Transcript
From Mark’s Gospel, Jesus said, “It is not fair to take the children’s bread and give it to the dogs.” But [the Gentile] woman answered him, “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” O Lord, may thy word be my word, and if my word is not thy word, let thy people be cunning enough to see the same. Amen.
I’ll get to my sermon on our Gospel text, but first just a few thoughts on a verse skipped over in the lectionary-assigned reading from Proverbs 22, verse 6. “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it,” is how the Authorized or King James Version puts it. The New International Version says, “Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.” The New Revised Standard Version: “Train children in the right way, and when they are old, they will not stray.” English translations render this verse as a truism.
But in fact the Hebrew text reads very differently, “Train up a child according to his way; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” The grammar is unambiguous, simple enough that my young grandsons Jack and James and Sam would understand it. A child is not a wax nose to be shaped entirely according to a parent’s or a teacher’s pre-established views.
What does this mean? It means if your two-year old is Yo-Yo Ma, don’t raise him to be an attorney. The world needs good attorneys, but Yo-Yo doesn’t need to be one of them. God delights in that person playing the cello, it is his glory. If your two-year old is AJ Brown, the brilliant Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver (who beat my Green Bay Packers Friday night in Brazil), don’t train him to be a cellist. If you’re Michelangelo and you’re looking at a big creature of marble which has the David in it, not the Nicodemus of his pietà called The Deposition, then work with that creature in front of you to be a David not a Nicodemus.
Practice a measure of humility before the creature. That’s what Proverbs 22 verse 6 teaches, and it’s this radical insight, that a child has her own incipient wisdom, which causes English translations to avoid it.
Similarly, in our text from Mark’s gospel Jesus says things we don’t expect him to say. This meeting between Jesus and the Gentile woman is one of the only two examples of Jesus losing an argument. He never lost an argument to a man; he twice lost an argument to a woman. That won’t surprise any of the women in the room.
The other time Jesus lost an argument to a woman was at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. Jesus and his mother are there, and when the wine runs out she says to him, “The wine’s run out,” and by the look in her eye he gets her implication, You could do something about it? And how does he respond to her, “Woman—gyne, in Aramaic, as in gynecology—what does that have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” He’s not ready to pull a rabbit out of the hat, for once he does that everybody and their brother is going to be bringing their hats to him. But she’s his mom and she’s Jewish. In Brooklyn, she’d be called a noodge. She doesn’t take no for an answer. She says to the people working that reception. “Do whatever he tells you.” And Jesus turns the water into wine.
In the case of Mark 7, a Gentile woman approaches him to ask for his help. Her problem is extreme: her daughter is possessed by a demon. You might be skeptical about demon possession, and you should be. Most apparent cases of demonic possession are imaginary, and the Church and discerning priests are very suspicious and careful before doing an exorcism. Demonic possession is rare. But it’s real. I’ve assisted in the exorcism of an adult woman. I’ve seen and heard things that would make Madam Blavatsky’s hair stand on end.
We memorialize this woman whenever we say the Prayer of Humble Access in a Rite I Service of Holy Eucharist. It is said after the Fraction, after the Host is broken, after the Pascha Nostrum (“Christ our Passover”) and after the Agnus Dei, just before receiving the Sacrament. Here’s the prayer:
We do not presume to come to this thy table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table, but thou art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy. Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear son, Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood that we may evermore dwell in him and he in us. Amen.
Wow. What a prayer! You don’t have to worship at a Rite I Eucharist to find your heart’s blood moved by that prayer, saying that to the Most High.
Years ago when I was serving at St Francis Episcopal Church in Potomac, Maryland, a devout, bright woman came up to me and said, “I don’t like that prayer!” Why’s that, Margaret, I asked her. “It says we are not worthy. Aren’t we worthy?”
No. We’re not. The reason the Lord lost this argument to this Gentile woman is that instead of rejecting his premise she accepted it—she fought fire with fire. “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
“And crumbs?” Margaret pressed me. Yes, Margaret, but what crumbs! All that consecrated host is is the body of Jesus broken for you.
And finally, a footnote worth repeating. The word sacrament is an example of the Church plundering the Egyptians, plundering the Romans in this case. About sixty-five years before Jesus was born Cicero, the Roman orator and philosopher, said that a sacramentum was “an oath of loyalty sworn by soldiers to the Emperor.” The first followers of Jesus who heard him say, “This is my body which is given for you . . . This is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins,” they said that’s what we’re doing when we receive this sacred meal. They often called Jesus “the Captain of our salvation.” We’re his soldiers following him. We queue up at every Eucharist. We present ourselves at this Altar. We make a throne of our hands, right over left. We receive Jesus into our mouths and down our throats and into our bloodstream, our hearts. And we swear an oath of loyalty to the King.
We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table. But what crumbs! In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
