Persistence!

Text:  Matthew 15:21-28

Theme:  “Persistence”

10^th Sunday After Pentecost

July 17, 2014

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

+In the Name of Jesus+

21 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”

23 Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”

24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

25 The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.

26 He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

27 “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

28 Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.

If social media is all you had to go on, you can be forgiven for thinking that all your friends lead such interesting, fascinating, and fun-filled lives.  They have the best adventures, the best spouses, the best pets, the best kids and grandkids.  They go to the best bars and take their meals  at the best restaurants.  Then there are the reports about the best summer vacations.  There is Joe and there is Jane – frolicking on the beach at Cabo San Lucas.  There is Bob and there is Betty – sipping daiquiris in Destin, Florida.  All is well.  Their friends respond to such postings with a thumbs-up “like” and comments like this:  “Have fun, you guys.  Get back safely.  Hugs!”

But then, Robin Williams dies.  It’s a suicide.  Yes, it’s Mork of Mork and Mindy fame.  It’s the academy award winner from Good Will Hunting.  It’s Mr. Keating from Dead Poet’s Society. There was a suicide in that movie, wasn’t there? And didn’t he bring his comedic genius to our troops in so many USO shows? 

How can this be?  We are shocked.  The news shatters the narrative of all those interesting, fascinating, and fun lives.  “Oh yeah,” our cultures recalls, “didn’t he have issues with alcoholism and drug addiction?  Didn’t he say something about depression?  I seem to remember he did.   He was such a funny man.  How could he be so tormented?”

Maybe if he “gave his heart to the Lord Jesus,” as one “Christian” website suggested, then Lord Jesus would take those self-destructive impulses away.  This came after the assertion that his incredible ability to entertain was actually demon possession.  Why some so-called “Christians” turn Christianity into tabloid fodder is a mystery to me. 

USA Today, on the other hand, took the high rode with a couple of intelligent and intelligible articles on the reality of mental illness.  In the last decade, the incidence of suicide in Robin Williams’s age group went up by thirty percent.  If it were any other area of health concern, said one doctor, there would be a national outcry.  But there is no outcry.  Only stories, far less publicized stories, Robin Williams-like stories that happen every day.  Why the lack of outcry?  It’s because we’re not comfortable talking about mental illness. In fact, we can even stigmatize it.

Of all my uncles and aunts, the one I knew the least about was my Aunt Ruth.  There was little said about her.  Few inquiries were made.  Eventually, we learned that she had been institutionalized in a mental hospital and had undergone shock treatments.  Her daughter, my cousin Carol, a recovering alcoholic, replapsed during this time and died of an overdose in a motel room.  It has been said that we are only as sick as our secrets. 

We can talk about allergies, back pain, heart disease, and even cancer.  Mental illness?  We’re not so ready to pipe up about that.  We’re not comfortable talking about it.  Yet how can this lack of comfort provide any help to the fifteen to thirty of you, here this morning, statistically, who know the pain of mental illness, anxiety, panic attacks, post-traumatic stress syndrome, and/or suicidal ideation?

A long, long time ago, there was a woman who set out to get some help, some comfort, some healing.   There is a determination in her – a persistence, if you will – that is running at warp speed.  Eventually, that determination is going to run into Jesus!

We just heard about her in today’s Gospel, and what was her motivation?  Love.  She was a mother; she loved her daughter.  Her daughter was “suffering terribly”, we are told, with demon possession.  Another translation has it that this daughter was “tormented night and day” with her condition.

This is the point where the skeptics tend to speak up.  Obviously, the people in Jesus day had yet to learn what we know now about mental illness.  Scientific and psychological inquiry has taken all the religious superstition out of it, so it was probably a severe depression that this daughter suffered from. 

Sure, we have taken the superstition out of it – to a degree.  But it’s full-steam ahead with the stigmatizing of it – even in Christian circles.  On the matter of demonic possession (and there are several accounts of such in the gospels), if you’d like further ready and study, pick up M. Scott Peck’s People of the Lie.  The follow-up volume to that is called Angels and Demons.  Peck’s writings are as fascinating as they are difficult.  Most noteworthy is that he went into his experiences very skeptical of possession.  He was something of an agnostic; he paid little attention to Christianity in his field of study.  But then he had some experiences with patients that changed his mind, and the books are about those experiences. 

The mother’s chances of securing help, quite realistically, were pretty slim.  First, she was a woman.  That was bad enough in Jesus day.  Second, she was talking in public, and that was essentially a no-no.  Third, she was a Canaanite woman, and that introduced the whole matter of racial tension.   In a way, she was like an American Indian under President Andrew Jackson’s administration:  she was best kept on a reservation.  Fourth, her daughter was being tormented by a demon.  The basic view, back then, was that such a person like this daughter suffered because his/her parents had committed some sin. 

She had all those strikes against her.  I can completely understand why she might, if she could have, done a “Thelma and Louise”:  she would take her daughter and drive the car of her miserable life right over the cliff.

But that’s not what happened.  Instead, she speaks up:  “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.”  Jesus said nothing.  Oh my, that had to be another slap in the face to her.  Not to be deterred by a Jesus who appeared to be rude, she persists.  Then she has to deal with the disciples who don’t want Jesus to be bothered by this poor, unfortunate soul and her tormented daughter. 

Somewhere in that mix of events, Jesus declares:  “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”  Again, that’s seemingly another strike against the woman.  The implication being:  “There will be no comfort for you, ma’am, because you are not of the chosen race.”

Still she persists.  “Lord, help me.”  You can almost feel the determination in her voice.  Jesus replied:  “It’s not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”  (I think, when Jesus said that, that he may have sounded like “The Church Lady” from old episodes of Saturday Night Live!)  But, if taken seriously, there is no middle ground with that statement.  It’s either the most terrible, awful thing that Jesus ever could possibly say, or it’s Jesus poking fun at the ostracizing and stigmatization of her and her daughter’s condition by making it seem that he was perpetuating it. 

The woman sensed the latter.  She stuck it right back to Jesus and said:  “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” 

She had Jesus right in the palm of her hand.  Our Lord said:  “Woman, you have great faith.  Your request is granted.”  And her daughter was healed.

This isn’t a story about healing, or depression, or demon-possession, or race, or gender, or religion, or spirituality.  It’s about faith – determined, dogged, persistent faith.  It’s a faith that actually draws strength from every setback.  It’s faith that there is God in this world, there is goodness in this world, there is mercy in this world even when all the evidence seems to suggest otherwise.  It’s a faith that walks with God, gets angry with God, laughs with God, knows with God, depends on God. 

It’s a faith that expresses itself not so much through social media postings but through love – love for those who suffer, love for those who are ostracized and stigmatized, love for those who are too weak to speak for themselves, love for those battered by the world of self-righteous religion. 

It is this kind of faith that can get people – and even congregations! – out of neutral and into gear. It is the faith of the cross and the empty tomb.  It is the faith that Jesus marveled at.  It is the gift of God.

Amen.