Proper 18B
In the name of God, our liberation. Amen.
When I was growing up, my father’s side of the family would often, whenever we gathered, sing songs together. Those were some of my favorite memories of my teen and young adult years. We’d sing hymns, and folk songs, and children’s songs, and whatever else might come to mind on any given evening through the haze of abundant, delicious, unhealthy food and usually a little liquid lubrication as the night passed.
I’ll never forget bringing a friend from Maine home with me to central Louisiana one time, and the joy we all felt as she experienced a depth of culture shock she never knew was possible. She usually watches our livestream here, or at least checks out my sermons on my blog each week, so, hi Rebecca!
But for Rebecca, culture shock has a theme song – one that she’d remind me of for years after that trip. It was “The Crawdad Song”. The lyrics were, “You get a line, I’ll get a pole honey. You get a line, I’ll get a pole, babe. You get a line, I’ll get a pole, we’ll go down to the crawdad hole, honey, baby mine.”
This was my family. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to one of those family gatherings. I suppose they still do it. But regardless, it helped to shape who I am today. And every now and then, one of those songs will make its way in front of me again, and I’ll be transported back to those years all over again.
This week it was one of our favorites that came up every time we sang together, “Me and Bobby McGee”. I thought of that song because the overarching theme we hear in these stories about Jesus – both the story of the Syrophoenician woman and the story of the man who was deaf and impeded in his speech – they both bring up the themes of healing, but through healing, these two find freedom.
Janis Joplin sang that freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose, but that can be a sort of cynical way of looking at freedom. Having “nothing left to lose” can be a sort of freedom, but for these two, and for so many people who follow Jesus, freedom means regaining something that had been lost.
For the Syrophoenician woman, she came seeking healing for her daughter, and she got that. But in the process, she also found freedom from her status as a “lesser” person.
It’s always almost painful to hear this interaction. Jesus comes across as harsh – reserving his liberation for his own kind. And she didn’t even deny the bias he expressed. She claimed it and owned it – but even so, she claimed to be worthy, even in the face of that bias. “Even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs,” she said. Aren’t I at least as good as the dogs? Don’t I at least deserve the crumbs?
It's hard to hear Jesus, the great liberator, speaking that way. But even so, the woman does leave liberated – not just because her daughter was healed, but because she claimed her own empowerment. She held firm in the face of all that was being thrown at her.
And the liberation doesn’t stop there. The disciples saw this whole thing. They saw Jesus refuse her, but then they saw Jesus recognize and celebrate her empowerment. “For saying that you may go – the demon has left your daughter.” Jesus’ followers saw how grace could be extended beyond the bounds that they’d previously thought. They were liberated from their own bias. They were liberated to see that God’s grace and love can’t be contained within the confines of human prejudice.
And maybe that was the point all along. Maybe Jesus needed to identify the social limitations that everyone there assumed, so the woman herself and the disciples around him could all see that God was offering another way. A way of freedom for everyone – not just the select few who been born into it – the few who believed they deserved it.
The next story of healing is when Jesus meets the man who is deaf and whose speech is impaired. Jesus takes him off to a place where they can be alone. This one didn’t need an audience. We’re told about the ritual he performed, and the “magic words” he said. Then the Gospel tells us, “immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.” I love that image. He had been closed off and bound, but after meeting Jesus he was opened up and freed.
That’s my dream for the church – and for everyone who interacts with us. It’s that every person who meets Jesus here will find their own piece of the freedom of Christ, and that through that freedom, they will be opened and unbound. Free to hear more clearly, and free to speak more clearly.
That free and clear hearing is how we grow. And that free and clear speaking is how we help others to grow.
Later in the song, Janis sings, “Nothing don’t mean nothing, hun if it ain’t free.” That’s a little less cynical. And it makes the first line make more sense.
We can hold fast to whatever we want, but without freedom it doesn’t mean anything. To be truly free, all we need is freedom. Not all the other stuff that weighs us down.
And that’s the gift Jesus offers again and again: the gift of healing and freedom. In a world so sick and bound with oppression and prejudice, those are pretty good gifts. In a world filled with “Syrophoenicians” who are constantly told that the good things of this world aren’t for them, Christ’s healing and freedom are desperately needed. In a world filled with people who are deaf to the love of God and a church too often impaired in our speaking to others about the love of God, being opened and unbound is the gift we need at a time like this.
The love of Christ is freedom. It is healing balm. And it is freely offered to us all, whomever we are, however unworthy we think we are, or anyone else. It’s spread to the very edges and beyond. It overflows. The liberating love of Christ overflows beyond any bounds we can give it. It can’t be contained. It is free, and it frees us. Amen.
Comments