15th Sunday after Pentecost

Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

On the last Sunday of our vacation, our friends Don and Diana took us to a very nice restaurant for brunch after worship. It was a lovely patio restaurant, so nice that it had a waiting list of one hour. When we were finally seated, Don and my husband ended up sitting in the sun. Don has strict orders from his dermatologist to stay out of the sun, but there was nowhere else to sit.

On my way to the restroom a little while later, I saw a folded-up patio sun umbrella standing idle. I walked over to a staff member and asked if that umbrella could be moved to offer our friend shade. My request was not exactly received enthusiastically, but a couple of servers got together and heaved the umbrella and its heavy stand to our table.

 I am usually shy in unfamiliar surroundings, and pricy restaurants with hour-long waiting lists are unfamiliar to me. For myself I would have never dared to ask. But this was for my friend; the friend in whose cabin we had just spend three wonderful, relaxing vacation weeks; who had taken us on a boat ride through the Thousand Islands; who had blessed us with loving, generous hospitality and friendship. This friend was sitting in the sun and was in danger of skin damage. For him, I had the courage to speak up.

I imagine you might have had similar experiences. For yourself, you might not have spoken up. But when a person you love needed help, you became an advocate.

When our oldest child was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, we were introduced to the world of special services in the school system. We ourselves were blessed with good support, but I met many parents who had to fight and fight and fight in order for their children to receive proper services.

Over these last two weeks, I heard news stories about veterans from the war in Afghanistan advocating for Afghan people they had served with. Translators, soldiers, government employees had faithfully served alongside US forces. Now they were in danger of being left behind, vulnerable to retaliation by Taliban forces. The US veterans sprang into action, doing what they could to help Afghans get out.

I have seen people rise to advocacy when they fought for adequate care of an aging parent in the nursing home. They knew they were being annoying to the staff with their endless questions and observations and requests, but they were doing it for mom or dad, and so they carried on. I once heard of a nurse saying about one such family member: “We cringe when we see him coming, but if I were in one of the beds here, I would want him to do the same for me.”

 We are meeting such a dedicated advocate in the gospel story today. She is driven by love and concern for her sick little girl. So driven is she that she ignores boundaries that would usually have kept her away from Jesus: She is a woman and he is a man; she is Gentile and he is Galilean; she is pagan and he is Jewish. Usually, they would have stayed away from each other.

But she is desperate for help for her beloved child. Therefore, she crosses all those boundaries and throws herself down before Jesus and begs and pleads.

This is not the first time someone begs Jesus for help; it is a quite common occurrence. However, Jesus’ answer is not common at all. It is, in fact, very rude. He is calling the woman a “dog” and tells her she’ll have to wait, because all the children of Israel come first.

This is such a surprising, mean-spirited, offensive response that theologians have tried to soften the blow with all kinds of explanations. Today, though, I want to explore what it might mean if Jesus actually said that and meant that. After all, Mark decided to report the story this way. It must have meaning.

Commentator Debbie Thomas suggested that this episode reminds us that Jesus was a full human being. He was true God, but also true man. As true man, he was a child of his times and grew up within a certain culture. Part of that culture was hostility toward foreigners. Jews looked down on Gentiles. Oh, and women didn’t count as much, either.

For the first time, Jesus has wandered onto foreign soil. The place names in the gospel text, Tyre, Sidon, Syrophoenicia, and the Decapolis, all stress that Jesus has left the Holy Land. He might have done so to get a break. In the first line of the story, we hear that Jesus was hoping for some quite time and didn’t want anyone to know that he was there. With word about him having spread all over Galilee, he might be seeking that peace and quiet across the border.

Along comes this foreign, pagan woman, kneels before him, and begs him for healing for her daughter. Ugh! Jesus just wants to be left alone, and he expresses that by using the racist, bigoted language he had grown up with.

This is not just any woman, however. This is an advocate, the mother of a sick child. She will not be dismissed so easily. Jesus calls her a dog? Oh, well, she argues, even dogs eat the crumbs that fall off the table.

She is amazingly clever in her response. She picks up on Jesus’ slur and uses it to point out that both children and dogs can eat at the same time. There is enough for all.

By using the image of food and table, this conversation goes to the heart of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus is constantly eating with one person or another. This is the messiah who eats with tax collectors and prostitutes, with Pharisees and scribes, with sinners and holy people. He describes God’s kingdom of heaven like a big banquet.

This woman is demanding her seat at that table. She believes that the table is big enough and laden enough that all people can be blessed. She calls Jesus “Lord” and fully trusts that he has enough divine love to heal the children of Israel as well as her daughter.

In the imagination of commentator Debbie Thomas, this woman says, “Expand the circle. Dissolve the boundaries. Widen the table. Preach your Good News to me.”

 And Jesus, who constantly argues with people and never loses a verbal sparring, listens to this woman. And he does what God does several times in the Old Testament: He changes his mind. He admits that she is right. He realizes that his calling is bigger than he had thought.

With this new understanding, Jesus heals the woman’s daughter. And then he heals a deaf man who is also a foreigner. And next there is the feeding of the four thousand, when Jesus multiplies seven loaves to feed the multitude. The woman was right: There is enough bread for all.

The woman is an advocate driven by love and faith. Through her advocacy, she brings healing to her daughter, wider compassion to Jesus’ ministry, new understanding to all who witness the scene then and now, plus she herself is blessed with the joy of having her daughter healed and her faith confirmed.

There is another group of advocates in the gospel: The people who bring the deaf man to Jesus. They believe Jesus can help him and they drag him there and ask Jesus for healing. The man does get healed. And the advocates who brought man and Jesus together, they are astounded, amazed, filled with wonder at what took place.

In both healing stories, the advocacy of people driven by faith, love, and hope leads to joy, healing, wonder, and a broadening of the kingdom of God.

It is from this angle that I now want to turn to our reading from the Letter of James. These are the verses that spoke to me: What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? 15If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, 16and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? 17So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

I love how direct James is here. When someone is in need, what good is it for a follower of Christ just to bless him or her? That doesn’t change the situation. What the person needs is an advocate driven by faith and love, someone who jumps into action and won’t take no for an answer, someone who makes some noise and badgers those in charge and works for a change.

The sick person needs an advocate who bandages a wound or holds a hand through chemo treatment or brings a meal or mows the lawn or takes the kids for a day; who searches for information on the web and finds affordable treatment options; who votes for politicians who are aware of the need for a better functioning health care system.

 The lonely, anxious person needs an advocate who will bring him or her to Jesus, to the people of God, to the community where all are welcome, to the table of God where even the crumbs of holy bread have power to heal and restore.

The person overwhelmed by the stresses of COVID and financial hardships and job worries and family strife and political tension and global climate crisis needs more than a passing “I’ll pray for you.” Prayer is good, but it is only the beginning. This person needs an advocate who is willing to listen and to serve and to love and to accompany through trying times.

James calls us to this kind of advocacy. He does so for the person we help. But he does it also for us. The last sentence in our reading is So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. I had always understood this to mean that faith without works doesn’t help anyone and doesn’t do the world any good.

I have discovered another side to this verse, though. Think of the joy of the woman upon finding her daughter healed and her faith confirmed. Think of the awe and marvel of the bystanders who brought the deaf man to Jesus; they can’t stop talking about what they witnessed. Their advocacy led them to these moments when the power of the gospel broke into the world and blessed them with indescribably joy and faith – blessed them with a living faith.

It is in following our baptismal calling and acting on our faith and love that we will experience such moments of God’s power and will be filled with awe and joy. Our faith will not be dead, but alive and vibrant and contagious.

This past week I reached out to all members who I know have served on active duty, to see how they were dealing with the messy situation in Afghanistan. One of them, Ralph, told me that it stirred all kinds of emotions: frustration, sorrow, and more. However, he said, he just rediscovered a photo he had taken when serving in Afghanistan. His company had brought supplies to a girls’ school. The Taliban are against women’s education, but this group of US soldiers supported them with all kinds of materials.

In the picture you can see one of the students, a teenaged girl, holding up a painting she had made, and beaming widely. Her whole face is lit up. Ralph was just doing his job that day, but the joy of this girl touched him deeply. And it comforts him now: no matter what the war did or didn’t do, that day he advocated for these girls; that day he was moved by their joy and hope; that day he was able to make a difference in someone’s life. That experience helps him now find peace.

Jesus has enough love and healing power for all people. It is in trusting that and in widening the circle and making room at God’s table and advocating for the kingdom of God, that we are blessed with a living, vibrant faith. Amen.