"Jesus The Devil's Advocate" September 6, 2015

Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23 Mark 7: 24-37 Friday evening we were at Mirbeau a 5 Star Spa for a Rehearsal Dinner with all the Bridal Party and Generations of Family gathered together. There were the Parents, Grandparents Great grandparents and 5 great great grandchildren under 3 years of age. At the end of this fabulous meal, the eldest child looked under the table at the mess created by he and his cousins and announced “This place needs to have a Dog!” I fear calling attention to the fact that there is Anything religious, spiritual or sacred in a public place, for fear those wanting to avoid conflict or avoid anything Judeo-Christian, will take it down. But in our community there has long been a plaque on the wall in State Street School quoting Proverbs 1:7 “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge...” However, this is only the beginning of the proverb which continues: “But fools despise wisdom and instruction.” The plaque might be more powerful if it were only the conclusion: “Fools Despise Wisdom and Instruction!” Our readings today deal with “foolishness.” Popular culture attributes gangs, violence, racism, drugs to either a Societal Disease or Family Dysfunction. The Wisdom material of the Bible came to a different conclusion, that the ultimate responsibility for Social Order is personal and individual, a symptom of a crisis in character labeled in English as “Folly, literally being a fool.” Being a fool is not a matter of intelligence, aptitude or application of self; being a fool is being un-wise, despising wisdom and instruction, and the fear or knowledge of God. We do not really know who created the Wisdom Literature, tradition holds that in his youth Solomon wrote The Song of Solomon about his lusts and desires. In Midlife, attempting to share the wisdom he had received, Solomon wrote the Book of Proverbs. In his latter years, with cynicism about life, Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes. At the time the Bible was compiled, there was question about including the Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes, but because they had been attributed to Solomon they were kept alongside the Psalms attributed to David. In Hebrew, there is actually not one kind of fool, but four words describing different levels of depravity, or self-imposed distance from God. First is the Naive Fool, who is gullible, unthinking, without understanding of cause and effect of behavior.This is an individual lacking maturity, lacking judgement that comes with experience. The Hebrew word for this is PETHI. This is what was often referred to as Gullible, not because they were a dumb-blonde or airhead, they simply did not have the prudence to be able to discern. Second is a Self-Confident Fool, the Hebrew word is KESIL, meaning someone full of themselves, and this is the individual the Book of Proverbs speaks against more than any other. The Self-Confident Fool has no delight in the Lord. The Self-Confident Fool identifies himself by three characteristics: His stubbornness preferring to be punished than proven wrong. He is mouthy, saying everything within his mind without control. And the Self-Confident Fool thinks it is fun to cause trouble to others. It becomes impossible to reason with the Self-Confident Fool because his sport is causing mischief. The Naive Fool does not realize that Sin has consequences. The Self-Confident Fool does not believe Sin has consequences. The third type, the Committed Fool, does not care that Sin has consequences. The Hebrew word for this is HEVIL. The Committed Fool is at war with wisdom, believing he is right in his own eye. I have come to wonder if this was what was intended in the Garden of Eden, that Eve chose to do EVIL to Take and Consume regardless of consequences, because as the serpent said You will be like God able to choose for yourself without God. To change Hevil, is like changing Evil, you cannot redirect, you can only resurrect and change nature, his only hope is the grace of God. There is according to Proverbs a level of Folly worse than being a Committed Fool and that is to be a Scorner, a Scoffer, a Contemptuous person who mocks others. In Hebrew this is LUTS rhyming with Boots.The Scornful Fool, the Book of Proverbs says, the wise believer should stay away from, they are proud and haughty, the only hope for which is Judgement. Which in the Hebrew Scriptures was the only end, yet the whole point of the Gospels is that in Jesus Christ, God offer something new. For in Jesus Christ, God chose to supersede Judgement, to change nature with grace. Rather than Wisdom and adherence to the Law, the point of relationship with God became God making us whole. To set the context for this chapter of Mark, we need to recall that Jesus has been going back and forth across the waters, the point of which is not geographic but on one side is Jewish culture, on the opposite side is the Non-Jewish Roman and Greek Gentile world. Different from the other Gospels, in Mark, Jesus is the human embodiment of God appealing to Israel and to the rest of the world. In Chapter 6 Jesus had fed the 5,000 and in Chapter 8 in a Gentile culture he will feed 4,000, so the fact that in Chapter 7 Jesus is being asked to heal a Syrophoencian Woman and a Deaf Mute are significant. Many have heard Jesus response to this woman as uncharacteristic and rude. Some have felt they would rather feed crumbs to Dogs under the table than some people. Some preachers have attempted to Save the Savior by interpreting Jesus did not actually call her a dog but rather a cute puppy. No Jesus not only called her a dog, he called her a female dog in heat bowing at his feet. It was a common racial slur, as offensive as the “N word” or Uncle Tom, or Oreo, or Cracker, similar words of prejudice today. Have you ever felt strongly about the righteousness of your position, but you knew in front of family or friends it would be unpopular and incite trouble. So instead of provoking trouble by defending your position, instead of swallowing your commitments and beliefs to say nothing; instead you play the role of advocating or representing the side you know to be wrong. The origin of “the Devil's Advocate” came from the Catholic Church in the process of Canonization for Sainthood, one church lawyer would take the role of advocating for the Canonization, identified as “God's Advocate;” while the Lawyer challenging assumptions, challenging miracles, questioning the person's righteousness was labeled as The Devil's Advocate not because they believed this but because the other side needed a voice. Here, I believe Jesus takes the role of Devil's Advocate! Tyre was a Port City, so Jesus was at the Beach. He is in a place not wanting to be found, and she seeks him out for help. The culture has identified her as a triple outcast, she is a Syrophoencian what earlier cultures had named as a Canaanite! She is a woman without a man to plead her case in a Patriarchal culture. And her child is so ill, she pleads the child's case, identifying herself and child as unclean. Jesus baits her response, and she fights for the healing of her child. The point is not whether she won the argument, this is the only occasion in the Scriptures where the reason a person is healed is not “Your Faith has made you well” but rather her reasoning, proving the case. She is a model of how all of us, Jew or Gentile, Slave or Free, Male or Female is to advocate for the wholeness of those we love. I have known persons who stuttered. It is a helpless frustrating feeling of wanting to fix the person, wanting to communicate without this barrier. Each of those I have known has felt a level of shame about their impediment, they wanted to hide, they wanted to not been seen, to not be the center of attention as a fool, which the stuttering did to them. Increasingly, I am convinced one of the implicit issues of faith is redeeming people from their shame. The Gospel describes a group bring this man to Jesus. The first thing Jesus did, was to take him off to a different place by themselves. The second was to touch him. Touch is a level of communication, of connection beyond words. Then Jesus does the most amazing thing, the Bible records “Jesus spit on his fingers and touched his tongue.” As children, did you ever have a cowlick that would not lay down, and your parent wet their fingers and held it down, or you had chocolate on your face, and with “Mom spit” it was rubbed off? Have you ever done this to another? It is an automatic response of love and affection. You want the very best for the other, so you put your scent and moisture and mark upon them, making them clean. Here, I am convinced the Revised Standard Version mis-translated the text. In Verse 34 the RSV says he looked up to heaven and “sighed.” There are places where God sighs. But here the Greek word better translates as “Jesus Groaned.” This is gutteral, it is primordial, it is a sound of maximum effort. Afterward, Jesus says “Ephathah” which is Aramaic for “Be Opened!” That is the point, the wish of Jesus for every type of fool, of Jesus being our Advocate, whether for those who cannot speak, cannot hear, have a child who is ill or circumstance beyond their control which makes them outcast as a fool, those who have to fight to be heard, even by representing the foolishness of the other's argument, or those who are Naive to Wisdom, those who are Self-Confident Fools, those who are Committed to being Wrong, and those who Arrogantly Scorn the world.