Faith Venture

So, you want to make an important request for help from a very important and busy person. And you don’t feel that you yourself are all that important. You are imposing on that person, and besides, he’s a different nationality from you. But you ask anyway, because it’s really important. Could even be a life or death situation.

Mark records an exchange between a woman who was not Jewish and Jesus, who was. So far, Jesus’ ministry has been to people of his own tribe. But he decides to go to a foreign country (about 20 miles away) into what we now call Lebanon. Trying to be incognito, he is recognized and approached by the Syrophoenician woman whose daughter is ill. She asks for help from the great healer. I don’t know if he was forcing her to assert herself or if at this point he was still focused on healing his own tribe, but whatever, Jesus says that he should first feed the children (meaning Hebrews) and not feed the dogs (certainly a pejorative term).

The woman to her immense credit teaches us a lesson. She stands up to the great religious man and healer and retorts, “Even the dogs get crumbs from the master’s table.”  Jesus, always one to recognize deep faith, heals the daughter from afar.

This isn’t the only story of persistence in the face of authority in the New Testament. But it reminds us that sometimes we have to assert ourselves to God. It may be a test of faith where God wants to see how much you want it and believe it can happen.

Is there something you can do or a disease you can have that separates you from the faith community? Something where the people of God tell you that you can’t come in the doors until you make things right? Today in America, most churches say that they welcome everyone. Do they? Do you?

Moses promulgated a number of laws when the Hebrews started a new life as community in Sinai. Most likely they were designed to keep disease from spreading and wiping out the people. Can’t say they were all good science, but they all made sense at the time. But the notion of “unclean” foods, diseases, acts took on a life in future generations as being ritually unclean. You cannot worship God and be part of the faith community until you become ritually clean.

We seldom use those terms, but I’m sure that we have our own personal lists of unclean where we’ll think that those people should not be part of our community of faith–adultery, mental / emotional disorders, drunkenness, and so on.

As you ponder whether you set up barriers to entry into your faith community, consider Jesus (as Mark writes). He enters an unclean territory, meets an unclean person who is driven by unclean spirits (we’d call that mental/emotional disorders), living in an unclean place (cemetery), among unclean animals (pigs). Whew. But Jesus deals with the man and the situation. He restores him to the community. And people were amazed and frightened. They wanted him to leave before he upset any more things in the order of their lives.

We believe that Jesus is alive in our faith community (at least I hope that you do). If so, then where else can people come to find wholeness than to meet Jesus in your community. And how else unless it’s open and welcoming? And sometimes those of us who think we’re “clean” or those whom the world thinks is “clean” even though inside perhaps we’re not, need the faith community to help restore us to wholeness in God. You can’t be a healer if you don’t reach out.

Sometimes events, emotions, people, responsibilities just seem to flood around us. We even call it chaotic. We think we’re in control. We think we are free people. But in reality we’re pounded down and often at the mercy of emotions of fear, anxiety, anger. We strike out verbally or sometimes even physically at other people. Alienating our friends. Or at best just appearing to be a fool. But we refuse to believe that we’re not in charge of our life.

As we follow the story of Jesus through Mark’s writing, we read a story that addresses this problem. Jesus started preaching from a boat in the lake. Some of Jesus’ friends were professional fishermen. They knew how to handle boats, or at least we presume so. But he sent them ahead and a storm blew in. Scared them to their very core. Storms in a story often represent these storms in our lives, the chaos that envelops us and prevents us from living a Spirit-filled life. These friends weren’t thinking about Spirit-filled life. They were thinking basic physical survival from the chaos around them.

Jesus comes to them, and they slowly begin to realize even more power about the Spirit-filled life. Jesus brings calm to the chaos. He still does. When you think everything is out of control and you are at the mercy of many destructive emotions and other forces, changing the focus of your attention to God brings calm in the midst of chaos. A few slow, deep breaths. Remembrance of God. Slowly focusing on God. And you can feel calm and perspective flowing back into your life. And that’s peace–one of the fruits of the Spirit. This is the secret of those who can be calm and think clearly in the midst of emergencies and challenges. It can be your secret, too.

The teacher was doing some audacious things. He healed people from a variety of illnesses. Taught with an authority not heard in centuries. Challenged the ruling elite. Word was circulating that he was crazy, out of his mind. So his family, mother and siblings, rushed to find him and bring him home for rest and healing.

So the teacher used this as yet another teaching example. When told his family was outside the building and had come to take him home for healing, Jesus told those gathered around, “Who is my family? Those who do the will of God are my family.”

A little later in the story as told by Mark, a woman of great faith who was unclean, that is, outside the family of faith, touched him thinking that by merely touching his clothing she would be made whole and restored to the family of God. Jesus said, “My daughter, your faith has made you whole.” In other words, he welcomed her back into the family of God.

Jesus’ choice of words was certainly meant to shake up the preconceived ideas of his listeners. Get them thinking in a new, God-filled way about life. Think of the spiritual life as a life as part of a family composed of all who are doing the will of God. We watch out for family. We “have their backs” as the phrase goes. We do things for the family. But unlike a biological family, this family can grow. By seeking people outside the family and doing good for them, we can bring them into the family. Indeed, God wishes us to go outside the family and bring others in. Hence the parables about great harvest and others about bearing fruit.

One of my favorite contemplatives is St. John of the Cross. He not only wrote two great books on the contemplative life–“Dark Night of the Soul” and “Ascent to Mt. Carmel”–he also worked tirelessly to reform the Catholic monastic movement in the Middle Ages.

I thought of this while reflecting on Jesus’ early ministry. Mark uses an economy of words to report “just the facts.” He has Jesus on the move constantly either healing or teaching. As he teaches in Chapter 4, he says “the measure you give will be the measure you receive.” Jesus did not want a bunch of passive followers who just sat around feeling needy or wanting someone to make them feel good. Jesus wanted followers who were “not hearers of the Word, but doers, too.”

Linus in George Schultz’s “Charlie Brown” once said, “I love mankind, it’s people I can’t stand.” That’s the prototype attitude of a philosopher, professor or sometimes preacher and teacher. But Jesus turns that statement around. You need to love individual people. Love isn’t a feeling, it’s an action. You actively love individual people by acting–doing something for them with no expectation of return. The paradox is by not expecting a return, you actually get one. You get life with God. Forever.

In the same story about giving a measure, Jesus asks if a light should be hidden. And he says that in the light the hidden will be made open. In this way, when you do acts of love for others, you don’t need to boast about it like the Pharisees, but God’s light will make the acts known and God will know.

So, pay attention to what is happening around you. Then help out where you can.

Sometimes when you are deep in study of the details of a book, you need to mentally step back and remember the big picture. We just celebrated Easter. We celebrate the life, death, resurrection and ministry of Jesus. I put ministry at the end of that list for a reason. Jesus spent 40 days on Earth after the resurrection in constant ministry to his followers. He taught them how to really see and interpret the Scriptures and the meaning of his life.

Jesus ministry can be summed as the Shema “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might;” and what he added later as the sum of the rest of the commandments to “Love your neighbor as yourself.” He defined the latter commandment with the story of the good Samaritan.

Liz Straus writes a business blog called Successful and Outstanding Bloggers. She reflected on the celebration of Easter and the example of Jesus’ life, and asked, “How will you change the world by noticing someone else?” It’s a good question. As we live in the post-Easter time, we need to notice others in order to do good. Our first task is to love God. The second is to reveal that love through the things we do for others. And through that, you will be given life.

Happy Easter. As Paul said, if Jesus were not resurrected, then our belief is nothing but foolishness. The more I contemplate God’s Word and get the foolishness of the theologians and philosophers from whom I was taught in university out of my system, the more I understand. Jesus did not teach a philosophy. The prophets, the foundation of Jesus’ own spiritual formation, did not teach a philosophy, either.

The prophets taught and showed by example a life with God. Jesus taught that since the example of the prophets wasn’t enough to persuade people to abandon their old way of life and live a life with God, then he would offer a more stunning example. He showed the way–probably why the earliest Christ followers were called followers of the Way. It’s a way of life and the way to God.

Philosophers and theologians are quite certainly serious. And reading them can be entertaining (for some of us anyway). But those paths lead to pure rationality. Rationality is important in your life. But first comes the person. We follow Jesus, not because he was rational, but because he showed The Way. Trying to figure him out can be fun intellectual pleasure. But the task of life is to simply follow his example. We follow a man, not a philosophy.

How is your walk going? I know I’ve sinned this week (if the word gets in your way, think of it as doing things that are not what Jesus would do) and drifted from the Way. But the cool thing is that we can always find the path again thanks to Jesus. So today we cheer him, because his example finally broke the barrier to life with God.