The First United Methodist Church of Napa, CA

September 10, 2006

Christian Education Sunday

Scripture Readings:

Hebrew Scriptures – Isaiah 35: 4-7a¹

⁴ Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.” ⁵ Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; ⁶ then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; ⁷ the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water….

Gospel Lesson – Mark 7: 24-37²

²⁴From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, ²⁵but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. ²⁶Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. ²⁷He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” ²⁸But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” ²⁹Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” ³⁰So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

³¹Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. ³²They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. ³³He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. ³⁴Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” ³⁵And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. ³⁶Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. ³⁷They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”

“Be Opened."

With the opening of school here in September, our thoughts may turn to education – to the process and content of learning. The same is true here at The 1^st United Methodist Church of Napa; it’s why we call this Sunday “Christian Education Sunday.” For most people, education has become identified with job training and the development of skills that will help them land that job of their dreams. We do seek an education so that we can work in the world, and yet it shouldn’t be just to earn money, but that we might also become productive citizens in the communities in which we live.

But there’s a whole lot more to that relationship – more about education and the creation of a truly human community – than just the acquisition of information and technical skills. We wouldn’t be here today if we didn’t recognize that there’s more to us than just what’s in our heads. So it follows that there needs to be more to our education, more to the ways in which we prepare ourselves to interact with the world, more to the ways in which we continue our own education as adults, more than just gathering information and developing new skills.

The woman in today’s gospel reading is looking for healing for her daughter. She’s desperately concerned about the future; she may even be concerned about the future of her people – her community. She is “a Syrophoenician by birth,” the scriptures tell us, in other words, a Phoenician from Syria, and a gentile – a non-Jew. Beyond that we know nothing more about her. Apparently, the ways familiar to her have failed her. For the sake of her child, she’s looking for something new. Do you notice how she approached Jesus? It says that she “bowed down at his feet.”³ She wasn’t above doing a little groveling; and when Jesus (very impolitely, I might add) attempts to dismiss her, she’s not indignant; she begs, comparing herself to “the dogs under the table.” Taking the account of this story at face value, it seems to me that she teaches Jesus a lesson, not the other way around. How very extraordinary!

It is this mother’s profound and outrageous strength that ultimately brings healing to her daughter. Looking at this story as a spiritual encounter, maybe you and I might be able to see what’s needed for us, too, if we had enough confidence in ourselves to truly go after what we long for the most. People today don’t often think of courage as a requirement for education, but only when we’re able to risk it all do we really open ourselves to the deepest truths, to the wisdom that will sustain both our individual humanity and the humanity of our communities.

According to Isaiah, when the deaf hear and the blind see we may know that God is present.⁴ In spite of the anachronistic allusion to “demonic possession” and its primitive treatment in both of our stories here from Mark, the fact is that the man in our second story today was only able to speak clearly when he could hear clearly. I don’t take either one of these stories literally; but I do get the point that only after Jesus’ disciples were really able to “hear” him clearly, were they then able to speak about him so that others could understand. Before they were just griping impediments to his ministry – chasing away children, sick women and hungry crowds, trying to keep Jesus all to themselves. Even Jesus himself, at first, seems to harbor the racial and religious prejudices of the Jews of his day.

Bombarded as we all are by information in this day and age, to really listen to each other takes a lot of effort! With all that we see and hear every single day, how do we know what to pay attention to and what to tune out? Not only are we overwhelmed with information, we live with cultural and religious assumptions that filter out a lot. Just the concept of “progressive Christianity” that I’m introducing to you all has already been misunderstood by some. The first of eight points that define progressive Christianity says this:

By calling ourselves progressive, we mean we are Christians who have found an approach to God through the life and teachings of Jesus.⁵

Some have heard that statement as saying that progressive Christians don’t believe that Jesus was God – as is claimed in the traditional Doctrine of the Trinity. And, yes, while that might be true for some of us, it’s not true for all of us. What makes a traditional point of view also a progressive point of view is that you don’t demand that it be true for everybody else – as it may be for you.

I am about trying to encourage dialogue here at The 1^st United Methodist Church of Napa, not debate. As I’ve already shared with many of you, we are (sadly) victims of a debate-driven society. Debate tries to convince you of the rightness of my position and the wrongness of yours. Debate leads only to winners and losers and, at the most, the grudging inclusion of a “minority report.” Dialogue, on the other hand, strives to do away with the tyranny of the majority by allowing everyone the right to have his or her own point of view.

Originally, the word “heresy” meant “a choosing.” The church has redefined it as “a wrong belief.” I am a modern-day heretic. I want to regain the right for us to choose – even (but, more so, especially) as it applies to how I understand what it means to be a Christian.

When we feel that we’re not being heard, what do we usually do? We say, “You’re not listening to me!” Rarely, if ever, do we take into account the wide variety of backgrounds, experiences and world views represented in our society – sometimes even within our own families. One of the major challenges to the life of the Christian church today is the huge diversity of perspectives that keeps us from “hearing” each other in ecumenical dialogues. The measured statements of The United Methodist Church get translated into short, simplistic and not always accurate slogans that fly all around the Internet. No wonder it’s so hard for us to speak clearly, with a single voice, of the love of God we’ve come to discover in one Jesus of Nazareth.

In spite of how hard that might be, it’s what we’ve been called upon to do. I often feel inadequate to the task given me as a preacher. Sometimes it is, I’m sorry to say, because I’ve not been listening to you. Over the more than a quarter of a century that I’ve been in the ordained ministry, what I thought I knew has changed so much that I know my hearing must’ve changed along with it! Sometimes the problem is just that I’ve not considered what my chosen audience might be in a position to hear. But I’ll keep at it! And sometimes there’s simply no way to explain the Mystery of it all – a Mystery that’s so foreign to our secular selves, but is present to us as the truth that we’ve all embraced already in the depths of our own souls.

It’s at times like this that I find consolation in the stories about Jesus. Because, again, it’s in his presence that understanding and healing happen; it’s his doing that frees people enough for them to be able to speak clearly and be understood. This doesn’t free you and me of our responsibility to bring the “good news” of his message into the world, but it should give us the assurance that the failures of the messengers don’t ultimately destroy the message. I truly believe that in the years to come all of the tangled arguments and divisions in the church won’t be able to destroy it either. The proof of that, if I need it, is just to have us look at the last two thousand years or more and be filled with awe at how the essence of the message remains intact in spite of wars and schisms, bigotry and genocide. There is, finally, more than one way to “hear” and to speak the message of Jesus in and to the world. Progressive Christianity is just one voice trying to speak to a new generation about Jesus and his message in terms that they, too, might hear it.

In every time and in every age, Christian Education has to find a way to create channels of communication. The challenge for us is to cooperate in this work and not be griping impediments or, worse, those who would slam the door shut in the faces of “heretics” who only come seeking community, but with a different point of view.

As the human race we have been deaf to the demands of the “kin-dom of God.” We have been mute to the cries of the oppressed, blind to the suffering of the disenfranchised, lame in accepting people who are different from us. So the love of God has been lavished on us, not because we deserve it or because we’re good Methodist Christians, but because that love is simply unconditional. We should hear the word ephphatha, “be opened,” not just as some directive to deepen our own spirituality, but as a gracious gift. In a word, we are simply offered a healing embrace.

Be opened. On this Christian Education Sunday, let the power of love and compassion liberate you, too, from feelings of cynicism, self-pity, and ingratitude. Be opened to the gift of this day. Let your eyes and ears be opened. Look around you. Listen. The signs of grace are everywhere. Be opened to them all. They are your own experiences of God.

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