ARGUING WITH JESUS
Mark 7:24-30

A sermon given by the Rev. Richard H. Taylor
May 2, 2004 / Fourth Sunday of Easter

This short text, which I just read, is pregnant with many messages, and a whole host of sermons. Listening to it again sends my mind in many directions.

One is that it gives us an unflattering picture of Jesus. The whole announced purpose of the Gospels is, they tell us, to transmit the Good News of God known through Jesus. Yet here Mark (and later Matthew as well), tell us that Jesus engages in cultural stereotypes, that he calls groups of people by derogatory names like "dogs," and just seems to be insulting in an unpleasant way. After reading this I could understand why many people would not want to follow Jesus.

To me, however, Mark is revealing to us Jesus' true humanity, and his willingness to change. Jesus grew up in a real time and place, and he was infected by the problems of his time and age just like we are. And Jesus is also influenced by internal disputes and contradictions calling him in more than one way. So his humanness comes out. But he also changes his mind. Might we do the same?

So that's one sermon, "Coming to Terms With the Unflattering Jesus."

There might also be a sermon in the internal debate Jesus is having within himself. It is not only a debate between a good Jesus and a bad Jesus. It is also a debate within an overworked Jesus trying to decide what to do. Jesus feels he has a call, a goal, an obligation, to bring "Good News to the Jews." He wants to help the children of Israel. That's a perfectly good goal. But he is overworked and challenged beyond belief in doing that job alone. Then a Syrophoenician woman comes along and wants some help. Should he spend the day fulfilling the goal he set for the day, or should he deal with this distraction?

I feel a lot like Jesus. I keep planning to do more visiting. Then other things keep happening and my goals are not achieved. How do you respond when someone comes up and asks for a handout? Shall we fulfill our goals or squander our life on distractions, requests, interruptions? In that is a second sermon.

But there is also a third sermon here. Consider the audacity of arguing with Jesus! Consider the audacity of arguing with God! Many of us when insulted, put-down by anybody, put our tail between our legs and whimper away in defeat. Few of us stand ready to come right back with a rejoinder, a challenge. Few of us have the backbone to keep an argument going with anybody, much less Jesus, much less God.

So here we have this sermon: "Arguing with Jesus."

I could write a whole sermon about arguing with Jesus and arguing with God. Actually I already have. I have encouraged people to argue with God. After all God can take it. God has been called names before. Go right ahead and argue with God. It's a good way to blow off steam. Its also a good way to articulate what you really want. You may never know who you are or what you truly wish until you can state it to God.

So that's one sermon about arguing with Jesus. It's the go ahead and do it sermon.

But the sermon I want to preach this morning is not that one. Instead its one that may be more clearly titled "Winning an argument with Jesus." That's the one I really want to preach this morning: "Winning an argument with Jesus."

And the first thing I have to say about that is don't expect it, or it's not easy, or don't plan on being promoted to the role of God, or something like that.

The New Testament is full of people who argue with Jesus. The Pharisees were the intellectual elite of their day. They argue with Jesus all the time. They don't win. The rabbis argue with Jesus when he's twelve years old, they don't win. The disciples argue with Jesus about who well get to sit at his right hand. They don't win that one. Peter argues with Jesus about most everything. He doesn't seem to win. Mary argues with Jesus about taking care of family obligations first. He doesn't pick up on that one. Go ahead and argue with Jesus, but don't expect to win.

Now its not because Jesus does not love Mary or Peter or the disciples. They have all told us they felt greatly loved. And they all have told us they found being with Jesus a wonderful, great thing. And they all have benefited in their understanding and their living from the things they argued with Jesus about. So the arguments did a lot of good. So, argue, it will do you well. But don't expect to win.

The only person to win an argument with Jesus in all the gospels is a poor foreign woman with a sick daughter.

What if in all of Rhode Island the only person who can move God is a poor foreign woman with a sick child?

Our place in the order of things may change with such notice. We may be loved, but God is moved erstwhile.

If the food and the crumbs at the table of the world are to be moved, poor foreign women with sick children have claims on God that we can not exact.

I think I am aware of some of the arguments, some of the prayers of poor mothers with sick children. The concept of foreign is less clear – I am a foreigner to someone from another place, while they are a foreigner to me. But I have heard prayers from poor mothers with sick children that have a claim on God.

We hosted Live for Liberia here a few months ago. I heard about the Civil War there, the dangers, the hostilities, and the people here in Rhode Island – mothers and children that the Immigration and Naturalization Service – under its new icy name – contemplates sending back. I have heard the same from our Haitian immigrant friends. These are some prayers that I lay on the communion table.

I heard on the radio an American wife and mother. Her husband has been sent with the National Guard to Iraq. His term has been extended. They worry about her husband. Their military pay is nothing like what he was making at his state-side job. She can not pay the mortgage. They are in danger of losing their house, as well as their husband and father. For American service people in Iraq and their families, this is a prayer to be laid on the communion table.

And then I have thought of the mothers of Fallujah. We prayed for Fallujah before, when Jon and Nora Almond's daughter was there. She is now safely home although in danger of being sent back. But think of the families there. Fallujah is a City – someone told me of 300,000 people, which would make it almost twice the size of Providence. Some women and children got out, but not all. Probably mothers with sick children do not get out. Anyway - I am not sure exactly what getting out means. If you had to leave Rhode Island, women and children only, where would you go? What does getting out mean?

But what about those still there? There may be 2,000 rebels, 2,000 actively opposing the occupation. But this week there are gun ships overhead. Bombs being dropped. Imagine - your mosque has already been damaged. There is a fire at the end of your block. You hear gunfire in the streets. What will happen to your children? Do you find this to be a liberating experience? These are prayers worthy of the communion table.

You all know I am willing to argue with God. So must you be.

But I am more and more aggrieved at the prayers I carry. Prayer must be a battering assault on the silence of God. Prayer must be joining our voices with poor foreign women.

Prayer must envision answers, imagine hope, find some power that is willing to grant crumbs. I am now willing to beg. It is time for peace. It is time for prayer.

Amen.