Pentecost XIV

Pentecost 14 Proper 18 "Be opened".

The problem of sin is not that we make poor choices. The problem of sin is that we close our souls off from divine love and compassion.

The world would be a very different place if people truly had the free will to choose the good and refuse the evil. The Bible teaches that the will is the agency of the soul that executes choice. The Bible also teaches that the soul is lost in separation from God, lost in rebellion against divine law, and lost in slavery to fear, self will and pride.

The soul makes choices from the place of separation. The will that executes the choice is bound to the place of separation. It is not free but rather enslaved to the fear generated by the separation.

Fear drives out faith. Pride subverts love. And self will is not free will. Only one thing can set us free from separation, rebellion and slavery. That one thing is a person, Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ is the missing term in the equation of life that under ordinary circumstances makes little to no sense. The Syro-Phoenician woman and the deaf man came to understand this. They came to understand that the problem they faced was deeper and more profound than the symptoms of demon possession and deafness.

In this passage of scripture we see that Jesus deliberately chooses to travel to gentile cities. The religious Jews of the Holy Land avoided such travel lest they offend God by associating with pagans. Yet, Jesus had come to reunite people to God and to each other. So he traveled to the gentile cities of Tyre and the Decapolis. And, he ministered to the people.

The Syro Phoenician woman was a descendant of the Caaninite people who had made war against the Hebrews for over four hundred years. The Phoenicians had maintained a powerful and wealthy civilization for roughly two thousand years before Jesus appeared on Earth.
The Phoenicians were rich, cultured, hard working. For centuries they had practiced the abomination of child sacrifice. Carthage was one of their colonies. When Rome destroyed Carthage and conquered the Mediterranean world they succeeded where Israel had failed. The Romans ended the practice of child sacrifice.

Tyre was a wealthy and luxurious city and like Los Vegas today they advertised themselves as the place where you could buy or sell any imaginable pleasure for any imaginable purpose.
The Jews who followed Jesus were horrified by the religious and moral culture of Tyre. So, when Jesus chose to travel there it would have been natural for his disciples to question why. As far as they were concerned Tyre was steeped in sin and deserved only condemnation.

Jesus echoes this attitude when the Syro-Phoenician woman seeks a favor from him. When Jesus refers to the Phoenicians as dogs he is seeking to accomplish two things. First: he is setting the stage for his disciples to gain a clearer understanding of salvation. Salvation is not about God rewarding good people who have earned the right to expect God’s blessing.

That understanding of salvation was common amongst the people who followed Jesus, as well as amongst the religious leaders who rejected Jesus.

Salvation is not a reward we earn. Salvation is the reunification of a lost soul to divine love and compassion. Salvation is and can only be a gift. It cannot be a right. The only real choice the human soul has before God is to receive what God gives. The soul that makes demands on God based on its own works, knowledge or action is still a soul lost in self will.

Jesus quotes the xenophobic insult that the gentiles are dogs to show his disciples and all who would hear and read the account of this event, that he knew very well the depth of animosity that closed off different people from each other, and from God. The purpose of Jesus’ dialog with the woman is not to condemn her but to reveal how devastating condemnation really is.
For the woman, Jesus wanted to lead her to faith. He had already purposed to heal her daughter. He had already purposed to reach out to the gentiles by his decision to enter Gentile territory. Jesus dialog with the woman is a test and an invitation.

Jesus does not test the woman’s worthiness. Jesus tests her intent. The test is: what do you really desire? What are you really asking? The invitation is to open the soul to grace.
Those who believe they are righteous because of their works, their race, their politics or through any action or attitude have already closed their souls to the gift God offers in Jesus Christ.
The woman engages Jesus in conversation. She does exactly what Jesus wanted and exactly what his disciple and his enemies so frequently failed to do. She listened to Jesus. She conversed with Jesus. She opened her soul to the possibility that Jesus was the answer to her immediate problem- a daughter who was possessed by a demon. And, she opened her soul to a new way of understanding God.

The woman knew very well that the God of Israel rejected her people, according to the religious leaders of Israel. But, in Jesus presence, the woman perceived the truth proclaimed centuries before by the prophet Isaiah. The Jewish Messiah would be a light to bring light to the gentiles. He would not bring condemnation, confrontation and conquest. He would bring healing.

Whether or not the woman had ever read Isaiah, when she met Jesus she opened her heart, her mind and her will to the possibility that in Jesus God was reaching out to her. He was reaching out to her in her moment of darkness with light. He was reaching out to her in her daughter’s illness with healing.

Jesus doesn’t test the woman to see if she is worthy to receive God’s blessing. Jesus tests the woman to convict his followers of their xenophobia and to invite the woman into a new relationship with the divine based on grace through faith.

The healing is not a reward for an action or an attitude. The healing is a gift for someone who made a real choice to open her soul to the Living God fully present to her in Jesus Christ.
Jesus re emphasizes this teaching when he visits the Greek city states called the Decapolis, the Ten Cities. Once again he meets pagans who ask him for help for someone else. In this case, the one who needs help is an adult so Jesus takes him aside to heal him.

There is a scandal in these healings. We miss the scandal the disciples of Jesus and the religious leaders in Jerusalem would have felt. The scandal is the scandal of grace.

The scandal is what we feel when we hear Jesus say: "I am the way, the truth and the life, no one can come to the Father except by me." We hear the words in the same way ancient peoples heard the words: with offense and with rebellion and with disbelief.

The scandal is the reaction of lost souls who demand from God that God give us what we want on our terms. We identify God’s gifts with our needs and desires and insist that if God is fair he will give us what we want.

The scandal is that what God offers is not a reward or a right but a relationship. The gift is the person: Jesus Christ. There is no other gift. We need no other gift.

Heaven is a relationship initiated by God in Jesus Christ. It is gift offered to all people everywhere regardless of who they are, what they’ve done or where they have failed.
It is the relationship that initiates the transformation of the distortions of our reason, will and emotions. It is the relationship that slowly but steadily brings light and healing and eternal love to our souls and to every aspect of our lives.

We grow in grace as we cultivate the relationship God offers to us in Jesus Christ.
We cultivate that relationship as the Syro Phoenician woman and the Greek man did. We listen. We listen to God in God’s words recorded in the Bible. We listen to God in a moment of silence where God invites us to meet him.

We listen to God in the words of our families and friends.

We listen to God in the invitation to the altar to receive the gifts of bread and wine transformed into the divine life and love of the co-eternal son of God.

We listen to God in the deepest cry of our soul as Jesus presents himself to us and we recognize in him the very meaning and purpose for our existence.

We listen as best we can to God in the invitation of Jesus Christ. Be opened. Open your heart, your mind, your will to the infinite possibilities a relationship with the Living Lord Jesus Christ offers you now this moment, this day and forever. Amen.