Lament Before Reconciliation

            When Pastor Ann asked if there was a Sunday coming up that I’d like to preach I picked St Patrick’s day because of a very clear obsession I have with all things green and Irish. I figured that while this is a busy season in my life, if there was going to be one Sunday in which the sermon was easier to write it would be today. While completing my undergraduate degree in history one of my major areas of interest was in the history of conflict and reconciliation in Ireland. Last week my full intent was specifically to speak to how we go about reconciliation. Then I spent 3 days at a conference in which I realized that in so many contexts in which we may want reconciliation, we’re not there yet. By that I mean we’re not even to the point where we can think about reconciliation. We have not properly lamented the sins committed against us much less the impact of our own sins. Lament must come before reconciliation.

            I first want to recognize that the two major influences of this sermon are two black women, the Rev. Dr. Angela Parker who was my Greek and New Testament professor, and Rev. Kelle Brown, our opening liturgy was taken straight from the words of a sermon she preached just this past Tuesday, at the NEXT church conference here in Seattle.

·      Galatians exegesis

o   Discussion of the law

§  Pedagog

Not a teacher but a disciplinarian.

o   Not dichotomies

§  Jew or Greek

§  Slave or free

§  Male and female

The word used for “Greek” IS Greek, not gentile. It is not a generic word for “non-jew” as if they are opposites. Free is only the opposite of the state of slavery, but a master is the opposer or the oppressor to a slave. Then lets highlight that for the other pairs Paul says Jew OR Greek, slave OR free that word “or” in the Greek is oo-day in rare circumstances one might translate it as “and” but Greek actually has another word for “and” which is kai, and that is what Paul uses for “Male and Female” so in this use Paul is very clearly using oo-day as “or”  and kai as “and.” So while Jew or Greek are not opposites in Gaul who is being written to, there is a rift between them, the same with slave or free. But then when we get to Male and Female Paul isn’t saying ‘there’s no dichotomy” Paul may well be saying there is no Gender as followers of Christ. In fact I would say “gender” may well be the unnamed 3rd concept of that pairing. Each of these pairs has an unnamed 3rd factor that is the oppressor. When Paul says there is no longer Jew or Greek, the unnamed 3rd is Rome. When we say slave or free, the master is not named. Paul is calling all these pairs to recognize their common need and rather than be opposed to one another to join together against their oppressors.

            Galatians means the people of Gaul, and the Gauls were horrifically crushed by Rome, the images of which were immortalized in a structure that is now in a museum in Berlin called the Pergamon Altar. The artwork shows Roman gods triumphing over Greek figures and this is what these Gauls saw every day in the public square to remind them who was in charge. This also explains their resistance to Jewish Christians asking them to change their culture and abide by Jewish law. It is important to be clear that when Paul is speaking about the law no longer being necessary he is not telling the Jewish Christians of Gaul not to keep their practices, he is simply asking them to leave Greek Christians alone. These are two grieving and lamenting people and Paul is asking them to recognize that in one another.

            So with that in mind, I want to read you a poem by Sarah Kay.

            POEM – Hand me downs – Sarah Kay or watch a video of Sarah performing the poem here

            The first time I heard this poem it spoke to me of the Northern Irish conflict. That may well be specifically what it is about, however Sarah Kay herself is Jewish and Japanese, but could be writing about many cultural contexts, where heels have been dug in. One such context in Jesus time’ was between Canaanites and the Hebrew people. I want to read this Gospel text for you from the New Revised Standard Version, I am intentionally leaving the instances of the world “Lord” in where the Canaanite woman uses the word and I hope the purpose of doing so is evident in the reading.

Matt. 15:21   Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” 23 But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” 24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” 25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” 26 He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” 27 She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” 28 Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

            Between the last time Jesus calls her a dog and the moment he says her faith is great. What must he have been thinking? The woman is not surprised, that’s why she keeps pushing. This is not an abnormal response from a Jewish man. She has heard some stories of this man, certainly. That’s why she’s here, but unlike us this kind of exclusion and discrimination hasn’t been called out in her culture as wrong or sinful, Jesus has not been built up in the same way for her as being above all of this… racism. So she is having the interaction she expected. Jesus on the other hand is first of all likely shocked by this woman’s boldness to address him in the first place, as well as her persistence, but that doesn’t explain the change. One could argue that he was just testing her, knowing all along that he was going to heal her daughter. But how is that better? To cruelly test a woman who is clearly in distress? And why would Jesus, being God, need to test her anyway? A minister I knew sometimes referred to what he called “Cat claw theology” in which sometimes in these stories Jesus is going about life as a normal human when something happens and the divine claws come out. Perhaps that’s it, perhaps Jesus suddenly remembered who he was because this woman’s persistence reminded him. Maybe we’re just missing a line or two of the story in which Jesus stops and ponders this for a moment rather than immediately responding. Though, whether there was a pause or it was instant, I think a prefer a reading of this text in which Jesus learned something new. This is a turning point in the Gospels, from here on out Jesus isn’t Just here for the Jews he’s here for everyone. The story that immediately precedes this one both in Matthew and Mark is that of Jesus lecturing the Pharisees that it is not what goes into or out of the abdomen that defiles, what actually defiles one is what comes out of the heart. Here the Canaanite woman feeds his words back to him in the learned politeness of a woman of color she asks him “Are you really going to call me a DOG. TODAY?!” This story in Mark actually calls her the Syrophoenecian woman, that is a Greek woman. There is no Jew or Greek in Christ Jesus because this woman yelled at him on the side of the road and got called a dog.

            And so she went home and her daughter was instantly healed. Jesus left forever changed by what this woman taught him, what this woman shouldn’t have had to teach him. Nonetheless, because of an unnamed Canaanite woman you and I come to this building every week. I am certain she arrived home and wept with joy that her daughter lived and was whole. I wonder if she also sometimes wept and lamented the cost of daily life in such a society. That if she should be acknowledged as existing at all, she should have to accept status as a stray dog begging for scraps. She was not reconciled that day, that would take much more of her tears and much more work from others.

            So here we are a reconciling congregation in the United Methodist Church in March 2019. We have stood up and shouted “God is for our people too!” In my denomination the Presbyterian Church (USA) we call such congregations “More Light” congregations. There are many differences in our political structures that I know made this an easier vote to pass for Presbyterians. What I can tell you however is that we are not at reconciliation either. Shouting on the side of the rode “More Light” churches were first ignored, then called names, then their great faith was suddenly acknowledged. Yet are the wounds healed? The first General Assembly after votes for full inclusion passed there was a vote to issue a full apology to LGBTQIA+ folks in the church. This did not pass. I remember plenty of older straight allies being frustrated with this, thinking that this immediate apology was justice. My LGBTQIA+ friends in the denomination however felt differently. Not enough time has passed, not to mention they were not interested in voting to apologize to themselves. Allies of every stripe need to do some soul searching before such an apology, we need to truly understand what we’re apologizing for and properly lament the consequences of our actions. As Rev. Brown says “Why is reconciliation in our mouths if we cannot tell the truth?”

            My major research project relating to reconciliation in Northern Ireland was called “Not Just a Black and White Issue: Integrating the Green and Orange of Northern Ireland’s Schools” there is a tiny integrated education movement in Northern Ireland that educates only about 6% of the school-age population. It began because one day a woman named Cecil Linehan in 1972 wrote a letter to the editor asking if there might be other parents out there who needed to find a better way forward for their children. She partnered with other Catholic parents and they began to teach religious education to their children themselves so that they could send their children to the state run schools rather than the Catholic schools. They quickly learned this was not enough. The government insisted that their schools WERE integrated, anyone could attend there. What the parents learned however is that their children were essentially hanging up their Irish Catholic identities at the door, pretending to be unionist protestants at school. Their friends in the Catholic schools were learning the Irish language but they wouldn’t dare speak that in a state school. These parents eventually opened the first integrated school in 1981 that was required to maintain ratios of all the populations evident in the region, so not just Catholic and Protestant but whoever else may be there. They were required to learn about one-another’s religions and the Irish language was offered as an elective. I last visited Belfast at the very end of 2012, there were major protests about when and were it was okay to display the union flag, a car bomb detonated just barely after I left the city. It is suspected that some of the continuing violence are teenagers who have romanticized the troubles. There are Communities like Corrymeela that are shared spaces where youth now come to speak of their trauma and family stories on both sides of the conflict. They learn to hear one another. The Irish, both Catholic and Protestant, know how to lament, these spaces become places where they learn to lament together, where they hear the stories of the other and stop romanticizing the violence of their own side. What we might consider the troubles that used to dominate the news have ended, but there is not yet a generation in Northern Ireland that has not been affected by them.

            I hope this twofold sense of lament has been heard. We need to properly feel the consequences of the hurt we have caused. In a racial context I need us to understand that this does not amount to white guilt. Guilt over race and privilege stalls us, prevents us from moving to action. If we are stalled in guilt then we will seek to rid ourselves of discomfort, rather than taking it on. When we sit in guilt we make the story about ourselves, how bad WE feel for what has been done to “the other”. When we lament we seek to truly understand the consequences of our actions and those of our ancestors and move toward change. That’s one form of lament. On the other side we must lament those ways in which we have been harmed and not seek resolution either in revenge or premature reconciliation taking the short cut to the high road. The healing is in the journey, if we jump to Easter without sitting in the lament of lent we will arrive with all our wounds still open, still hurting, and we’ll miss the point. May we seek and find God’s presence in the wilderness this lent. Amen.