children were in line and knew their responsibilities. She would be quintessentially gracious on the outside and her heart would be madly ticking on the inside.

In the religious ritual before the feast began, she would have heard, along with the others the words from the Prophet, Joel: “Fear not, O soil; be glad and rejoice, for the creator has done great things … God has poured down for you abundant rain … the threshing-floors shall be full of grain, the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.”

And then she would have heard the words of their saviour, Jesus, as he said to her: “Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear.” And she might have thought, “But what about my battery pack?” (Knuckles)

And the feast would be celebrated, and from the next day, the rest of the harvest would be gathered in. And some of the seeds gathered from the harvest would be set aside for the next years planting and they would represent the great hope and promise of a God who provides for us. And despite Jesus’ words, many would worry.

Anxiety as a way of life would not normally be the intuitive choice of most people that I know. And yet, it seems that more and more people seem to suffer from it. Anxiety and worry are the order of the day. People today are more worried than ever. And we worry about everything. When we look at what the root cause of our worry is, it seems that it’s mostly about material stuff. But that’s not the whole story.

The essential element of our worry is our fear of scarcity. We are afraid of not having enough, of being without. Worry about material goods is the root cause of much evil in the world - it is the cause of greed and selfishness, which in turn are the cause of most wars and conflicts in the world. But the material goods are only symbols of a deeper worry which we have.

Far more serious, (and more integral) than the worry that we won’t have enough, is our deeper, usually unconscious fear that we won’t be enough. (Knuckles) Our wants for the material stuff in our life spring out of the fear we have about our being. Sometimes we try to fix our sense of worry by trying to acquire more material things, and yet, intuitively we know that this is not the deepest problem.

We’re afraid that we somehow won’t measure up. We won’t be good enough, we won’t perform to standard. We’ll never make a good enough spouse, or worker or parent. Perhaps, we feel, that we will not be able to produce – that we will not be productive. Will we not be just a barren desert?

Jesus says not to worry about material things. That God will provide for all our needs. It is an amazing thing to truly be freed from the need to ensure our material future. And freedom is exactly what it is. Barbara Brown Taylor writes "The opposite of rich is not poor, but free."

“Richness” here is about material things, but “freedom” here is about being.

How many people spend their lives worrying about their material possessions? The more we own, the more we have to upkeep and protect. And then we have to insure it all in case something were to happen to it. At some point we might realize that our possessions really possess us and not the other way round.

I have heard several aged people say to me that they spent the first part of their lives wanting more things, the middle part of their lives acquiring all the things they wanted and the last few years of their lives wanting to give it all away: trying to find relatives and friends who could receive and cherish the meaning of the thing, and not just take the thing itself.

Some people have found that it is in the very last part of their lives, when they have given most of it away, that they find a freedom of spirit which they had always hoped for, but could never experience because they were too encumbered with material things.

You've heard how the difference between an optimist and a pessimist is that one sees the glass as half full, and the other as half empty. But it seems that most people want the glass to be all the way full. The only problem is that it is very hard to walk or to move with a glass which is completely full. Having too much keeps us from moving, from being and from living.

Some people have learned that secret earlier on in their lives and have had such fruitful lives giving their energy and life for causes which they believe in, rather than just on stuff. This is the secret which Jesus wants to share with us in today's Gospel.

Don't worry about things: what you will eat, or what you will wear. God clothes the grass of the field with beauty and provides for the wild birds of the air out of his abundance.

The best things in life aren't things: they're relationships. The best that we can do with our lives is to spend them freely building up strong relationships as we search, not for more things, but striving instead for God's kingdom: and working to build that peaceable kingdom here on earth.

The best way to do that is to help ourselves and others to find in ourselves our centre – our own true selves - and in the beautiful, silent, material poverty of our being we reach our thin place, and can touch the infinite reality of the Divine.

We might worry about our being, about being productive, but when we come to ourselves we will know that God has planted the seed in us, and that seed is blessed for the harvest and God will make us fruitful.

“Do not fear, O soil; be glad and rejoice, for the creator has done great things.” And, “all these things will be given to you as well.” Amen.

Huron Clergy Conference

Huron Clergy Conference

7 October 2009

Mount Carmel Spiritual Centre

by Stuart Pike

Micah 6:1-8

Psalm 86

Gospel reading Luke 10:1-12

We said our goodbyes at the airport. We left our families and friends and homes – all the things that were familiar – all our stuff, except for the clothes and the few books that we fit into our suitcases. It was a grand adventure and we were filled with that wonderful mixture of hope and fear all at the same time.

We left a warm mid-August day and twenty hours of travel later we arrived to a Uruguayan winter. We were spirited away from the airport to the home of the newly-elected Bishop of Uruguay. After dinner, Bill and Susan and I walked out into a cold, clear night and the disorienting realization finally hit home when I looked up into the glittering night sky and saw that all the stars had changed! The north star was gone and the earth seemed to shift under my feet. My God, we really were at the other end of the world. Bill pointed out to me the southern cross.

It was a four-month field placement for us three third-year Seminarians from Huron College. Bill and Susan were placed with the Anglican Cathedral in Montevideo. I was placed in a Roman Catholic parish in the Pueblo of Peñarol at the northern edge of the city. Everyone spoke another language ! It’s a funny thing about the Spanish – they’ve got a different word for everything!

Along with all the stuff which we left behind, I also left my language, living in my newly-learned Spanish except for once a week when I would return to the city centre to work with Bill and Susan. What had I gotten myself into?

It was an amazing, intensely formative time. We were in our last year of seminary after all, and thus were well prepared to change the world!

They were heady days. The military dictatorship had only fallen a couple of years before and the people were in the transitional time – exhilarated with a new sense of freedom, and still afraid that a military coup could return at any moment. It was a time when the tortured might look across the street and recognize their torturer. It was a time when we felt we were engaged in doing justice.

We listened to the protest music of Mercedes Sosa and marched in the streets with the poor who were demanding dignity for the homeless - “los sin techo.” Thank goodness we three had each other for support in this adventure, especially when the excitement gave way to feelings of great loneliness.

I think Jesus sent the seventy out in pairs because he knew how lonely their ministry could be. Sometimes it can feel like being sheep in the midst of wolves. Beginning a new ministry, whether right out of seminary, or moving into a new parish can be exciting and heady. At first, I didn’t understand my new bishop when I moved into the diocese of Niagara, when he said at my first clergy conference that he understood that being a parish priest can be so incredibly lonely. But later I came to know what he meant.

Sometimes we are blessed to work in a team situation, with other ordained colleagues within the parish to share the load. Sometimes those colleagues aren’t the people with whom we would most naturally be inclined to share our burdens. Sometimes we work alone, or at least seemingly so. Sometimes we might convince ourselves that we like it this way.

Last week I was “gifted” with one of those ubiquitous emails which arrive from friends who are far away and seem to be in boring jobs and who insist on passing on the gems which are making the circuit through the e-ether. Perhaps in my desire for some boredom in an extremely busy week, I actually read the note instead of hitting “delete.”

The note was entitled “Zen advice” and the first item was as follows:

“Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of

me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me for the path is narrow. In fact, just piss off and leave me alone!”

I must admit, I laughed. There are days, and sometimes weeks when, despite my extroversion, I feel like I just want to say, “Just piss off and leave me alone.”

Jesus knew that we can’t effectively continue in such a way. We need to travel into the newness in twos or threes. We need companionship, which literally means, we need someone with whom to share our bread. And along with our bread, we need to share our hopes and dreams, our fears and our sorrows.

In the loneliness of a Parish, it can be hard to find such a one. It could be that you are blessed to have someone who is a soul friend – an “anam cara” with whom you can meet regularly. It could be within such a relationship that you can share, like the disciples did as they went, two-by-two into their ministry. Or it might need to be in a more formal relationship of spiritual direction, or spiritual guidance. Call it what you will, after twenty-one years of ordained ministry, I am convinced that we need to make sure we have the spiritual guidance of another. Meet with your director or guide every month or at least nine times per year, if possible. It is the model which Jesus gives us.

When I think of those seventy disciples heading off in pairs, I am reminded so easily of my favourite Gospel story. It is Easter day and the two disciples are walking down the road to Emmaus, sharing their sadness, their confusion and their dashed hopes. It wasn’t what they thought would happen. Yet, in their disappointment and confusion, they have each other. Of course, the third, a stranger, joins them, and they continue to share their journey and their story with him. In their sharing of bread – their companionship - they recognize that it was Jesus, who was the stranger among them all along. What a truly blessed story this is.

By the time I was in my third month in Uruguay, the humility and kindness of my Uruguayan hosts had brought me to a place of transformation. I was walking through the garbage of the shanty town, ready to start my weekly task of helping to construct a community hall in the middle of this disaster. As usual there were plumes of smoke rising from several mountains of burning garbage scattered throughout the barrios. Picking his way through the garbage and over a stream of filthy water which ran down the street was a young boy who was carrying his younger sister who had no shoes and whose feet were cut and festering. In this instant, I recognized Jesus as an eight year old boy carrying his burden, and also as the five year old girl being carried.

Sometimes you will recognize Christ in the relationship you have with your soul friend. But I think more often, you will recognize Christ more unexpectedly among the people you serve and who serve you. It will surely happen during the times when you have a spiritual guide who is sharing the road with you.

The other thing I notice about Jesus sending out the seventy, is that, if he sent them out in pairs, then we can assume that they went to thirty-five different places. There was a variety of newness to which they went. Not everyone had the same situation. Presumably some met more amicable towns. Customs and attitudes would have been a little bit different. The experience of the disciples would have been extremely different. But, in the 17^th verse, which we didn’t read in today’s Gospel, it says, “The seventy returned with joy…”

The joy is a result of being in the midst of ministry, and then returning. Both the engagement in ministry, and the returning are important. You give yourself in ministry, and then you return together, such as at this conference. The going and returning, the gathering of experience, and the sharing of your stories are important to your joy. It is the model which Jesus gives us.

The last thing which I notice about my story and today’s Gospel story is that, after twenty-one years of ordained ministry, the story is starting to happen all over again. Comfortable things have shifted and sometimes, it feels like we’re in a new place once again. The world has changed around us and there’s a newness to the cultural landscape. I never expected, after two decades, that I would feel something of what I felt in Uruguay.

Sometimes, I look up from my work in parish ministry today and I see that all the stars have changed! It feels like we are on the cusp of something new. It feels like everyone is speaking another language. Sometimes I understand that we are being called to leave all our stuff behind and to step out into the new territory which is our actual ministry. We think we are familiar with the places in which we have always been. Perhaps we have become blinded by our supposèd familiarity.

A few days ago Mercedes Sosa left this life, and so I have been listening to her music again – this time on my ipod. Her songs of challenge and liberation and protest have resurrected in me something of the exhilarating mixture of hope and fear and the promise of joy which I felt so long ago.

What is my way forward? Well, it won’t be done alone. It will be done with another, or others who share this journey with me. It will be done in conversation and companionship. It will take the courage which I somehow mustered up two decades ago in order to risk a new journey.

Ultimately, the journey will be, I trust, my response to what my Lord requires of me: “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with my God.” In this way, I trust I will see, and you will see that our essential companion on our way is really our Lord Jesus. Amen.

Proper 26 B - Stumbling into God's Kingdom

Mark 9: 38-50

St. Luke's, Burlington

27 September 2009

By Stuart Pike

Today’s readings, especially the Gospel, present a difficult text for the preacher. It is full of dramatic images. Jesus speaks about mill stones being hung around necks and people being thrown into the sea. He speaks about cutting off body parts or plucking out eyes. Jesus often used hyperbole to get people’s attention.

This is one of the Gospel stories which is happening while Jesus and his disciples are “on the way” which is a code meaning that Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem and the cross. John complains to Jesus that they have found someone who has been healing (or casting out demons) in Jesus’ name, but yet he wasn’t one of the twelve. So they tried to stop this unknown healer.

Perhaps we can imagine what may have caused John and the other disciples to try to stop the man. The twelve disciples have been with Jesus since the beginning of his public ministry. They have been through thick and thin with him. Though up until this time it has mostly been thick: they have been successful and the crowds are following them. The thin stuff will happen later in Jerusalem.

Jesus disciples are already feeling a bit defeated. Earlier in this chapter, a man comes to Jesus asking him to cast out a spirit of dumbness in his son saying, “I asked your disciples to cast it out, but they could not do so.”[Mk. 9:16-18]

A few verses later, they ask Jesus why they failed. When he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, "Why could we not cast it out?" He said to them, "This kind can come out only through prayer." [Mk. 9:28-29]

And our Gospel lesson is a few verses further on. They know they have failed and yet, here is this interloper who isn’t part of the “in” group. And he is casting out demons! He doesn’t have the authority, he doesn’t have the history that they have. Just who does he think he is anyway?

I can only imagine Jesus facial expression at the time. Perhaps he crossed his eyes! In an often hostile environment, here is a man who is healing in Jesus’ name, and his own disciples are trying to stop him!

I imagine that Jesus today would use words like, “Oi vey! Come on guys, get with the program!!! This guy is helping out here!”

Jesus says, “Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us.”

In other words, Jesus is saying that even though this person is not part of their group, if he is still doing the good work of Christ, and in Christ’s name, then he belongs.

The disciples were trying to draw a circle to include themselves, and to exclude all the rest. “Only we belong.” Jesus redraws the circle wider to include all who are doing God’s will. “All are welcome.”

This is indeed Good News for us and for all people. This unknown man was not a member of the 12 disciples. It appears that he was not even a member of the 70 who Jesus had sent out to heal and teach. We don’t know his connection with Jesus. But we do know that he did what he did in Jesus’ name. We don’t know him, but he knew Jesus.

We know that this stranger was using his time and abilities to be a conduit of God’s grace. He was being salt, as Jesus tells his disciples to be. Salt makes a difference. It changes things. Being salt, means doing your part in a world which doesn’t necessarily follow Jesus’ way. It means being a healing presence in what might be a sea of sickness all around us. Being salt might mean going against the flow, especially in a society which views religions with suspicion. Sometimes being salt might even mean being a leader within your own religion which leads us to a new place. Being salt means being an agent of change.

The very basis of our call to be salt is in our baptism. We as baptised people are called to be builders of God’s kingdom in the here and now – our baptism is supposed to make a difference to us, and we are supposed to make a difference in our world. That is why, right in our baptismal covenant which we renew at every baptism we attend, we promise: 1) to proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ; 2) to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbour as ourselves; and 3) to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.

The best way that we can do this is working together with other followers of Christ wherever they are, even if they don’t belong to our Church or our group.

If we think that we could never be so shallow as John was when he wanted to exclude the unknown healer, then we need to think again. The fact that we can be so shallow shows itself again and again throughout the Church’s history. Perhaps one of the biggest examples of this is denominationalism. It seems that most Christians, even those who get along with other denominations, feel that somehow, their denomination is just a little bit better. It is easy to be welcoming and friendly, yet it feels good to think that we are just a little bit more in sync.

When I was fifteen we moved from England to Quebec City for one year. We were told by an acquaintance than we must go to St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church to hear Dr, Bragg preach. And so, soon after we moved, we drove to this historic church in the Old City and found a small congregation with a very welcoming manner. Everyone was friendly and we just kept on going back, even though we were Anglicans. My family became five ninths of the tiny choir.

I remember Dr. Bragg describing the difference between Anglicans and Presbyterians. Their words to the Lord’s prayer are slightly different: they say “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” Dr. Bragg says that when Anglicans visit the Presbyterian Church, the Anglicans are considered in their debt: they must return the welcome. But when Presbyterians visit the Anglicans, they are considered trespassers!

I have found Christians of other denominations to be different but faithful. They might stress different things than we stress, but they are trying to follow Jesus’ way, just as we try to do. I might prefer our worship, but theirs is just as rich in other ways. Although we define ourselves into groups and seem to know who’s in and who’s out, Jesus doesn’t seem to. In today’s Gospel story Jesus teaches his disciples to look outside of their group to see God working.

This story means that we too can do Christ’s work in the world. We don’t have to be part of the “in” group. We don’t have to be just a certain denomination. We don’t have to be ordained. We simply need to do God’s will in the name of Jesus. And in doing it, we will draw ever more closely to him.

Jesus warns against putting a stumbling block in the way of those whose faith is young. And here, despite the efforts of the disciples, this man comes stumbling into Jesus’ circle.

The disciples want to limit God’s grace. Sometimes we can try to do the same. But our God is a God who is free, and who will not be contained in the concepts which we create.

Sometimes I remember that God’s grace is surprising and fresh and new and can be found in the unexpected. And I realize that God works not only in ways which are comfortable to me and through people who are known to me, but God works out there too. And, incredibly enough, God can even work through me! And just in the same way, God works through you. Amen.

Proper 23 B - Communication and Compassion

Sermon for 6 September 2009

Mark 7:24-37

By Sharyn Hall

This past weekend I was visiting our son and daughter-in-law and baby granddaughter in New York City. Our granddaughter, Stella, is fourteen months old. She chatters a great deal but rarely forms words. Her parents are teaching her sign language, not because she has a hearing problem, but to help her communicate. This has become popular among parents in recent years. I am amazed at how well Stella is able to communicate using a few signs, and she is adding signs to her vocabulary everyday. She is able to ask for more food, to ask for a book or her ball, to identify a dog, a monkey, a hat and many more things using only signs with her hands. It is remarkable how much she can convey without saying the words.

The sign language she is learning was developed originally for people who are deaf or hearing impaired. Being unable to hear can shut off communication with others and with the world in general. If a child is born deaf, a child can have difficulty forming words in speech because the child cannot hear the sounds. Stella is able to hear, so when we make the signs with Stella, we always say the word so that she can hear the word as well. Medical science has developed many ways to help people with hearing difficulties, and sign language continues to be an important means of communication for them.

In our gospel story today, we see a man who had none of those advantages, and his deafness prevented him from learning to speak. He is trapped in a world of silence, but he has good friends who take him to Jesus with hope that Jesus can heal him. In that society, a person with physical difficulties could be shunned and become a beggar in the street. A deaf and mute man could be vulnerable to ridicule and abuse and have little hope for the future. It is significant that the man in our story had friends who brought him to Jesus and begged Jesus to heal him. It was the kindness of his friends that opened a way to his healing. Jesus who always had compassion for the blind, the deaf, the leper and those whom society rejected, healed the man’s physical disabilities and gave him hope for a future life within a community of family and friends.

Jesus made compassion a cornerstone of his mission from God. He demonstrated that all people, regardless of their place in society, are worthy of God’s love and mercy. He emphasized the Hebrew commandment to love your neighbour as second only to love for God. Thus it is surprising to read of an incident in today’s gospel when Jesus harshly rejects someone who comes to him for help. The story of the Syrophoenician woman has been a subject of various interpretations by many Biblical scholars. Why was Jesus so rude to her? He compared her to the dogs who eat scraps from the table, which was an insult in that culture.

Some scholars have noted that Jesus was seeking peace and rest, so when the woman interrupted him, he reacted with irritation. Other scholars have suggested that Jesus was trying to focus his mission on the Hebrew people to renew their covenant with God. This woman before him was a Gentile who did not believe in God, so why should he pay attention to her pleas for healing for her daughter? Was Jesus being prejudiced? Did he reject the woman because she was not of his faith? These would be disturbing interpretations of his behaviour, but the lesson in the story may be more positive. Whatever the reason for his initial reaction, Jesus changed his mind because of the response of the woman. The woman did not react angrily to his reference to dogs, but with humility responded that even the dogs are given the crumbs. Jesus was impressed by her humility, and by her faith in his power to heal her daughter.

In this incident, we see the human Jesus tired, perhaps irritable, and perhaps capable of making a mistake. Some people would never accept that Jesus was capable of making a mistake in dealing with people, or that he would be persuaded by someone to change his mind, but in this encounter between Jesus and this Gentile woman, we see the power of the spoken word to be hurtful or healing. Words and gestures can be wounding, and the possibility for misunderstanding can be great. On the other hand, words and gestures can bring healing and reconciliation between people.

At first it may seem strange that the story of Jesus and the Gentile woman should be paired with the story of Jesus healing the deaf and mute man, but there is a connection if we consider how we hear one another and how we speak to one another. Many of the problems in families are rooted in miscommunication, misunderstanding, not enough listening and too many words spoken in judgment.

Many of the problems in our world stem from words of prejudice, hatred or ignorance and far too few times of listening for opportunities of reconciliation. If Jesus could be persuaded to change his mind by the sincere words of a woman of different race and religion, why cannot Christians be persuaded to set aside barriers of race, religion and social status?

Jesus as a human being encountered humanity. He was divine and he showed us how we should strive to follow God’s will, but he also taught us how to be human, how to be God’s children despite our human frailties. Many people have called Jesus the Word of God incarnate. He embodied God’s message to the world. Jesus brought words of mercy, compassion and love to all people. As Christians we are called to echo those words of Jesus in this time and in this place and in a world, which often does not want to listen. May God give us the courage to speak with love. Amen.