Crossing borders - and boundaries

15^th Sunday after Trinity     Year B

 Eucharist – 9.ix.2018

(Isaiah 35.4-7a; James 2.1-17; Mark 7.24-37)

Some of you will have received an email from me the other day with an appeal attached. And it’s an appeal which we’re making again in the course of our Eucharist here at St. Cuthbert’s. The appeal is for church members to help us put together a welcome pack for families moving into our parish.

People move in and out of the parish all the time of course. But these people have come a long way, not by the easiest of routes. They are refugees from Syria, and when they arrive they will be joining us with next to nothing. Already a few months ago, a handful of refugee families have been settled in the parish. Now we are being asked if we can help the latest of those to arrive as they settle in.

The lists of what is being asked for are at the back of the church. If you can, please indicate on the lists what you can bring - and then make sure we get it. Many of the items are much the same as we ask for at Harvest for the People’s Kitchen Appeal - or week by week for those who rely on our local Food Bank - dried and tinned foods, toiletries. People are people. To that extent we’re all the same. Except these have lost everything. So you might be able to help with some of the bigger household items they might need. And they’re not allowed to work - at least initially. And the allowances they will receive will be meagre. So they will be hard-pressed.

One of the problems refugees encounter is the reception they’ll get in the communities where they settle. Especially because they may look and dress differently. I wasn’t sure exactly when the first families were arriving, but I realised they’d come when I saw a woman in a hijab walking along Pemberton Road - and then more than one in family groups. We’ve been curiously insulated from ethnic and religious diversity in our part of the country. You might wonder whether you can or should communicate with someone who dresses quite differently and may not speak your language. But I hope we’ll be the better for their presence. If nothing else, their children will be the ones who will have to make connections within the community because they will be there in our local schools.

The imminent arrival of refugees from Syria makes today’s Gospel reading all the more appropriate. But it is nevertheless quite shocking - the encounter of Jesus with a woman of Syrophoenician origin, a Jew meets a Gentile. It’s Jesus who has crossed a border - the only recorded instance of him leaving his native Palestine as an adult. Jesus finds himself in Syrian territory. No great importance is given to that journey in itself. The Roman Empire is the Schengen area of the first century without border checks. That’s what had enabled Mary and Joseph to flee in fear from Bethlehem to Egypt after the birth of Jesus - if you want to say that all migrants should stay in their own lands, then you will have a problem with the second chapter of the New Testament, Matthew chapter 2!

What is shocking in today’s Gospel reading is the response which Jesus makes to the request made by this Gentile woman. She wants Jesus to heal her daughter, and he replies: “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” It reads as a rejection of this woman and her daughter in their need. Jesus had brought healing to the people of his own land, who were fellow-Jews; it seems like he doesn’t want to extend this healing any further. Is it a test of how far the woman’s faith will reach? She persists: “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” And Jesus gives in - the young girl is healed.

Some interpreters of the passage say that all along Jesus intends to heal the girl - he’s showing that Gentiles as well as Jews can be the object of God’s mercy; we only need to ask. Others say that it’s the intention of the Gospel writer to show that the Christian faith would be shared with Jews first before it would be taken to the Gentiles. Still others say that the word Jesus uses for “dogs” is a diminutive - so it translates as “puppies,” rather more cuddly than a first reading might suggest. But however you take it, there’s a challenge to our perceptions. God’s love is not confined to a particular people. Nothing qualifies us rather than people from Syria or Africa to be the special object of his favour. Only our humanity makes us worthy of God’s mercy - and them as well. It’s to other people in their humanity that we must make our response.

Are these people any different from us? I’ve been thinking of the links which people in our church have with other lands. Families whose children have moved to work in other countries or who have married someone of a different nationality. I have a brother who moved to the United States because that’s where the work was - over there he has a partner who comes from South America. One of my best friends here is an American who has picked up Canadian and British nationalities in the course of his travels. Others have left this country to work overseas. I have a son whose research work entails membership of a Danish as well as a Scottish university. None of these people was forced by absolute need to make the moves they did - but many have benefited because they have made their life’s journey.

Perhaps the oldest part of the Bible is to be found in the book Deuteronomy (chapter 26). It’s what to say when you come to make a Harvest offering, recognising God’s guidance and provision for you. The person making the offering should begin: “My father was a wandering Aramaean…” He was a nomad, a herdsman travelling wherever his flocks could find food.

The Israelites were a people who only discovered themselves - and God - while they were on the move. Abraham, the Father of their nation, had journeyed with his family from the region we would now call Iraq through Syria to the land of Canaan - and there he lived as a guest, not by any right. His grandson, Jacob, would make the move with his family to Egypt to find refuge in time of famine. And the return journey would take them 40 years in the wilderness with only God as their guide. The story of faith revealed in the pages of scripture is one of travel, encounter, hospitality and hostility, and finally understanding of the self and of God. Still we are called on the journey. May we know ourselves the better for it, may it help us know God and his purpose for all his people.