Kahu's Manao

Keawala‘i Congregational Church
United Church of Christ (USA)

Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Sunday, September 6, 2009

The Rev. Kealahou C. Alika

“Be Opened”
James 2:1-10, 14-17 & Mark 7:24-37

I have a photograph of my grandfather at my home in Wailuku that was taken over forty years ago. It shows him sitting at the head of our dinner table at a family gathering in Kona. He is looking directly at the camera with a smile on his face.

Standing next to him is an uncle who can be seen resting his right hand on tütü’s shoulder. In his left hand is a bottle of Primo beer. He is also looking directly at the camera with a smile on his face.

My grandfather’s sister, sitting on a long bench to his right, has her back to the camera. She has somehow managed to turn her torso around so that she too is looking directly at the camera not so much with a smile on her face but with a look that suggests she is responding to someone who is saying, “Okay, look here and smile!” Next to her is her grandson who is doing the same.

I am sitting across the table from them and to the left of my grandfather and uncle. My brother is sitting next to me on that long bench but out of the view of the camera. Like the others I am looking directly at the camera. But it looks like I’ve got some food in my mouth which explains why I am not able to manage a smile.

The room is decorated with artificial poinsettias and Christmas garlands. I have no clear memory of what we may have talked about that day but there are clues in the photograph that helped me to determine that the year was 1963.

I am wearing a gold-colored tee shirt with the word “Imua” written across the front. It means to go “forward.” That was one of several different colored tee shirts that were emblazoned with Hawaiian words that represented the dormitories and intramural teams we were assigned at boarding school. Kilakila was gray. Hanohano was blue. ‘Eleu was red. Mo’i was green. I received that gold-colored tee shirt when I became a freshman at the Kamehameha Schools – Kapālama Campus in Honolulu.

I thought about sitting around our family table this week and of how my life has been shaped by conversations that took place over the meals that were prepared by my aunt for a household that at one time included her and my grandpa as well, as her husband, five children and another uncle. After my aunt, her husband and five children moved to a home of their own, my grandpa would prepare our meals. One of my fondest memories was having grandpa grill a New York cut of steak every now and then. He would serve it with steaming white rice and canned corn. There was no steak sauce but a bottle of ketchup worked just fine.

So many things happened at that table. In the photograph grandpa is dressed in a pair of pajamas. Despite his smile he is not well having been diagnosed with cancer earlier in the year.

It is Christmas and in the year that followed his health would continue to decline. I was at home from boarding school the day he died. So much happens around our family table.

The tables around which we all sit to share a meal bring nourishment to our bodies. That much we know. But they also bring nourishment to our hearts, minds and souls. It is at the table that our lives are transformed in unexpected ways.

It was a Syrophoenician woman who transformed Jesus in an unexpected way when she caught his attention one day begging him to heal her daughter. It is a story that comes to us from our reading from TheGospel According to Mark.

It is a story that crosses boundaries of class, religion, and gender. His journey from Tyre to Galilee takes him through Sidon. It is said that the tension between Jesus and this woman may have economic origins.

The Jewish inland farmers of Galilee were relatively poor compared to the Gentile exporters on the coast. Such differences may have been a source of hostility between the Jews and Gentiles.

The tension between Jesus and this woman also may have been exacerbated by the resistance of the early church to include Gentiles. There were religious differences.

That she is a woman begging for her daughter in a time when women and girls were disregarded makes her provocation all the more remarkable. It makes sense then that Jesus would be surprised by a woman who would dare to push her way into his presence.

In fact he is so surprised he insults her by basically calling her a “dog.” He responds to her by saying, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” (v. 27) Or, “My mission is the Jews first, not to the Gentiles.” To which she responds, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” (v. 28)

By speaking to Jesus in this way, the woman compels Jesus to be open - and he is transformed. In her response to him she alludes to a table and in doing so she reminds Jesus and us about what it means to sit with someone at a table to share a meal.

She may have been brash and bold in her decision to approach Jesus but by doing so she invites him to be open to the welcome God extends to all by responding to the presence and needs of others. On his return to Galilee a deaf man with a speech impediment is brought to him and his friends beg Jesus to lay his hand on him.

Jesus takes him aside in private and the word of healing that he offers is ephphatha, the Aramaic word which means “be opened.” And immediately the man was healed of his physical ailment.

The Syrophoenician woman may well have said to Jesus, “Ephphatha! Be opened. Open your heart and heal my daughter. I know everything about who we are - Jew and Gentile, man and woman, rich and poor - should be reasons for us to turn away from each other. But be open,” she implores him and so it is that Jesus is transformed.

Today we come to celebrate the Lord’s Supper – to share the cup and bread together around this table. It is a table set to nourish our bodies, hearts, minds and souls.

Centuries ago it is said that on a night of betrayal and desertion and on the eve of his death, Jesus gathered together with the disciples for the celebration of the Feast of Passover. Even amid the betrayal and desertion that followed a transformation was occurring.

That transformation continues for us today. In the first century it is said that “the poor, the infirm, the orphaned, the mentally ill, the alien, and many women lived with very low status.” In our own day and time, “many . . . people still live at the margins of society.” (Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 4, Season After Pentecost 2, Bartlett & Taylor, Editors, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, Kentucky, 2009, page 46). This table is open to all – to women and girls; to those unable to hear or speak and to the poor of the first century - and to those of this century.

In his reflections on the Syrophoenician woman’s encounter with Jesus, William Countryman writes in his book The Truth About Love: Re-Introducing the Good News (London: Triangle, 1993, pages 82-83) the following: “(The Syrophoenician woman) tells him that, no matter how he feels about Gentiles, he has no right to exclude them from God’s love – and Jesus admits that she’s right!”

He concludes by observing that being a Christian doesn’t guarantee that one is wise or right or good; not being a Christian doesn’t guarantee that one has it all wrong. The good news is wherever a person finds it. It visits everyone and offers life to all who hear it. The person we think less favored than ourselves may very well hear it before we do. So this table is open to those of us who are so certain that we have been saved by the grace of God and to those of us who may wonder if God even exists.

This table is open because the God we have come to know in Jesus Christ is open. We come because we know about pain and suffering; we know about betrayal and desertion; we know about exclusion and oppression; we know about anger and fear, despair and sorrow. We come to be restored and renewed through the bread and the cup that we share this day.

There are no crumbs at this table.

Mahalo ke Akua! Thanks be to God! Amen.

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