Revelation

Whenever I read this story, I am reminded of when our children were very very small, and visiting Grandma and Grandpa, they took us to eat at a very fine restaurant. The waiters and guests all smiled at the children, until the meal was over, and our 3 year old leaned over to look at the floor, and in a loud voice declared “This place needs a dog, can we go get our dog to eat the crumbs off the floor?” Being at the shore this summer, children thought it was really exciting to feed their cheetos and bread to the gulls. Who cares about signs that say, Do not feed the birds. How rarely do you have the opportunity to feed birds especially wild birds from your hand? And yet, within a minute it was like a scene from Hitchcock's The Birds as there were fifty gulls swarming, biting the children, biting each other. One woman described a gull diving from the sky, to land upon her shoulder, and take the whole piece of pizza out of her mouth and hand as it flew off. You do not give the children's bread to the dogs or gulls? While a very real scene, most of us have a hard time with this passage from Matthew, because like a scene from High School, Jesus snubs and ignores a woman of a different race, then refers to her as a female dog. This morning we confront several very real and practical questions. This is not a morning where all the threads are neatly woven in, and a happily ever after ending concludes the stories. First, Do we believe the world is finite, known and knowable? How do we imagine and conceive life? Is God some great all-knowing, all-powerful, watchmaker god who designed this complex cosmos, this wonderful world and everything therein, only to sit back and watch the performance, knowing everything that comes next; or can God learn? Is God a player in this world, as surprised and intrigued by life as we? What is at stake is the nature of Forgiveness and Redemption and Revelation? Whether God, the world and life can change. Whether Jesus was rude to this woman and her troubled daughter, or whether the established boundaries, the ethics and morals of God should be and can be challenged? Two years ago, we played a significant role in the creation of a new nation in South Sudan, which does not yet have a shared sense of the Rule of Law, or common acceptance of power and human rights and responsibility. Without a sense of shared boundaries we would be in constant conflict over our wants and desires; but then again customs and boundaries have been in flux in America at least since the Sexual Revolution of the 1970s, and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, if not the contesting of world powers in the Great Wars, and since the Progressive Era of the 1920s. All of our current events in Ferguson, Mo, and over same sex marriages, over oil/ national/ and religious boundaries all reference those challenges to boundaries, to what is known and accepted, which in itself is definition of power. Our Scriptures this morning are snippets from much larger stories. Abraham and Sarah gave birth to the promised child: Isaac; and Isaac and Rebecca gave birth to twins Jacob and Essau. Jacob struggled with everyone in life, until finally after conceiving children by his wife Leah, her maid Zilpah, and Rachel's maid Bilhah, Jacob and Rachel (the woman he truly loves) conceive their first born Joseph, then giving birth to Benjamin the baby of the family, Rachel died. Being the first-born of the most loved wife, Joseph is spoiled and arrogant to his family, lording over them his dreams of their bowing down to him. Finally one day, his brothers want to kill him, but deciding not to go quite that far, they lower him into a pit, and after leaving him there in the darkness they sell him into slavery, that he would be gone. I recall, being the third of four sons, perhaps you know as well what it was to be the tag along who was enough younger that the older siblings did not want you around. I remember being at our grandparents' farm in Fulton, when they would hang me by my ankles from the loft through the hay chute. I recall being dropped down the laundry chute inside the wall. I remember imagining it was wonderful to be included as the test-pilot for their tire-swing, only to discover the knots had not been well tied, or the rope was worn and frayed and the tire and pilot would go tumbling to the earth. But often, family members are ignored. It becomes easier to cope with people if they were put away, sold into slavery, dead, forgotten, as if you never did exist. Joseph's brothers live for years with the guilt of having sold their brother into slavery, believing they were the cause of the death of this beloved son. For us as Christians, when the Bible names the death of a beloved begotten son, it connects not only to the crucifixion, but our role in causing the death of Jesus. The point here is not simply how to move on, or even how do we forgive, but is it possible to have a redemption, a claiming of one another so thoroughly that the wound is healed? Redemption is related to the idea of Revelation, that something happens to change our perspective, to reveal to make un0hidden something which changes priorities. Their lives have gone on, with their concerns being only for their survival and that of their father. The issue for the brothers is not “I wonder how Joseph is doing?” Joseph was put out of their finite reality, he ceased to exist. Until one day, this day, when the family come to Egypt because of a great famine in the promised land. Out of need, the brothers stand before the Grand Vizer of The Pharaoh of Egypt. They do not see the man who sits upon the throne, they cannot imagine the humanity of the person in the office, they bow their heads before the power of a foreign government, one with power of life and death over them. But suddenly, the man behind the office reveals he is their brother. The one they thought was dead is resurrected, is alive. There is a marvelous description here, that God used the things we did for God's purposes. It is not that God caused these things to be or God knew what we would do, but that as we enter in, as we act, our relationships reveal something new. The words “Apocalypse” and “Revelation” are not literally about a cosmic battle of good and evil, the end of the world, or a great Armageddon, but literally mean an unveiling of what was hidden from our reality. The Gospel has been retold until the story is complex and rich. Like the Pharisees and Scribes, the Church, Culture, Religion, have often taken phrases out of context to support what we want them to say, to support our morals and values and ethics. The point was not that the Disciples never washed, but that between courses of a meal, for ceremony and to be noticed as doing something religious, the Pharisees and Scribes would wash. Jesus replies to them, that they twist the words of the Bible out of context, to justify when they do not want to take care of their parents, or make an offering to God. But when, instead of reading a verse here and another there, we read the whole Gospel together and allow the parts to inform each other we discover things we never saw before. Two weeks ago, after a series of parables, we read of Jesus feeding 5000 men plus their women and children with 5 loaves and 2 fish, with 12 baskets overflowing left over. 5000 and 12 are sacred numbers in Judaism occurring in the First Testament. Then we had the story of Peter and the Disciples being in a boat during a great wind upon the water, and Jesus came by walking on the water. Do you recall what Peter said: “IF you are the LORD, give me the power to walk on water to you.” “IF you are the Lord?” Peter always has these conditional requirements, for which you want Jesus to smack him upside the head, but instead Jesus says “Come” and everything is fine, Peter is able to defy reality, until he doubts. Here in this morning's passage, a Canaanite Woman seeks Jesus out to kneel before him. Since the time of Abraham the Canaanites have been non-Jewish, she represents the Gentile world outside, even more because she is a woman. But she does not say “IF You are the Lord...” She greets Jesus saying “Have Mercy on me, LORD, Son of David, for my daughter is possessed by a demon.” Literally, her greeting was “Hosanna, Hosanna in the Highest, Son of David!” To which Jesus dismisses her as not part of his reality, yet she brings about a revelation, she broadens Jesus' perspective. At which point, the Gospel provides another telling of the feeding of crowds, but here 4,000 instead of 5,000, with 7 baskets full. Why the same story twice with different numbers, especially lesser not expanding? 4 and 7 are Gentile Numbers referring to the 4 Corners of the World, the 4 Winds, or here 4,000 people, and 7 days of Creation. SO the Gospel describes that Jesus did the miracle of feeding the people again, but his point of reference has changed, a revelation has occurred, and now he offers to feed the whole world.