Proper 18b:
Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23, Psalm 125, James 2:1-10, (11-13), 14-17, Mark 7:24-37
A Poem by Kaylin Haught
I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don’t paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes, God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I’m telling you is
Yes Yes Yes
(Kaylin Haught, “God Says Yes to Me,” from The Palm of Your Hand, 1995)
The Syrophoenician woman from today’s Gospel story knows that God says yes to
her---she’s betting on it. She knows it with all her heart—even when Jesus doesn’t.
Now that makes us uncomfortable. The Gospel seems to say that this woman outside
the approved religious circle has something to teach Jesus! Preacher and theologian
Karoline Lewis describes the woman’s interaction with Jesus this way:
“Guess, what? Jesus. God said yes to me. God said yes to me when God tore open
the heavens. God said yes to me when God decided to show up in the wilderness
rather than in the temple. God said yes to me when you came here instead of spending
all your time in Jerusalem. It’s okay to be me, so get over yourself, Jesus.”
There really is no other story like this in the Bible. Yes, we read how Moses and
Abraham get God to change God’s mind. “But this woman does more than get Jesus to
change his mind -- she rocks Jesus’ world. She gets Jesus to admit for what and whom
his ministry is all about. She gets Jesus to see God for what and who God truly is.”1
Now, if Jesus needs help in understanding the truth of the Gospel, then we probably do
too. Truth is a tricky thing. As I see it, and as I think the Gospel is trying to help us
1
Karoline Lewis, Working Preacher, Sunday, September 6, 2015.
understand, most of us have been misled about the truth. We have been told and
taught that Truth is black or white, this or that, when really all along, truth has always
been both/and. Truth---especially God’s truth---especially the Truth that is Jesus---has
many perspectives, many layers with many voices.
I’ve been reading a wonderful book by Eric Law, an Episcopal priest and founder of the
Kaleidoscope Institute, called Holy Currencies. In the book, he explores the concept of
truth as it is found in Scripture and Hebrew. In John 14, Jesus says, “ I am the Way,
and the truth, and the life.” Here truth is found between two other descriptors: the Way
and the life. A Way is often a path, a journey, a road. A Way has a beginning, a
middle, and an end. A Way has many resting stops, different entrances, different exits,
and waysides. How it looks or how one experiences the journey can change with the
season. A Way is never just one thing, but multi-faceted.
A life also has multiple layers; a life has seasons, ages, experiences; it has a past, a
present, and a future---movement from beginning to end---some lives are long, some
short, some middling. Life is also multi-faceted.
This invites us to consider that the Truth is multi-faceted as well, with a beginning, a
middle, and an end—multiple layers and perspectives to make up a whole. The Truth,
the whole Truth, and nothing but the truth. This expression is used in the courtroom as
an oath so that people will tell the truth, not leave anything out of their telling of the
truth (the whole truth), but also not insert anything that isn’t the truth (nothing but the
truth).
The Hebrew word for Truth is tma;; the Hebrew letters are an alef, a mem and a tav.
The alef is the first letter of the alphabet, the mem is the middle letter, and the tav is
(you guessed it) the last---a beginning, middle, and end. If Jesus is the Truth—then we
must come to know his entire story—beginning, middle and end. If Scripture is the
Truth, then we are not to lift out just one verse, or one story, and declare it as the
Truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the Truth. Yes, it is a part, a thread in the truth,
but Truth is not either this or that, black or white, but both/and. To discern truth in
Scripture, we must have a grasp of the whole of it---our entire salvation story.
In his book, Eric Law also shares that the Chinese word for truthful or genuine includes
the ideogram for ten and the ideogram for the eye. To know the truth is to see it from
10 different perspectives, 10 different sets of eyes.2 It seems there is genius in the
reality that we have four different Gospels and a collection of books, songs, poems,
letters, and stories from a myriad of voices over thousands of years as our book of
Truth.
From the beginning, Jesus gathered a group of people to walk the way, live his life,
know his truth. We are called into community because to know the truth means we are
2
Eric Law, Holy Currencies, Chapter Five.
to see the world and come to know truth from other people’s points of view as well as
from our own. The whole truth is woven from multiple perspectives and voices--including the voice of the enemy and the voice of the other.
Too often in our society, the news, the media, the person telling the story, tries to
present the Truth as a black or white reality. Take the story and news we hear about
Kim Davis, the county clerk of Rowan County Kentucky who refused to give out
marriage licenses to gay couples because it went against her understanding of God’s
law. What’s the truth here? Is she a faithful disciple who is making a sacrifice out of
her love for God? Is she a whacko, right-winger who needs to wake up to the reality of
the law? Is she a county clerk who doesn’t quite understand what her job is? Yes.
Yes. and Yes. It depends on who is telling the story.
Here’s my point---and I think, the point of today’s Gospel: there are multiple truths
here. There is the truth of the law as it has been declared by the United States
Supreme Court. There is the truth of the job description of a county clerk that Kim
Davis has been elected to carry out. There is the truth of gay couples who desire to
live out the covenantal life of marriage. There is the life and understanding of Kim
Davis who obviously loves God as she understands God and God’s will because she is
willing to make some pretty large and personal sacrifices.
So, while the state of Kentucky has declared its understanding of the truth and has
found Kim in contempt and, therefore, acted accordingly by putting Kim in jail. And the
law of our country has declared its truth and has put other people in place to ensure
that gay couples can now get their marriage licenses in Rowan County. Kim Davis still
lives her truth and refuses to back down. So, what’s the truth? Messy. Downright
messy, that’s what the truth is.
And like Jesus who is approached by the Syrophoenician woman, we are confronted
with the other in this situation. For some of us, the gay couples and the Supreme
Court Law may be the other. For some of us, the other is Kim Davis and her
understanding of God’s law.
As the other comes before us---gay or straight---its not our job to declare the truth as
black or white, this or that. The Law of the country certainly works in that way and has
acted accordingly. But, as disciples, confronted with our Other before us, we are
called to act according to God’s law---God’s law that understands truth is messy and
complicated and most often, uncomfortable. Especially when the truth asks us to
arrive at a new understanding, a new belief, a new way of being. Remember, even
Jesus struggles with this.
But in the end, Jesus sees more than just the Other before him. He sees a sister. And
when his eyes and ears are opened---like the deaf man in the Gospel---ephphatha, be
opened---Jesus is restored to the grandness and the wideness of God’s mercy. Jesus
responds with God’s Yes. Yes, you too have a place on the porch, a seat at the table,
a branch on the family tree. You, too, belong here with this ragtag gathering of messy
misfits and do-overs, this group of beloved children of God we call the church.
If your truth is Kim Davis’ truth, then you are called to recognize that our gay brothers
and sisters have a seat at the table. If your truth stands in alignment with the Supreme
Court decision that protects the right for gay couples to marry, then you are called to
graciously allow Kim Davis a comfortable seat on the family porch.
Today’s Gospel truth reminds us of at least three things: Like the Syrophoenician
woman, we are called to be truth tellers. Not just our truth, but God’s multi-layered,
gracious, and messy Truth.
Like Jesus we are called to see the world, and all God’s beloved children, with God’s
great goodness and compassion.
Like the deaf man, we are called to be opened---opened to hear and see God’s yes to
us, to this community, to the other, to our enemies, to all of Creation---even when that
yes means we have to re-think what we have always known, what we have previously
believed. Fear not; Jesus keeps us company.
And beloved, or maybe I should say, sweetcakes: when we open ourselves to God’s
yes, when we point to it and invite others to drink from the well of living water that is
Jesus—God’s incarnational yes to humanity---then we are changed, our communities
are changed and the world is changed. The circle of God’s Kingdom spreads out wider
and wider as the light of God’s yes beats back the darkness.
Ephphatha---be opened.