About a week ago, I listened to someone tell the story of a church in Seattle called Northshore that was trying to help some of the homeless people in the area. A lot of these homeless people were living in a tent city, and the law required that this tent city be moved every 90 days. The place that the tent city was going to move to next backed out at the last minute, and so the people at Northshore decided that they needed to step in to help, and so they submitted paperwork to the city in order to get a permit. What they didn't know was that about a month prior to that, the city had put a moratorium on these permits and refused to even look at their application.
So the people at Northshore had to make a choice. They could follow the law, and not get into any trouble. Or they could follow their hearts, and offer the people living in the tent city a safe place to stay, so that they wouldn't have to go back out onto the streets. They decided that the only real choice they had was to help. And so, they welcomed the tent city onto their property, even though they didn’t have a permit for it. And, as they feared, the city filed a lawsuit against them. The superior court ruled in favor of the city, and the city was awarded damages which totaled more than the entire operating budget of the church. There is often a price to pay when you openly disregard those in authority.
We learn this at a very young age as we battle with our parents over our bedtimes and the foods they try to make us eat, our allowances and curfews. As children, we have to do as we're told, or else suffer the consequences: being sent to bed without supper, having our allowance taken away or not being allowed to hang out with our friends. As we go through our lives, we have to learn how to deal with teachers and principals, supervisors at our jobs and sometimes the cops. And of course, there is the ultimate authority figure of all.
Our gospel reading today describes one such encounter with that divine authority. A Canaanite woman is asking Jesus to help her because her daughter is being tormented by a demon. His disciples wanted her sent away, she was bothering them and she was after all, a Canaanite, a foreigner. And here is where the text gets tricky. A lot of people don't like this part, and I have to admit that I had and still have difficulty with this part of the text. Jesus says, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs. Can you believe that? What kind of answer is that? It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs. It's no wonder that many scholars question if this scene is historical at all, if Jesus ever said anything like this. Not only is he refusing to help this woman, he insults her! He calls her a dog!
After hearing Jesus say this shocking and insulting statement, she answers him. I mean, who wouldn't respond to something like that? But, she responds with humility. She says, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table." She is humble in her reply, and yet she is still pushing back. She doesn't just take what Jesus says sitting down. She's not going to just let him call her a dog! She knows who she is; she is a beloved child of God, just as worthy of God's saving grace as the other men in the room, the Israelites, the Isrealites that are asking Jesus to send her away.
This story reminds me of the story of Abraham and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. God was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because of their sin, but for some reason, God decided to tell Abraham about it first. Abraham wonders if completely destroying two entire cities is such a good idea, after all there could be some innocent people living there. And so, he asks God, "Are you going to destroy the cities, even if there are 50 innocent people there?" God tells him that if there are 50 innocent people, the cities will not be destroyed.
Abraham thinks about this for a few seconds, then asks, "What if there are 45 innocent people?"
God says, "If there are 45 innocent people, I will not destroy the cities."
Abraham mulls it over, then asks, "If there are only 40 innocent people, will you destroy the cities?"
In this story, God has taken the form of a man and is actually standing there talking to Abraham, so you can picture God, however it is that you picture God, shaking his head and smiling at Abraham indulgently, like a parent would smile at a child. "No Abraham, if I find only 40 innocent people, the cities will not be destroyed."
"30 people?"
"No."
"20 people?"
"Nope."
"10 people?"
"If I find but 10 innocent people, the cities will not be destroyed."
Apparently, this answer was good enough for Abraham, because he stops bargaining with God after 10. The point of this is that Abraham had a strong enough sense of who he was in relation to God that he could challenge God's decision, give his own opinion on the situation and expect that God would take his opinion into consideration.
I remember one of my professors saying that Abraham's act was the defining moment in Jewish history, when the Jewish people established themselves as Jews, when they established their relationship with God. Abraham had the gumption, the courage, enough sense of himself that he felt he could essentially talk back to God, to have a dialogue with God on a level that no one had ever had before. You could say that this was the moment that he became Jewish.
See, God wants to be in relationship with us. There's a lot going on in these two stories. We could talk about the nature of God or whether or not these events actually took place. We could argue about whether or not God might have known ahead of time how Abraham or the Canaanite woman were going to respond. We even might wonder if these stories are allegories for the way that God tests us. What I do know is that these stories are about relationship.
God does not expect or require blind servitude. God gave us free-will, so that we could make our own decisions, so that we could choose to love God and follow God's laws, or to choose a different path, even if that would mean breaking God's heart. God gives us that choice.
And, God gave us brains to reason with, so that we could think things through, to weigh the merits of one action over another, one choice over another. So that we could out figure what all the possible consequences of our actions might be. So that we can take a rule, or a law or a decree and figure out whether or not it's right or wrong, good or bad, or perhaps, somewhere in between. And, that is usually the case with things that are difficult. There are often no easy answers in the decisions that we make in our lives.
So, how do we choose when there is no clear-cut answer? We have to rely on our relationships, our relationships with God and with each other. We have to make the choices that will make our relationships stronger with each other. Not just with the people that we know, our friends and family, neighbors and colleagues, the people that we go to church with and the people of our race, nation or tongue. We have to make the choices that will strengthen our relationships with all of humanity; the choices that will ultimately strengthen our relationships with God.
See, when the Canaanite woman said that the dogs eat the crumbs that fall off the master's table, she was not trying to interfere with Jesus's relationship with the people of Israel. She just wanted to be a part of it. She was willing to take the smallest of crumbs, because she knew that it would be enough. Don't forget that these are God's crumbs. God's crumbs are more than we could ever need. They are more than enough. And, this woman understood that. She did not want Jesus to spend less time with "the lost sheep of Israel," to do anything that might hinder his relationship with them.
But, she knew that in Jesus, there is more than enough to go around. And, above all, she knew that she was just as worthy as they to receive it. So, she said that she would take the crumbs. And, Jesus immediately answers her with joy! He says, "Woman, great is your faith! Your daughter is healed! By your faith, your daughter is healed."
The people of Northshore made a choice that showed their faith in God. They chose to honor their relationships with God and humanity by helping the homeless people of Seattle. They allowed the tent city to move onto their property, even though they knew that they were going to get into trouble. And, they received a judgment against them that they could never hope to pay. And, for the next three years, as they fought against this judgment, they didn't know whether or not the church was going to survive. They had to come to terms with the fact that Northshore might not be around anymore. But, they went through with it, because they had to do what they felt was right, what God was calling them to do. They had to be good neighbors to their fellow human beings. They had to honor, and foster, and strengthen those relationships. And, they had to create new relationships where there were previously none.
The state supreme court eventually ruled in favor of Northshore, saying that the church had the right to exercise their religious freedom on their own property. And in 2010, new legislation went into effect in an effort to prevent something like this from ever happening again. Local government could no longer prevent a religious organization from getting a permit in this way. The hope was that these new laws would help local governments and religious organizations resolve their conflicts over services provided to the homeless without resorting to litigation. The relationship is changing, and it's changing for the better. And, it can all be traced back to that single act of compassion by the Northshore congregation.
As human beings, we have to question things that we think are wrong. We cannot blindly follow laws because "that's the way that it's always been" or because "whoever's in charge told me so." God gave us reason and free will, and wants to live in relationship with us. God wants to know how we feel about things. I'm not telling you to openly defy God whenever the mood strikes, but if there is something going on that you don't agree with, approach God in prayer, humbly and with the faith and understanding that God loves you. Question God the way that Abraham and the Canaanite woman questioned God, with humility and love in your heart, and listen to what God has to say. God wants to live in relationship with us, because that is the nature of God. God exists as three persons, all living in harmony. God's existence is based in relationship, and God wants to share the wonder and the love and the beauty of that with us. So, love God. Question God. And, live in relationship with God and with each other. Amen.
For pretty much my entire childhood, I hated school. Part of it was just that I thought it was boring; I hated being trapped in a classroom all day. And, knowing that I had absolutely no control over how I got to spend my days was annoying. And then there was the homework; I hated homework, even though I never actually did it. And, this caused a lot of problems for me as a kid: this not doing my homework thing. I couldn’t answer the teacher’s questions about it and then I would get all embarrassed. A lot of times, I couldn’t go to recess because the teacher would have me sit at the lunch tables doing my homework from the night before, while all the other kids got to run around and play.
I would get in some serious trouble for it, too. My dad was old school, so when the teachers sent home notes about me not doing my work, or my report card came, which would always be C’s and D’s, out came the belt. Now, I do not in any way approve of disciplining children this way, but I have to admit that I probably deserved to get some kind of punishment for my behavior back then.
But, it never worked as motivation for me to actually do my homework. I was more interested in playing outside with my brothers or reading or drawing or any of the thousands of things that kids can do when they just don’t want to do their homework. I remember one time when the report cards came, in order to avoid the punishment that I knew was coming, I convinced my brother and sister that we should burn the report cards in the fireplace, because I had gotten C’s again. My sister, who always got straight A’s and never got into any kind of trouble at all, was not happy about this, but she agreed to go along with it, because she didn’t want me to get into trouble either. To this day, my parents have no idea that we used the living room fireplace to destroy evidence of my academic failure.
About the time I got to junior high, something changed and I actually started to care about the grades that I got. I started getting A’s and B’s, but I still didn’t really like school. It was also about this time that I started getting the feeling that God maybe wanted me to go into ministry. Now, this is kind of a problem for someone who doesn’t like school. In order to become a minister in most of the Reformed traditions, you need to get a bachelors degree and then you have to get a Masters of Divinity. That’s eight years of school! Eight years of school, on top of the already thirteen years of school that are required by law. That’s twenty-one years of school! For someone who doesn’t want to go to school in the first place, that’s asking a lot.
So I had a very frank discussion with God about this, and I said, “No way! No way are you making me go to school for eight more years!” I didn’t want to do it! I did what any self-respecting person in denial would do. I decided to interpret God’s call in a way that would better fit into how I wanted to live my life. God didn’t really want me to become a minister. God just wanted me to be in ministry. I can be involved in ministry in so many different ways! What God really wanted was for me to be active in the church, to spread the message of God’s love, to reach out to people in need. I decided that’s what God was asking me to do. I didn’t need to go to seminary for that!
Because, that’s what we do when we come up against the wisdom of God. It’s so different from what we understand; it’s so alien to us! We negotiate, even though we know, deep down inside, that we are absolutely wrong. We somehow manage to convince ourselves that we know better than God. Because God’s way is not our way.
When Isaac’s wife Rebekah became pregnant with twins, the babies where wrestling around inside of her, rolling around this way and that way, using her insides as a boxing ring. She prayed to God, “Why? Why is this happening to me?” And God said to her, “There are two nations in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.”
The older will serve the younger? That’s not right. We all know that it’s the firstborn that has the special status. It’s the firstborn that inherits the largest portion of the estate when the parents are gone. All throughout the world, throughout the history of the human race, with only a few exceptions, it has always been the firstborn son that basically got everything. No matter what a person’s culture, religion or ethnicity was, this was just the way things worked. The oldest would get most of the sheep from the flock or cows from the herd. The oldest would get most, if not all of the land. The family trade would get passed down from firstborn son to firstborn son, generation after generation of bakers, carpenters and tailors. Even kingdoms and empires would get passed down this way.
So, imagine Rebekah’s surprise when God tells her that the older will serve the younger. That just wasn’t the way things were supposed to be. You see, it kind of makes sense that we’ve adopted these traditions of the oldest inheriting everything. The firstborn would start learning the family trade as soon as they were old enough and would help to teach any younger children that came along after. Even while the parents were still alive, the oldest child would have a lot of responsibility.
As an oldest child myself, I happen to know some of things that oldest children have to put up with. A lot of times, I felt like my parents didn’t really know what they were doing when they were trying to raise me, like I was some kind of experiment. They were really strict with me and I had to practically beg to do anything fun. But, by the time my youngest brother came around, they had pretty much figured everything out. By then, they had seen it all, and the crazy things that kids do just didn’t faze them anymore. My youngest brother also had two older brothers and an older sister to look after him. He pretty much got away with whatever he wanted to. He wasn’t taught responsibility!
For three separate individuals, I had some kind of responsibility for them. None of my siblings can say that. In a lot of ways, it’s as true today as it was in the past that the oldest is responsible for taking care of the family. It’s part of our tradition; it’s part of what is expected. And even if we don’t agree with it, we still need to understand it and know that it’s part of our cultural make-up, and that it influences the decisions that we make and the things that we do.
Of course, times are different now, and we don’t always follow the traditions of the oldest getting everything. But, back in the days of Isaac and Rebekah, that was the rule. And when Rebekah’s twin sons were born, it was a very close race. When the older son, Esau, was born, his younger brother, Jacob, was holding onto his foot. They were literally seconds apart. But still, one was the oldest, and the other was not. As they grew, each boy developed different skills. Esau became a great hunter, and Isaac was so proud of him because he would bring home wild game. Jacob, on the other hand, tended to stay at home with his mother and help with the household chores.
One day, Esau came back from hunting, hungry and Jacob was cooking some stew. Esau was so hungry that he sold away his birthright for a single bowl of the stew that Jacob was cooking. All of the rights and privileges that he enjoyed as the firstborn son, gone with the dip of a spoon and a swipe of crusty bread. And here’s the thing that Isaac and Rebekah could never have foreseen when the two boys were born. That Esau could be so reckless with his future.
Of course it’s possible that he was just so hungry that he couldn’t think straight. Or, maybe he thought that his brother was just kidding around, or wouldn’t hold him to his word later, because it was after all, it was just a bowl of soup. Or maybe Esau just wasn’t very bright and he actually thought that it was a fair trade. He does say at one point that his inheritance will do him no good if he starves to death. Either way, what God had told Rebekah when the two boys were still wrestling around inside of her, came to pass. “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.” According to biblical tradition, Esau eventually went on to become the ancestor of the Edomites. And, the Edomites were eventually defeated by King David, who was one of Jacob’s descendents, and the Edomites had to live under King David’s rule, and the rule of his son Solomon, after him. The older will serve the younger.
So here we are today, and I think it is quite obvious what happened to me. I spent a lot of time running away from seminary, trying to find other ways to serve God. I did youth group for seven years, thinking that it was a perfectly acceptable ministry. And it is, youth ministry is as much a ministry as any other. But, that’s not what I was destined for. I had a bakery for a while, thinking that if I was successful at that, I would be able to give lots of money to the church. That didn’t pan out. Then, one day, my pastor asked me to go through a lay leader-training program. It was a one-year intensive program, one eight-hour Saturday a month. They were basically trying to condense seminary down into twelve days, with a month’s worth of independent study in between. I jumped at this, because I knew it was my last chance to avoid going to seminary.
By that point, I had been out of school for seven years. And in that time, God had changed me. God had instilled in me a love of learning that was impossible to ignore. I didn’t hate it anymore. And so, as much as I had fought it, I went back to school. I first had to finish two years of undergrad, but I finally made it here, and I just finished my second year of seminary. It’s hard. I have to sit in classrooms all the time, and I have way more homework than is even possible for me to do. But, I’m happy, because God knows me better than I know myself, and God knew that seminary is where I was supposed to be, even if I thought that couldn’t possibly be right. God’s way is not our way. God’s way is the best way. And, learning to trust that can be hard. But, somehow, some way, God will get us there. God will always get us there. Amen.
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