Crumbs from Your Table

    

Protest in Chicago in Support of DACA

What do you do when you are presented with something that just makes you shudder? It's been hard to be an America this last year. Everyday many of us wake up dreading to see, hear, read the news. For it seems everyday there is a new outrage by our government and elected officials that will neglect or outright harm people and the environment. Many of us are so tired of being angry. We are exhausted in our outrage. We have called, emailed, petitioned, demonstrated our elected officials. Where do you turn for answers, for consolation, for inspiration? How do we change other people's hearts and minds?
      I have been stuck in Chapters 7-8 of the the Gospel of Mark a lot this year. When pondering how to respond to a racist President in a time when racism is not and will never be acceptable when you believe with all your heart that God created us all and said we were good. Not that some people were good (white, European, wealthy, male people) but all people. The story that I have been struggling with is the day Jesus was a racist. Yes, you read that right. There is a story in our scriptures where Jesus is racist.

DACA Protest Chicago

From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, ²⁵but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. ²⁶Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. ²⁷He said to her, ‘Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ ²⁸But she answered him, ‘Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.’ ²⁹Then he said to her, ‘For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.’ ³⁰So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone. Mark 7:24-30

     Why do I say Jesus is racist from this passage? Because it is a Make America Great again scripture. Jesus tells a woman - a foreigner who is not Jewish that his healing ministry is for the children of Israel first. They are to be fed. It isn't fair to take our food and throw it to the dog's. So they cleaned up the language of the bible in this passage. Jesus says female dogs. Any word pop into your head when you know this dog insult is female dog. Yes Jesus call her a little b!@#$. He argues that his people are the ones he came to help, to heal, to feed. He needs to feed them first. Now pastors for generations have tried to clean this passage up. He didn't really  mean to call her a b!@#$. He was just making a point in order to expand the mission. But if he was just making a point wouldn't he have made the point - Jesus isn't shy about telling it like it is. We could say he was exhausted and just wanted some alone time to recuperate. He was tired of fighting off the challenges. He wanted to rest and she wouldn't let him. But the story doesn't give us psychological motivation. The story doesn't say hey this is a teaching moment those of you with ears to hear - hear, eyes to see - see. He just says I'm here for my people.

DACA Protest Chicago

     This is ironic considering the passage of scripture that comes before this in Mark 7:1-23. Jesus has been challenged about why his disciples are not following the strict letter of the law concerning cleanliness. He speaks to them about how they preach a good game but then they break the laws with their actions. When he is alone with his disciples he is asked to explain the meaning. 

¹⁸He said to them, ‘Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, ¹⁹since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?’ (Thus he declared all foods clean.) ²⁰And he said, ‘It is what comes out of a person that defiles. ²¹For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, ²²adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. ²³All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.’

      He just has had a very long teaching episode on what creates a heart full of evil, what defiles a person. He argues that is is not what you take in, it is the actions, the words that come out of you that defile you. And then he goes and calls a foreigner a b!@#$. Jesus has just done the opposite of what he has told people. You want to scream at him - physician heal thy self. You want to say how could you. How could you - even you be racist, unkind, lacking in compassion.
     If you were this mother who is desperate to help her child. Who has turned as a last resort to the faith healer that everyone has been talking about. And then this man, this Holy One who everyone has talked about his love. This man who is you last hope. He treats you with contempt. He calls you names. He doesn't believe you are worthy. He has done the exact opposite of all that you have heard about him. I would have turned away, run away with tears streaming down my face. But she doesn't. She doesn't let his racism. his bad behavior deter her from demanding the help her child needs. She says, 'Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.’I may be a b!@#$ but even we get what is left from the children. Let me have a crumb. She fought back, she challenged his position.
    Jesus is changed that day. He heals her daughter. But then he begins a missionary journey through gentle lands, he travels through the neighboring places, healing and teaching. And just to make it clear that he really has expanded the mission to gentles he sits down with all the gentiles who have been following him and he feeds them.

In those days when there was again a great crowd without anything to eat, he called his disciples and said to them, ²‘I have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. ³If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way—and some of them have come from a great distance.’ ⁴His disciples replied, ‘How can one feed these people with bread here in the desert?’ ⁵He asked them, ‘How many loaves do you have?’ They said, ‘Seven.’ ⁶Then he ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground; and he took the seven loaves, and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute; and they distributed them to the crowd. ⁷They had also a few small fish; and after blessing them, he ordered that these too should be distributed. ⁸They ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. ⁹Now there were about four thousand people. And he sent them away. ¹⁰And immediately he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha. Mark 8:1-10

     He no longer is denying his call is greater than his people, he is actively overwriting his previous failure and feed those people. They are no longer outside his call, his love, the promises of God. They are now sitting at the table with him.
      Jesus had a racist moment and learned from it. He was pushed to become more than he expected. He learns from this desperate mother that God's love is abundant, is over flowing, does not play favorites. We are pushed then to consider who we have left out, who we have kept from God's love, who we have denied healing to, who we don;t want to feed.
     So how do we respond to the President of the United States, my president saying that there are whole groups of people who are from and in s!@#holes. Who truly believes that these places are disgusting and when pressed only good if they make me or my friends money. Our President is racist. He is not misguided, he doesn't get to say he didn't mean it that way. I like all people for there are good people everywhere on every side. He is racist. The laws and policies he makes will be influenced by that fact. We have to be better than this. We who call ourselves Christians, who go to church on Sunday morning, who say we follow Jesus need to do better. We need to learn our complicity is this society that believes some people are more important and values than others and we need to challenge the injustice of the policy and laws that do not feed and heal those who are different from ourselves. We need to demand that every gets their crumb, everyone get's there share of the meal. Everyone is filled and there is enough left over for more people. We need to speak the truth to power like that desperate mother. We need to speak out against racist policy and practices and make sure everyone is given a place at the table.

U2 Crumbs from Your Table