"Universal Human Dignity" - Pentecost 18B

Genesis 39:1-23

All of us know what it is like to be unjustly accused and all of us know what is like not to be believed.

You have all seen those lists of “the weirdest laws you never knew existed in your state -- they’re quirky, they’re fun, and after reading [Kastilia Madrano’s research into them on the travel website Thrillist], I can tell you they’re about 95% bogus.”1

But there is one weird law that I absolutely know to be true from personal experience.  If you ever drive into Chicago and park your car more than 12 inches from the curb you’ll get a ticket.  This little lesson cost me $25 and now I carry a t-square and chalk with me so the traffic attendant and I know that I am close enough to the curb.

I was enraged when I found that orange envelope on my windshield but even more furious when my partner’s cousin parked his huge Chevy pick-up that he uses to haul his Airstream that is much larger than  my Suburu Forester.  His truck stuck out so far into the traffic lanes that it almost crossed the double line.

That is minor stuff.  But this week in particular we are dealing with some serious accusations.  Whether it be of a shortstop for the Chicago Cubs or a Supreme Court nominee the charges and denials are flying.

I honestly have no idea what to think but I do believe that today’s tawdry tale of an ancient event from scripture and a tweet from a couple of enraged fans can help us look at the bigger picture and higher stakes of both matters.

Today we find Joseph in pretty good shape.  After an up and down start - loved by his father and hated by his brothers.  After being sold into slavery.  Joseph by skill, luck, or another force  has landed a big job  in his master’s house.  Eventually he became boss over everything - farm and field, flock and forest, kitchen and kitchen utensils. Joseph was so in charge that his master eventually had very little to do with any of the day to day machinations of his domain.  Think Carson’s relation to Lord Grantham in Downton Abbey.

I am not so sure that when Joseph rang the bell, like Carson, Potiphar and his family didn’t dress for dinner.  Talk about Pavlov’s dogs.

Now we get to the tricky park.

There was one person in the household who wasn’t so much interested in dressing as undressing.  In particular Mrs. Potiphar apparently spent a lot of her idle time wondering what Joseph would look like sans tunic. 

Scripture plainly tells us he was a hunk.  And we post #metoo movement skeptics might be well within our rights to ask:  What did he do to contribute to the situation? Did he walk around with a little extra chest showing?  Did he wear his garments above the knee?  Or, was he just walking around minding his own  business never taking that extra moment to glance at his reflection and say to himself, “Dang it!  Look at you sir!  You’re hot.!”

Remembering that all of Scripture is written from a male point of view apparently he does not.  He sees himself as more mope than model, more accountant than object of anyone’s affection.

Never-the-less he gets propositioned in the least subtle of ways.  Mrs.  Potiphar’s pick-up line is startlingly direct.  (You can’t imagine how worried I am about a double entendre here.)  Joseph’s response to this “come on” is very important for then and for now.

“Look,” he told her, “my master trusts me with everything in the entire household; he himself has no more authority here than I have! He has held back nothing from me except you yourself because you are his wife. How can I do such a wicked thing as this? It would be a great sin against God.”2

One of the great Old Testament scholars, Gerhard von Rad, has said of Joseph’s response. 

Joseph’s statement must ... be understood in the sense that a wrong against the husband would be a direct sin against God. Joseph in addition uses the argument of universal human decency which is unwilling to break a trust.3

 That phrase “universal human decency” jumped out at me. 

Joseph didn’t react to the temptation that was set before him with an “Oh, what the heck!” he reacted as he did because he was genuinely  decent man who had a higher loyalty to his master and to God.

Still it doesn’t look good for him.  This is not a he said/she said situation.  On Mrs.  Potiphar’s second attempt at luring Joseph he flees with her still holding his shirt. 

She screams!  He’s caught.  And at this point she also plays the ultimate card when she refers to his ethnic origin.  “This Hebrew slave.” she says first to the guards and then to her husband.  It is almost like she is saying:  “You couldn’t find a nice Egyptian boy to run your household?  No, you had to go and hire an outsider, a foreigner, a Hebrew.”

Even with all the evidence on her side she appeals to tribalism.

In our divided nation we know this all too well.  In this divided moment we are finding yet another way to place ourselves within a tribe.  

These are not benign affiliations they are malignancies that cloud our judgement. 

If he or she belongs to our tribe she or he must be right.  Evidence don’t matter.  Facts don’t matter.  Getting at the truth doesn’t matter.  The only thing that matters is that our side wins. It is like being on the set of “Survivor” and, if you’re like me, begging to be voted off the island.

Let’s leave the unholy mess in Washington out of this. 

Witness the furor of fans at the Chicago Cubs shortstop being put on “administrative leave” in the middle of a pennant race.  Here are two of the tweets which both echo the same thing:

JATaylor wrote: “Good God, Addison Russell's wife blew him up while the Cubs are playing!”

And, Bones McGee responded: “But of course she did five minutes before the playoffs.”4

What is missing is any sense of “universal human decency.”  The only thing that seems to matter is that our tribe triumphs.

You’d think that generations after the Joseph story was first written down things would be different but they are not.  Joseph is in the clink.  And we are in a world where allegations are believed or disbelieved on the basis of what tribe we belonged.

Yet, we are told that even in prison Joseph prospers.  That is the only grace note left in the very sour sounding story.  Commentators maintain that this happened because over and over again the author restates that “the Lord was with Joseph.”

Before long the prisoner is running the show.  The inmate becomes the warden in charge of everything that happens.

Walter Bruggemann writes:

It is not claimed that because of Yahweh everything will work out.  Nor is it promised that the key actor will be easily saved from trouble.  But the narrative offers an understanding ... that there is and inscrutable power for life at work in spite of everything human cleverness devises.5   

Prison will not be the end for Joseph because there is more to his story.  His words, and deeds, and dream lives on.

Prison wasn’t the end for Bonhoeffer, his The Cost of Discipleship, written in a Nazi prison, has become a must read classic. 

Prison wasn’t the end for Dr.  Martin Luther King who in his Letters from a Birmingham Jail, still speaks to those who are “more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice.” 6

Prison wasn’t the end for Nelson Mandella who went from being a prisoner to the president of his country.

The Lord was with these servants in their travail and the Lord will be with us through these troubled times until God’s deepest desire for a sense of “universal human decency” is restored among God’s people.

No matter our tribe let us all strive to be the first in line for God’s good restoration project.

Thanks for listening.

__________

1.  Kastalia Medrano, "The Weirdest Law We Could Track Down in All 50 States," Thrillist, April 27, 2018, , accessed September 22, 2018, https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/weird-state-laws#.

2.  Genesis 39:8-9.  (TLB) [TLB=The Living Bible]

3.  Gerhard VonRad, "Joseph's Temptation," trans. John H. Marks, in Genesis: A Commentary (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1961), p. 360.

4.   Liz Roscher, "Addison Russell Put on Leave after Ex-wife's Allegations of Physical, Mental Abuse," Yahoo! Sports, September 21, 2018, , accessed September 22, 2018, https://sports.yahoo.com/addison-russells-ex-wife-accuses-physical-mental-abuse-blog-post-143802823.html.

5.  Walter Brueggemann, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, ed. James Luther Mays and Patrick D. Miller (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1982), 317.

6.  Martin Luther King, Letter from Birmingham Jail. The Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute. Archived from the original on January 9, 2013. Retrieved September 22, 2018.

"Dogged Determination" - Pentecost 16B

"Dogged Determination"

Saint Mark 7:24-27

I am currently between dogs and as one who loves them that is a terrible place to be.

Except for several months a few years ago there has been a dog in my life since before I can remember.  Now it has been five months since my last canine kid passed and I’m getting antsy.

Ladd A. Dogg adopted me at PAWS Chicago only about three-and-a-half years ago.  I went there to look at Greyhounds but they couldn’t see me for dust.  I sat on a chair. I sat on the floor. I reached out my hand. I could have stood on my head but there was no reaction.

So I went for a walk and there was Ladd A. Dogg, a Border Collie/Labrador mix (or Bord-a-Dor as we called her) staring at me with the brownest of brown eyes and wagging her tail.  It was love at first sight.  Unfortunately it was also about three minutes before closing time.  I told her to stay put and when I got home I filled out all the required forms.

The next day, literally as they were putting the key in the door to open up shop I was there.  Three interviews and a meet and greet later we were a team!  She took over the yard, the house, the bed, the front seat of the car, and most of all the bed.  She was my shadow and to this day I miss her as I am sure you are missing those fur-suited friends who became a part of your life.

One of the things I have discovered in this in-between time before Saint Francis finds me another dog is that the kitchen floor needs to be swept far more often then it did when when Ladd A. Dogg was around.

No crumb ever came close to hitting the floor when she was near.  In fact, no crumb was ever left on the table, or a even a plate.  She may have been one of the best counter-surfing dogs in the history of time!  She was a living, breathing, vacuum that sucked up whatever edible was in site.

Ladd A. Dogg also serves as an excellent counterpoint to the uncomfortable little conversation between Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman that we have before us in today’s gospel.

We will miss the truly radical nature of this encounter  if we forget to notice where it takes place.  Tyre and Sidon were in Lebanon - the very place where the conflicts between Israel and Hesbollah continue to this very day.  

The bad blood between these two people goes all the way back to Jesus’ day and extends to our own.  The woman and Jesus were adversaries.  Perhaps it was this adversarial nature that does not seem to bring out the best in Jesus.

No matter how many times I read this story I always wince at Jesus’ reaction to the woman whose daughter was suffering so badly that she would risk crossing nationalist and social boundaries to get what she so desperately needs.

I am just a dog-parent so I can only imagine how much more the feeling of anguish and helplessness parents get when their child is in trouble.  Parents have to be at wits end when they have tried everything and nothing has worked.  That is where this Gentile woman is when she, desperate for help, drops to her knees in front of Jesus and begs him for his assistance.  And what does our sweet, gentle, Jesus say in response?

“It is not good to take the children’s food and throw it to the little dogs.”1

We are in shock!  We’ve heard what he said and this is not the Jesus we know or even want to know.  This is Jesus who is almost unrecognizable making us profoundly uncomfortable.

Nobody we know or even know of would ever call another human being a dog.  Nobody we know or even know of would ignore the pleas of a parent on behalf of a child.  Nobody we know or even know of would exclude a whole people because of their country of origin.  Nobody we know or even know of would act like that.  Those words are unacceptable out of anyone’s mouth and coming from the lips of Jesus they come like a slap on the side of the head.  These words leave our ears ringing.

I have always loved the way scholars have tried to soften the words and stop the ringing.  Gallons of ink and reams of paper have been spent trying to explain Jesus little outburst away.

Some have suggested that it was simple exhaustion.  Others have suggested that when Jesus called her child a dog he really meant a puppy.  You know, a cute, little, adorable puppy who wakes you up seventeen times during the night to be let outside only to sniff around the yard for forty minutes trying to find just the right spot.  Oh yes, puppy makes everything better.

I stand second to none in my love for puppies and dogs but to refer to another person as a dog is to dehumanize them.

So what are we to do with this passage?  What are we to do with Jesus talking like this? 

With no other scholars I can find backing me up here is what I think and I think this because of the events of the last few months.  If Jesus and scripture ever offered a critique of our society this would be it.

Remember who Jesus was.  He was a rabbi, a respected man in the community, whom people looked up to now calling another person a low-life.

And think about her!  Who is she?  She is not only a woman who by law was forbidden to talk to a man in public who was not her husband.  Not only a woman but a woman from a country that many considered inferior full of “rapists, drug dealers and other bad hombres.”

Around these two stands a crowd.  While some in that crowd may have been surprised at Jesus calling the woman and her child dogs perhaps another third was nodding their heads in agreement. 

“You tell her Jesus!” they might have been smiling and saying to themselves.  “This woman has no business bothering you!  You give her what for!”  As we look closer to agreeing faces and nodding heads we see the worse in us and in our society.

But Jesus is setting both the woman and us up.  He sees what a strong person she is.  And, not doubt he is the one smiling when she shoots back at him angrily: “Of course, Master.  But don’t dogs under the table get scraps dropped by the children?”2

She has Jesus and all the rest of us in a very tough spot because we have to answer a very difficult question: “Is the Gospel for everybody or is it only for a select few?” 

In this strong, tough woman Jesus has met his match.  He had sparred with some of the brightest and best minds of his day is bested by someone who, in a single sentence has reminded us all that if the Gospel isn’t meant for everybody than is it really isn’t any good for anybody? 

The Gospel isn’t dependent on who we are or what we are.  The Gospel isn’t dependent on status or orientation.  The Gospel is for everybody.

Maybe Jesus needs to touch our ears too to help us live out the Gospel. Maybe Jesus needs to shout or maybe just whisper to us “Ephphatha” in order that we may speak to each other the way God has spoken to us.

You have probably all seen the plaque in gift shops and those countless Christmas magazines that will soon be filling your mail boxes. You know the one that says: “I only hope that God loves me as much as my dog does.”

And the message of the Gospel is that God does love you that much and even more.  But God doesn’t stop at loving just you and me here in our Sunday best. God loves those people out there in the world who are drinking coffee at home or at Starbucks.  God loves those people who have gone for a jog or to the gym this morning.  God loves those people who are sleeping or torturing themselves by watching one of those Sunday morning news programs with their “Sabbath gasbags.”

God loves all of us and all of us equally.  There is not a sumptuous feast of God’s love for some and table scraps for others.  We don’t have to sit up and beg for God’s love.  We don’t even have to surf counters looking for it.  God’s love is here for everyone fully, completely, unreservedly.

When that is our message I think  people’s ears will be unstopped and they will join us in telling others the wonderful joy, and peace, and love that is to be found in Jesus who welcomes all.

__________

1.  St.  Mark 7:27b.  (NKJV) [NKJV=The New King James Version]

2.  St.  Mark 7:29.  (MSG) [MSG=The Message]

Sermon preached at Our Savior's Lutheran Church

Aurora, Illinois 

September 9, 2018