Sunday, August 14, 2011

If Jesus Can Learn...so can we

Tough texts, hard times, let those who would hear listen...

August 14, 2011 First Presbyterian Church of Newtown, Queens NY
Matthew 15:10-28

“If Jesus Can Learn…(then so can we)”

“ “Peace, be still”, we use your words that calmed the sea. May our
hearts hear these words and be willing and ready to learn from
your word. And trusting in your grace to guide us, we ask one more
thing: may the words of my mouth and the meditation of all of
our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord our strength and
our Redeemer. Amen.”

Growing up, I was a picky, picky eater. As I get older I find that I am more adventurous with the foods that I eat. I must say, I am glad that I can at least taste everything on my plate for sometimes I am extremely surprised and delighted by the delicacies placed before me. So to the young people I say, there are foods you many insist that you will never eat just stay open to the idea that one day you may actually like brussel sprouts. I am that way with oysters. If you would have told me when I was younger that I would love oysters, I would have thought you were crazy. And now I find that within the past week, I have had oysters twice!

But there are a few things that I have tried that I just can’t bring myself to eat. My mother says, “Good. If you don’t eat it there’s more for me!” The two things that stand out the most that I can honestly say I don’t eat are chitlins and pigs feet. The key to cooking a good pot of chitlins is to clean them really, really well. Today you can buy them in a bucket already cleaned but you should still clean them again anyway. Chitlins, spelled c-h-i-t-t-e-r-l-i-n-g-s but pronounced “chitt-lins” are pig intestines. I usually leave the house when these are being prepared, I just can’t take the smell.
May I can’t eat them because I have distinct memories of chitlins mishaps. Actually the same mishap happened twice, once with my mother and once with my father. They both prefer to cook their chitlins in a pressure cooker. They would clean the chitlins and season them and lock the top of the cooker by twisting it until the handles on the lid and the pot lined up and clicked. That click ensured that the rubber seal was in place so that the pressure would mount up. As soon as the steam start to come out of the little nozzle on top of the lid they would place a little top on it that would start to shake and rattle as the pressure mounted. But do you know what happens when you don’t check the rubber seal before you start cooking? I do. The pot explodes open sounding like a explosion from a small piece of dynamite. Well can you imagine what happens when the pot explodes that is full of chitlins? Both times we ran into the kitchen to see what happened only to find splattered intestines all over the ceiling, hanging there like stalactites in an underground cave. If I didn’t like chitlins before, I just can’t bring myself to even think having them with that image in my head.

And pigs’ feet…I’ve seen stewed pigs’ feet, pickled pigs feet, grilled pigs’ feet and even barbecued pigs feet. I’ve dutifully tasted them when they were on my plate. For one thing, it’s just too much work for too little food for me. But I must be honest, I have an image in my head of the pig wallowing around in the mud and whatever else. And although I have seen pigs feet before they are cooked clean as can be, I still have a prejudice against them. I stereotype pigs’ feet as food we had to eat because we were so poor. I was ashamed of being poor when I was growing up. And maybe part of me was just being a little rebellious in not wanting to eat what seemed like the leftover part of the pig; intestines and feet.

What is interesting about that is that it feeds into a self-hatred and self-shame about who I am and what I had to go through to become who I am. I bought into the prejudices people have about the poor. And so every time I saw pigs’ feet and chitlins, I felt poor. But that is not uncommon. It is not uncommon to judge people and their level of sophistication by the food they eat. As a matter of fact it is a common misperception many of us have about people but it is an accepted prejudice that is rarely questioned. One thing I have noticed as I have gotten older and more experienced in the culinary arts, is that one poor man’s food is another’s delicacy. Imagine my surprise when I walked into a restaurant and saw on the menu “Braised Pork Belly and Pig Intestines”. It was then I realized that I had been harboring this self-hatred and shame of my poverty so deep in my heart. Strangely enough, it was freeing to remove that from my heart and helped me to live more in accordance with Jesus command, “Love God, love your neighbor as yourself.” I had learned to love myself and now was free to love my neighbor allowing me to love God more and more.

Strangely enough, I have not really strayed all that far from the Gospel lesson from today. It is all about eating, things unclean, stereotypes, prejudice and overcoming prejudices. But you know what I can’t get over about lectionary readings in the Gospel of Matthew for the past few weeks? I can’t stop thinking about the human side of Jesus. After all, he came to earth in human form and died for us so that we might live in grace, have it more abundantly.

For the past three weeks, our gospel lesson included in it somewhere or another that Jesus is trying to find a moment to be alone. In the linear time of our scripture, Jesus has only recently heard that his cousin John has been killed, beheaded. Not only is he grieving for his cousin, but he is now on his own with no “voice crying in the wilderness” to announce his arrival. It must have been a lonely time for Jesus. It must have been a hard time. First he tries to get away on boat and grieve as humans do, to be alone with their thoughts and memories. But the crowds follow him and he has compassion and begins to heal ending with the feeding of more than 5000 people. Then he sends the disciples to cross the waters on a boat so that he could spend some time alone in the mountains praying. But the stormy seas rise and batters the boat in which the disciples travel and Jesus comes to them walking on water. And then he heals again, and again, and again. And today, we find Jesus the man attacked by the Pharisees having to answer their attacks and explaining to them about the things that truly defile. And in the middle of our text he goes where he shouldn’t be bothered. He goes into Tyre and Sidon where he should be able to rest, pray and grieve and is immediately summoned by the Canaanite woman. For the savior this series of events is nothing more that what must be done to bring the realm of God to the people. But can you imagine how tired, sad and maybe aggravated you might be. And I urge you all to go home and read the rest of Matthew 15. For you will see the pattern is repeated. Jesus goes to the mountain and the crowds come to him for healing once again, and once again he feeds a multitude of over 4000 people.

As we journey through Matthew, I just wanted us to remember the series of events that lead us up to our text today. If we keep in mind the humanity and the godliness of Jesus existing simultaneously then our Gospel text today can be read from two perspectives. In the first pericope of our text, Jesus gives an explanation of the things that defile. It is in direct response to the criticism of the Pharisees who have asked him, “Why do you and your disciples eat without washing your hands?” It is not a law, but a tradition of the elders. Churches can certainly understand this issue. Often when we asked to do something new or engage in a new ministry the response is, “But we have always done it this way…” But we must challenge ourselves as Jesus challenged the Pharisees. He points out that the tradition of the elders seems to have more importance than the laws of God. He says, “So, for the sake of tradition you make void the word of God.” We must always be diligent in our churches that we do not make void the word of God for the sake of tradition.

Jesus goes on to make it plain for the people. “It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” And good old Peter ever worried about appearances pulls Jesus aside and says, ‘Don’t you know you offended the Pharisees?’ after all Jesus did call them hypocrites as well. The very human Jesus brushes Peter off, “Let the blind lead the blind, they will both fall in the pit.” As we know from a close reading of just chapters 14 and 15 of Matthew, there’s too much of God’s work to do to worry about what people think. Peter, still not understanding asks Jesus to explain. The human Jesus snaps, “Are you also still without understanding?” But even through his shortness with Peter, he answers with divine understanding. ‘Whatever we put in our mouths passes through our system and cannot defile.’ Jesus wants the people and us to be more concerned with getting our hearts right than worrying about what’s clean to eat. For it is what comes out of the mouth is generated from the heart, the very core of our being. And it is these things with defile not only our bodies but our very souls. You see it wasn’t the pigs’ feet and chitlins that I had to worry about but the self-hatred and self-shame of my own poverty that kept me from loving who God made me to be. I had to worry about the judgments I made about why people eat certain foods and any meaning I associate with their lifestyle. I had to worry about the things that came from my heart and out of my lips that put me further and further away from God.

Jesus lists those things in this scripture as evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are things that are done on purpose or unconsciously. We must be in constant prayer asking God to reveal our hearts to us, whether it be in our prayer closet or on a therapists couch. We may not want to admit the times when we have evil intentions but we can pray for them to go away. We may not kill someone but we shut them out of our hearts essentially murdering so that we don’t have to forgive. We may not be physical adulterers or fornicators but what are those things that distract us from those we love? Who or what do we put before God or family? And you don’t have to break into my house to steal from me. For you can diminish my humanity with one act of unkindness. And false witness and slander, there is not much more to say about that…lying is lying. Yes, the divine Jesus reads our souls today as he did in our text. He reads it like a magazine on the rack at the register at the supermarket. He reads it, takes it in and puts it back on the rack. But because of grace, when we live with God’s amazing grace he can read that magazine, take it in and purchases it with his own blood knowing that the headlines don’t tell the whole story.

And I’ve saved the hardest part of the text for last. The lectionary gives us an option to only read this portion of the text today. But I believe that this encounter with the Canaanite woman is a living example of what Jesus speaks about in verses 10-20. Why is this part of the text the hardest? I believe it is the hardest because it is the most bitter pill we have to swallow in understanding Jesus humanity. No matter how you look at it, Jesus insults this woman asking for mercy. We have to face the fact that he strongly insinuates that she and people are dogs. Wow…Jesus, tired, frustrated, grieving acts the way we act and that is just not comfortable to see. But before we jump to conclusions let’s just examine the situation for just a moment.
Earlier we said that Jesus went into Tyre and Sidon where he should be able to rest and pray. We also know this port city as home to the Syro-Phonecians. It is the land of the Canaanites, the longstanding enemies of Israel. And this is why in verse 24 Jesus says, again to his disciples “I was sent only for the lost sheep of Israel” But in a literal translation of the text, Jesus says he comes for the “sheep of the destroyed house of Israel”. The verb appoluota is the Greek word that is often translated as lost, but it true translation is lost or destroyed.

How often we forget that the human Jesus is oppressed. That is something we cannot lose sight of when we look at the power of the ministry of Jesus. He belongs to a people that have seen the slave side of the whip for a large part of their history. He belongs to a people who believe that a Savior is coming to break them free of Roman rule. He belongs to a people who must bank on being God’s chosen in order see any light at the end of the tunnel. So yes, at this point in his ministry Jesus is concerned with the salvation of his people. In the writing of the history of our own slave experience as African Americans, the general tone is that we were so magnanimous that we not only wanted freedom but that we wanted the spiritual freedom of our tormentors just as much. But Harriet Tubman carried a gun and would shoot you before she’d let you slow down the group and risk being caught. Harriet Tubman never made it a part of efforts to go back down south and “do a meeting” with the slave owners to discuss the how their souls were in danger because of slavery. You never read that Harriet Tubman brought anyone but her people through to freedom. We’re talking about a Harriet Tubman kind of Jesus today.

What of this Canaanite woman? This woman, an enemy to the Jews, finds the boldness to go into the enemy’s camp and take her victory. She has a mother love that tears her away from her possessed daughter simply because she has heard, “That there is this man name Jesus . . .” While Jesus is preaching, teaching and healing in his own land he is still convincing his own people that he has been sent by God. And yet this woman who has only heard, “That there is this man named Jesus . . .” Comes to Jesus understanding the truth. When she sees, this man named Jesus, she shouts to him, “Have mercy on me Lord, Son of David.” By calling Jesus lord she worships him, gives him honor and declares herself bound to him. By calling him Son of David, she has thrown away her own beliefs and called upon him as the Messiah. She sees him as the promised ones of the scriptures studied by her enemies. Adrienne Rich has said, “When a woman tells the truth, she is creating the possibility for more truth around her.”

The man named Jesus stops and engages with this woman and learns from her a truth that brings him just a step closer to his divine purpose. I tend to believe that this is how Jesus came to say, “And you will know the truth and the truth will make you free.” The divine Jesus is not only beholden to the freeing of his people. But the human Jesus is also trapped by their prejudices, their hatreds, trapped in how their hurt looks for the other to put down and denigrate. There is no escaping that Jesus has insulted this woman. But the point is that Jesus does engage her. Jesus does stop to listen. Jesus stops and is suddenly presented with an opportunity to change. It is a Canaanite woman who goes against all convention by coming to Jesus for a healing in the first place, that starts to define the ministry of Jesus as a ministry for all. What is at the heart of this cultural insult? What truly lies beneath the painful phrase? Like most anger, it is triggered by hurt. And like us, when we hurt, the tendency is to find someone who is hurting a little more and lash out at them. That’s what being human does to our spirit. But it seems to me that like Jesus we can learn to overcome. Like Jesus we can find a moment to hear the truth from the most unlikely of sources. If Jesus can learn…then so can we. Yes this text is problematic but the question remains, just what is the good news, what is the truth?

The good news is that Jesus breaks free of the smallness of the human mind. Jesus embraces that his ministry is for all human kind. Jesus understands that there is no restriction on God’s blessing. Through Jesus we see that the greatest faith comes from the most unlikely places. And that faith is to be glorified. That faith is what is required of all of us. Just last week we saw what happened when Peter lost faith. He sank in his disbelief when he tried to walk on water. This week we see a woman, a Canaanite woman, walking a journey of faith to get a healing for her daughter. She did not falter, she did not faint. It was her faith that saw her through. Peter’s lack of faith made him cry out in desperation, “Lord, save me!” But this unnamed woman’s faith made her cry out in anticipation, “Lord, have mercy on me.”

In this encounter with the Canaanite woman Jesus responds at first with what proceeds out of the heart, an insult that can defile not only her but himself as well. But because of their interaction, what proceeds out the heart changes and healing occurs. This is our lesson today, we are forgiven for the evil intentions that come from our hearts but thank God that because of grace we can change those evil intentions for good. Our hearts can be harbors for love, peace, joy and a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit. We just have to readjust how we see things, to see them as God does. My mother used to say that growing up she hated the idea of eating cornmeal mush. But when she sees things the way God can see things, she realizes that she may not like mush but she loves polenta.

So let us learn how to change our hearts. As the song says, “Get right with God and do it now. Get right with God, He will show you how, down at the cross, where he shed his blood, get right with God, get right, get right with God.” And never forget, if Jesus can learn…