Sunday, September 8, 2024
/Proper 18
The Rev. James M.L. Grace
In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.
I am a nerd. That is probably obvious to everyone here. One of the more recent nerdy-things I did was watch every Star Wars film, animated series, and live action series in chronological order. According to the internet that constitutes roughly 160 hours of viewing time – about 6 and a half days. Like I said, I am a nerd!
The entire Star Wars series ends (at least currently) with the film Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. This film begins, as most Star Wars films do, with the yellow text three paragraph prologue to the film, which crawls from the front of the screen and fades to the back. The Rise of Skywalker’s prologue is rather odd as it begins with this line: “The dead speak! The galaxy has heard a mysterious broadcast, a threat of revenge in the sinister voice of the late Emperor Palpatine.” For nerdy Star Wars fans like me, this line was weird, since there was no mention of the Emperor or his potential return in the previous film, Episode VIII. It seemed forced, rushed, and at best, a lazy narrative addition for a film series not sure which direction it was heading. Disney executives received some rather harsh criticism over this abrupt change in plot for the film, and hurriedly threw together what was in their minds a logical explanation, which was this: if you played the open world shooter game Fortnite, at the end of one of the levels you would hear a message from the Emperor who basically said, “I’m back, baby!” Logical, right? Relying on a video game to reveal a major plot development point in a billion-dollar entertainment franchise.
I am about to do kind of the same thing with this sermon.
This sermon actually begins with the article I wrote in last week’s Weekly Voice. An honest show of hands – how many people did not read my article in last week’s Weekly Voice? How many people have no idea what the Weekly Voice is? So in that article, I wrote about the book of Ezekiel, which is a book in the Hebrew Bible in which the prophet has the unfortunate role of sharing some unbelievably shocking news, namely that destruction is heading towards Jerusalem and it is unavoidable. Not great news, right? Ezekiel was right - destruction came under the name of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, whose army destroyed Jerusalem and its holy temple in the year 587 BCE.
The destruction of Jerusalem, by the way, is a major plot point of the Bible. It is revisited time and time again in multiple books of history and in prophets. It is not relegated to some cryptic message you get after winning a video game. It is at the very heart of the Bible. Areas surrounding Jerusalem celebrated the city’s destruction, because Jerusalem had become even more corrupt than its neighbors. One of those neighbors was the city-state Tyre to the north, on the Mediterranean coast. Tyre rejoiced and delighted in Jerusalem’s destruction, because inhabitants of Tyre viewed Jerusalem as a commercial competitor. In their mind, Jerusalem’s destruction would only enrich Tyre and its surroundings.
After laying waste to Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar moves his army north to – guess where – Tyre. For the next thirteen years, Nebuchadnezzar’s army laid siege to Tyre. Even after thirteen years, the Babylonians are unable to take it. Tyre, unlike Jerusalem, was able to resist the instrument of God’s punishment – Nebuchadnezzar. It is for this reason (and likely others) that places like Tyre were despised by Jewish people in Jerusalem – including, much later, Jesus.
In the reading form Mark’s Gospel, Jesus visits this same city – Tyre – the city Nebuchadnezzar failed to capture. And once in Tyre, Jesus is approached by a woman whose daughter is sick. The Bible says her daughter had an unclean spirit within her. In your sophisticated twenty-first mind, you might laugh, rebuff, or feel embarrassed by the mention of an unclean spirit. If you are put off by the language, consider a substitute. Instead of “unclean spirit” think depression, schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, agoraphobia. Whatever it was this woman’s daughter had, she was desperate to help her daughter.
If you have ever lived through one of your children struggling, you understand this woman’s tenacity. Jesus knows this woman is an outsider. She is not Jewish. She lives in the wrong place – Tyre. He is not meant to help her, he believes. And he says as much, telling her that he has come only to help people just like him – people who were Jewish, not backwoods gentiles like her. In distressing form, Jesus calls the woman a dog. And her response to him could not have been any more brilliant. She says “yes, but even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” If this was ever a “mic drop” moment in the Bible – this one qualifies.
I believe that woman ministered to Jesus – she helped him wake up and discover that he was called to help all people – not just Jews like him, but even people from places like Tyre. Tyre – that city the prophet Ezekiel dedicates not one, not two, but three full chapters to God’s pronouncement of judgment upon. The city God seems to have written off, the city from which no good can possibly come, is the very place Jesus awakens to his full mission. Like Jesus in Tyre, we all are not fully awake to reality around us. The places in your life – like Tyre – where you least expect to find transcendence – are exactly where you need to be going. AMEN.