September 6, 2009 Sermon

Holy Crumbs - (Ecclesiastes 11: 1-6, Mark 7: 24-30)

Rev. Sally Harris

May we, with all our heart truly seek You, that in our seeking we may surely find you. Amen

I had heard about him – his feeding of the hungry, his healing of the sick. I knew that where he walked, holiness lingered. I knew he was my last hope. Let me begin at the beginning. I am that pagan mother – the unnamed ‘dog’ of the gospel story. Remember when the gospel went to the dogs? When the gospel opened its healing power to those outside the culture, the theological framework, the worldview of Judiasm. I am that outsider. Many have wondered where I got the courage or the boldness to step outside the prescribed role of women or the ignorance to speak as a gentile woman to a Jewish male teacher. It was neither courage nor boldness. Perhaps ignorance but mainly it was a desperate mother seeking healing, justice, hope for a very dark, even evil intrusion of illness on my innocent child. I had sought more conservative routes for the healing of my daughter. The prestigious doctors of my day asked for much money only to say: “Your child has a bad demon. What did your daughter do to have a demon living inside her? Or maybe it was you? What have you done to bring such evil into your household? Where is your husband? Have you cursed him as well?” I could not accept their conventional excuses for lack of knowledge. Blame the victim, blame the women and children. They had no knowledge of my heart. I don’t know if they had knowledge of their own hearts. I knew my daughter and I knew myself and we were worth more than that.

So I went to the local medicine women of my village. I thought they would understand my grief, my fierce resolve for healing. But all they could say was “Whatever will be will be. There is no cure for this demon disease. You will just have to learn to live with it. Accept your fate, graciously. Stop complaining. All of us have uncomfortable lives in someway or other. Be thankful for what you have.” For myself I would have surrendered to the wisdom of these women but for my child, I could not give up. To give up on my little girl whose very life depended on me would have destroyed me. I would have lost my integrity, my understanding of love and justice. So I held on to every shred of hope I could find. I searched for cures in strange places. I paid attention to every bit of news that came through the countryside. And in my persistence and in my listening I heard of a man who had fed thousands and healed hundreds. I planned to cross over the border. I planned to cross cultures. I planned to give everything I had to save my daughter. And then the first miracle…. He came to a neighboring village. A Jewish healer, a rabbi who had never traveled outside of Israel had come north to pagan land. Can you believe it? It was a sign. He came to me. He did not know yet that he was led to me but I believed and therefore I crossed the line of all the cultural dictates, because… I can only describe it as a holy yearning, a fierce longing for the wholeness of this child of my being. I could feel within me a deep desperation and a deep trust. I knew I was out of bounds in this man’s saving plan but I was determined to wrestle a blessing from him. I armored myself knowing the insults that would be thrown my way. Armed with my passionate love for my daughter I firmly sought to disarm this holy man by kneeling under the set table looking for the crumbs of compassion – holy crumbs from a holy man.

I found his secret house of hiding. I walked in and knelt before him begging for the light of all that is holy to descend upon the darkness that had trapped my innocent daughter. A single phrase uttered the complexity of my search: “Lord, help me.” The room was cloaked with stunned silence. Decorum had been destroyed. His promise of presence revealed in my vulnerability. The silence could not intimidate me. “Heal my child” I prayed. “Listen, unnamed and uninvited woman. I am busy healing the Jewish people first. You will have to wait your turn” “I need help now.” I cried. “Woman you are like a yelping puppy underneath my table at lunch time.”

I knew my daughter. I knew myself and I knew that this man carried abundance with him. Did I tell you that I knew he had fed thousands? I could smell the feast on him, the scent of the crumbs that clung to him. So I laughed. “Well, sir, even the yelping puppy is given crumbs to stop barking. How about me? Just heal my daughter and I will be quiet.”

And Jesus said. “Great is your faith. Your daughter is healed.”

Like the waves of the ocean that never quit even though the shores seem not to care, this is what happens when faith and hope won’t quit. I believed what I had heard about him and received what he knew about me but I hoped for the miracle of the growing space of grace given by a God, not contained by the borders and boundaries of culture and belief.

What do you feel fierce about in your own life? To what lengths are you willing to go in order to save and preserve what lies within your care? For what are you willing to cry out and challenge Jesus? What blessing do you need to wrestle from Jesus? What blessing do you seek from the presence hiding in the promise of our story?

With our wonderings and our ponderings we come now to this table. Here may we each find what we seek to sustain us and all that is within our care. For here at this table holy crumbs have been broken for each of us and for all of us. Thanks be to God.

[Resources: Jan Richardson & Edward Markquart]



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