So, here we are with this Gospel reading, and y'all, every time it comes up, I have trouble with it. This Sunday's Jesus doesn't fit with the picture of Jesus that we so often carry around. From the get-go, as little kids, looking at our Children's Bible, we have a picture of Jesus with a serene look on his face, arms outstretched, maybe doing a miracle or bouncing a child on his lap. Calm, happy, and inviting.
Yet, today we get a different picture. In fact, the Gospels are full of stories where Jesus is sarcastic, reclusive, and even grumpy. And I get a little uncomfortable.
In the earlier chapters, Jesus had already performed a number of miracles including healing the sick, driving out demons, walking on water, feeding the 5,000. But by the time we encounter him today, there is no doubt that Jesus was exhausted and in need of some down time. But a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit somehow finds out that he is in town, seeks Jesus out, bows down at his feet and begs him to cast the demon out of her daughter.
And Jesus responds: "Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs."
Now as much as I would like to say that theologians have figured out a way to make less shocking, I can't. We can speculate why is is so cranky and dismissive, but it's just that...speculation.
But instead of being offended or even discouraged by Jesus' harsh reaction, this woman plows on ahead. She uses Jesus' own words against him: "Fine, you can call me a dog, but even dogs get the crumbs that fall from the table." And with that Jesus relents and frees the woman's child from her demon. And the sun shone above them as they skipped off into the sunset and lived happily ever after. The End.
If only.
I gotta be honest. I really struggle with this passage. It makes me realize how attached I am to my quiet, meek and mild, children's book version of Jesus.
But like I said earlier, the Jesus today ain't that one. This Jesus is divine, but also VERY human, with a range of emotions...and needs...just like all of us.
You know, throughout the Gospels, we read how Jesus goes off by himself to pray, to recharge, to be alone with his Father. And we are fine with that, and we sort of leave him alone over there doing whatever. But this time it doesn't work. He gets cornered by a woman in need of help. So instead of encountering the "come-to-me-all-you-who-are-weary" Jesus, the Syrophoenician woman confronts the "go-away-all-of-you-because-I'm-weary" Jesus.
And we don't really like this Jesus. We don't like that he doesn't just heal the woman's daughter when she asks and go back to praying. We don't like that he doesn't live up to our expectations of who we think Jesus should be.
But if we are able to step back from our children's Bible version of Jesus, we might be able to see that this passage isn't about him rejecting the woman's desperate request but rather, recognizing her DESPERATE BELIEF.
I mean here's a woman at the end of her rope. Her young daughter is plagued with something no doctor can fix. She doesn't just have a fever. She's not suffering from some disease. An unclean spirit, a demon, is residing in the innocent body of her child. Desperate is probably a euphemism for what she is feeling.
But this woman, this mother, has heard a story about a man from Galilee who not only makes the lame to walk and the blind to see, but casts demons out into the darkness where they belong. Normally she would chalk such tales up to the country folk gossip, but these accounts were different. This Jesus was different.
Maybe lots of folks were saying it was all too good to be true, but she couldn't shake the feeling that maybe it was so good that it had to be true. And it didn't take long for the woman's curiosity to turn into hope and her hope to turn into expectation and her expectation to turn into belief. She began to believe that the stories about Jesus were true. She began to believe that Jesus was more than just an ordinary man. She began to believe in Jesus.
And I think this is important. Because Jesus didn't react the way we expected him to. He didn't just do another miracle and go on back to his prayer retreat. Because if he had done that, then maybe our belief in Jesus might be unrealistic. Might lead us down the wrong path.
Because when we water Jesus down, we also water down our lives of faith. Somewhere along the line, we've been told that our faith is grounded in Jesus's response to our never ending requests. God give us whatever we want, when we want it, how we want it, and only then will we know you are real and our faith is real.
But if the Syrophoenician woman teaches us anything in this passage, if Jesus teaches us anything in this passage, it is that faith is NOT about what Jesus does, but about who Jesus is.
Because faith is not about getting what we ask for, but getting the one we are asking. Faith is not about our needs, our wants, and our plan, but his needs, his wants, and his plan. When it comes down to it, our faith is not about us at all. Our faith is about him, the Savior, the Messiah, Jesus, the Christ.
That's tough to accept sometimes, but here's the best part. While we don't know the where, the when or the how, we do know, we do believe the who, the what and the why. Because as Christians we know, we believe, that THE WHO is Jesus Christ. As Christians we know, we believe, that THE WHAT is a life marked of forgiveness, redemption, healing, and grace. And as Christians we know, we believe, that THE WHY is that God loves us more than we could have ever hoped. So while the life of faith doesn't always happen the way we would expect, we, as Christians, continue to desperately believe, not necessarily because we want to but because we have to.
Y'all, when push comes to shove, I gotta say that this version of Jesus is way better than the Jesus of our children's books. I don't know about you, but when I close my eyes, I don't want to see somebody else's version of somebody else's version of somebody else's version of Jesus.
And when I close my eyes, I want to be surprised, amazed, astonished, and maybe even challenged by the Jesus I see, because as it turns out, that is the Jesus who carries my faith AND carries your faith AND carries all of our faith.