Words of Witness

 

 Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.’ But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.’ He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ But she came and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’ He answered, ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ She said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.’ Then Jesus answered her, ‘Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed instantly.

 

 

 

 

Good Morning!  

 

 For those of you who may not know who I am, I'm Jeff Sturgeon and I'm a member here at Travis Park. 

 

 In the last few months, I have had several opportunities to be in conversation with Claus.  When he told me he was going to go on a sabbatical, I said "great idea!" When he told me that the preaching part of his responsibilities were going to be covered by both lay and clergy, from both inside and outside of our congregation, I said "great idea!" Then he said  "And I Want You To Be One of Them!"  I have to tell you my first response was NOT...  "great idea!"     And yet here I am... 

 

Will you join me in this word of prayer:

 

May the meditations of my heart, the actions of my hands and the words of my mouth, draw me closer to your loving presence God.  amen

 

Do you ever WRESTLE with scripture?   I certainly do.  I like this metaphor as it seems to best describe what seems to happen.  There is a physical ness to it.  It describes the push and pull, the tugging, the back and forth that I often go through when focusing on a specific passage.  What does this mean,  how does it apply to me,  what is being said here? 

 

When reading this passage a couple of weeks ago, in preparation for today, my first thought was yuck!, what am I going to do with that!  But the more I wrestled with it, I realized that parts of this story are reflected in my own story.  So my goal is not to expound upon everything in this text, but rather to share a couple of key thoughts and how that is reflected in my own faith journey.

 

In our story today, we have Jesus and the disciples going into a new area,  an area that is primarily a gentile area, and they are approached by a gentile woman.  And she is making a mess of things.  She is shouting at them.  And how do they respond?  Jesus doesn't answer her!  And the disciples want Jesus to send her away.  Just make her go away.  We don't want to deal with the problem.  Just make it go away. Can you feel their frustration with her? their embarassment? their dismissal?  I can.  And I've had the same experience with the church.

 

I grew up in a medium sized town in Kansas.  It was a good place to grow up.  With out overly romanticizing it, I'm proud of my mid-western roots.  As many couples do, my parents began looking for a church once they had children.  We joined the local Methodist church when I was four and my sister was two.  While I don't know what lead to their choice, I'm guessing that my paternal grandmother had an influence as she went to a Methodist church and so did our neighbors.  Our family was not regular church goers.  But when confirmation time came for me in the sixth grade, I went, assisted by our neighbor who drove me.  And I began to love church.  What I loved were my friends there, that I felt accepted, that I belonged.  After confirmation, I began to go to the youth group on Sunday evenings.  The youth minister was Jim, who was very creative and had us doing a lot of fun things.  I liked it, in fact MYF was the highlight of my week... 

 

Then every thing seemed to be in turmoil---the church, the parents and the youth.  Jim wasn't there at youth group and there was a meeting of parents and church members.  At first, no one would say what was wrong.  Then my neighbor said that Jim was a homosexual. Someone had outed him.  Jim was not accused of any improper behavior.  He was just being himself.  But in a very public way, Jim was fired from his job, left the church and moved away.  The church had told him to go away.  He went.    

 

I can't really say what I knew of human sexuality in the 7th and 8th grades.  But I do know that I suspected that I might be like Jim.  And that the consequences of that, if anyone were to find out, would be that I would be told to go away. That I would lose my job.  That I would lose my family.  That I would lose the church.  And I couldn't figure out where God was in this.  I prayed.  I prayed a lot.  That God would change me.  That God would heal me.

 

Instead of rejecting the church, I embraced it tighter.  Throughout high school I served my local church in many ways.  If I wasn't in school and the church doors were open, I was probably there.  I began serving on district and conference youth councils.  I was a youth delegate to annual conference.  After high school graduation, I went to Baker University, a Methodist school.  I served as a member of the Baker Ambassadors, a group of students that went to churches throughout the conference to speak about the University and why local churches should support it.  My work study job throughout college was as the assistant to the University Chaplain.  I did an internship with the conference youth minister.  I was being encouraged to consider seminary, especially St. Paul's School of Theology in Kansas City. God and the church permeated everything I did and was.  

 

Then I met J.  He was a student at St. Paul's and I loved hearing about his classes and being on campus.  As our friendship changed into dating, we had many discussions about what this meant, how one could be gay and be called as a pastor in a United Methodist Church.  The choice seemed to be either being a pastor and never acknowledging your sexuality, or not being a pastor.  J chose to hide his sexuality and become a pastor, continuing to serve as an ordained elder in the church today.  I'm using only his first initial today,  to protect his identity and because I do not have right to "out" someone else.  I, on the other hand, heard the church saying no, we don't want you, go away and so I left the church and abandoned my faith.

 

The Canaanite woman in the gospel lesson today did not leave.  She was persistent.  She was demanding.  Maybe she was desparate.  After all, she was a mother, and while I have not experienced parenthood, it is not hard for me to imagine, that she might do ANYthing for her child.  And so she put herself in the path of Jesus.  She knelt at his feet!.

 

If you are walking down a path, or road, or sidewalk, and someone kneels at your feet, their body physically blocks your way.  You have't to make some decision about how you are going to proceed forward.  Go around them? Push them to the side, stepping over them?  Ask them to move?  The Canaanite woman forces a dramatic encounter with Jesus by placing herself in His path.  And an encounter is exactly what she gets.

 

Listen again to what they say:  (dramatic, read bible verses)

 

Of the two verses that comprise the conversation between Jesus and the woman, I find my own sensibilities threatened.  This is not the soft, cuddly Jesus that I want to believe in.  After ignoring her at first, he does not just easily heal her or her daughter, but seems reluctant to do so.  And it makes me uncomfortable to see the woman in the role of the dog. 

 

Be that as it may, I know that the author of Matthew was writing to a primarily Jewish audience.  And if I had heard these words as a Jewish man in the late 1st century or early 2nd one, I know that it would have been my cultural view, that as a woman, she would have been inferior.  As a non-Jewish woman she would have been as invisible to me, as dogs in the street.  I would have agreed with Jesus.  I would have said "your right, you shouldn't talk to her."  I would have found her blocking the path of Jesus offensive.  If Jesus had kicked her out of the way, I wouldn't have found it unusual.  I would have had sympathy for Jesus.     

AND STILL, and still, the woman found her voice!   to speak to Jesus!.  At this point, Jesus acknowledges her faith, and tells her that her daughter is healed.  Now, for our 1st century Jewish man, he says "What?"   He does what? for this woman? for this foreigner? for the one who doesn't matter? for the one who's insignificant? for the least?  Yes. for THAT one.

And that is the Jesus that I know.

 

 

Here is a story of one.

 

For the last two years, you, Travis Park, have sent me as one of your delegates to annual conference.  It has been an honor to be of service in this way.  This year, two things were happening that I wanted to be a part of.  First, we would be electing delegates to general conference, which meets next year.  This is the legislative body of the church, the only group that can speak for the whole United Methodist Church and that is able change the rules we all live by.  If the church is EVER to change its position on homosexuality, it will have to be here.  I wanted to help elect our delegates.

 

The second reason I wanted to be there, was that Reconciling congregations with in our conference (of which we are one) were putting forth a petition to expand the inclusiveness of the church which specifically named sexual orientation.  This petition would not change anything if passed, but would be sent on to the the general conference for approval.  I wanted to be there to vote for it.  (put on stole)  Some of us here at Travis Park made these stoles to wear in support of the petition.

 

As preparations were being made for annual conference, a call went out for people to speak for the petition.  Betty threw my name into the mix.  I relunctantly agreed.  I worried for two months about it.  What would I say? I had never spoken in front of that many people before. Would my emotions over whelm me? In the end, like the night before, I realized all I had was my own painful experience with the church and if I was a little bit emotional, well, that was going to be OK.  I wrote a short paragraph and thought I was ready.

 

When the time came on Saturday morning, I found that my feet were made of lead and that I was tied to my chair.  Claus turned to me and said "now", nudging me with his hand.  I broke free of my chair and found my way to the microphone.  The conference hall was set up in such a way as to have five microphones placed around the room.  If you had a question or wanted to speak, you were to go to the one nearest you.  The rules were such that there would be three people speaking in favor and three against on any one item.  When I reached the microphone, there were two people in front of me.  One spoke against, one spoke for. That left me next at that mike.  A lot of manuvering went on as happens when following Robert's Rules of Order and issues are controversial.  It seemed like I stood for hours in front of the room, facing the bishop and I knew 700 people were staring at the back of my head.  At one point, I had to sit down while we voted on a procedure.  In the end it came down to three people had spoken against, two had spoken in favor.  I was still standing at one mike and another person was standing at another mike.  The Bishop looked at the other person and chose him.  Two months of worry and I had not spoken! The petition passed and will be sent on to annual conference.

 

The church and our society continue to tell many to go away.  There are those Methodists who don't want the issue of sexuality brought up at general conference and want it to go away.  We don't know how to respond to the immigrants in our country, and wish that they would go away.  We are tired of the poor and wish they would go away.  We don't know what to do with those who suffer mental illness and wish they would go away.  We blame the addicted for their own addiction and wish they would go away.  We seem burdened by so many problems and we just want it to go away.

 

But that is not the Gospel message.  The message of Jesus and the one which we are to proclaim to anyone who will listen is to come.  Come and experience healing.  Come and experience wholeness.  Come and experience grace.  Come and be accepted.  Come and be known.  Come be in the family.

 

I am thankful that I have come to be in this family.  I did not know that there was still a painful place in my heart that needed healing.  Standing in front of annual conference, willing to tell my story, to out myself in front of the church was the hardest, most courageous thing I have ever done.  I went there to represent you.  But I stood up for me.  I found my voice.

 

amen