Grace Cathedral

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“Looking up to heaven [Jesus] and said… “Ephatha,” that is, “Be opened” (Mk. 7).

How can we open ourselves to God?[1] When we go beyond the way others experience us, beyond who we think we are, we will encounter God. Today I am going to offer two pictures of this openness the first from Mark’s story of the Syrophoenician mother and the second from the ancient Book of Proverbs.

A couple of weeks ago my wife and I got our twenty-three year old Toyota minivan smogchecked and began driving to the peninsula to pick up some used lawn furniture. Not far after 19^th Avenue becomes Highway 280 we were moving along at a brisk 70 mile per hour clip. Suddenly we heard an explosive thonk and found ourselves covered in broken glass from our windshield. In the chaos I still didn’t even understand what was happening but Heidi had already switched on the emergency lights. Steadily honking the horn and looking under and around the upright hood, she pulled over to the small shoulder at the center of the freeway.

Disoriented, I looked over my right shoulder as traffic passed us at 80 miles per hour. When I turned my attention back into the car, Heidi had already gotten out the driver side door and was standing on the center divider slamming the hood down, once and again and again. Then I saw her hands move the bent windshield wipers out of the way. She slammed the hood and this time it stayed down. Completely composed she put the car in gear and carefully made her way across four lanes of traffic until we were off the highway driving slowly along surface streets to a car repair shop.

Jesus and the Book of Proverbs teach that faith is not a matter of believing something but the kind of courage, boldness, composure, intelligence and a willingness to face risks in a desperate situation that Heidi exemplified that afternoon.

1. This week I have been haunted by a newspaper article that begins with these words. “No education beyond the sixth grade. No employment in most workplaces and no access to public spaces like parks, gyms and salons. No long-distance travel if unaccompanied by a male relative. No leaving home if not covered from head to toe. And now, the sound of a woman’s voice outside the home has been outlawed in Afghanistan, according to a 114-page manifesto released last month…”[2]

Not to put too fine a point on it but if Heidi and I lived in Afghanistan I might be dead, killed because of my slow reaction to an unfolding disaster. Not only that but we understand so much of the meaning and richness of Jesus’ message because of interactions with women that would not be tolerated under Taliban prohibitions. I have in mind the Samaritan woman Jesus met at a well (Jn. 4:4-26). There were Mary Magdalene, “Johanna… and Susanna, and many others who [according to Lk. 8] provided for [Jesus’ disciples] out of their resources.” Jesus feels such a deep love for his friends Martha and Mary that we can sense it across twenty centuries. Jesus broke down walls in a patriarchal, xenophobic society. And this continues to change the way we interact with each other in our society today.

Jesus always expands the circle of who belongs. This is the Gospel of Mark’s theme. Beginning with the sick, the ignored poor, widows and orphans, people possessed by demons or ritually impure like lepers, foreigners, adherents of other religions even to the ultimate oppressor an imperial centurion who is the first to recognize and say, “Truly this man was God’s Son!” (Mk. 15) – the knowledge and healing of God continues to radiate outwards.

In Mark chapters 5 and 6 Jesus is primarily in Jewish territory. But it is the nature of the healing, freeing work of God that it constantly expands from that Jewish center to include all people without exception.

The place matters. In chapter 7 it is translated as “the region of Tyre.” In fact, “region” is one of the most frequently repeated words in this story. The Greek word for it is horia. It means, “border, coast, domain, limit.” It is linguistically related to our word horizon. Our story begins with Jesus on the edge, seeking rest and solitude in a house. But Mark writes that Jesus, “could not escape notice.” Isn’t that true in our own day too? Wherever you go someone will see Jesus in what you do and how you are.

Without being invited and as an utter stranger and an enemy the woman enters the house. Although Mark uses the most sparse, pared down language in the Bible he uses three ways to describe this woman’s ethnic identity. She lives in the region (the borderlands) of Tyre. She is Hellēnis, that is, part of the Greek religious, cultural and political empire. And she is of the Syrophoenician race.[3]

A few decades after Jesus’ death the Jewish historian Josephus described her people as, “our bitterest enemies” (Ant. 13). Jews working in the countryside of that region would starve to death while the city storehouses that they filled overflowed. They called the Syrophoenician taskmasters dogs. When this woman asks Jesus to save her demon-afflicted daughter, he seems to make reference to this in his reply. “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the little dogs.”[4] He seems to be reminding her about the relation between these two peoples, how his nation continues to suffer and badly needs his blessing.

But then this brave woman says, “Sir (kurie or Lord), even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” In an instant she brilliantly refers to the nature of his mission, to Jesus’ message that when it comes to God there is enough for everyone. No one needs to be left out. Jesus instantly recognizes this truth and heals her daughter.

It is natural to be curious about what to make of Jesus in this story. On the one hand you might wonder if he speaks about the “children’s food” lightly with affection, a sparkle in his eye and gentle satire. Or is he so tired and sensitive to his people’s mistreatment that he speaks bluntly maybe even harshly to her, and then genuinely and humbly recognizes his error. After decades of reading commentaries about this I know that this question will not soon be resolved.

The point of the story lies elsewhere. Here the faith that Jesus admires is not about believing something, a creed or a doctrine or an abstract idea about God or a religious authority. The faith the woman exemplifies is boldness, the incredible courage to reach out beyond the substantial boundaries of human identity. This is the faith that recognizes our need and reaches out to God for help. You might wonder why we do not always do this.[5]

I think it is because of our fear of not being in control. It is hard to break social taboos and the walls of our identities which contain us. It also comes from our spiritual deafness. We have so many distractions. We are playing so many different stories in our heads that we are never quiet. And as a result we cannot hear the truth about our situation or recognize the way we depend for everything on God.

2. What does being opened look like? You see this openness in people dedicated to prayer. You might also see it in the ancient Book of Proverbs. There are several genres in the Old Testament that resolve into three broad categories. The Law (Torah), the Prophets (Nevi’im) and the wisdom literature (Ketuvim).

The Book of Proverbs is part of this wisdom literature and is associated with King Solomon who chose wisdom over a long life, wealth, and revenge (1 Kings 3). The Hebrew word for wisdom here his Khokhmah. It means more than just a mental state but a skill or action for living well in God’s cosmos. Chapters 1-9 include ten speeches from a father to a son about living with virtue and integrity. The majority of the book is dedicated to hundreds of ancient proverbs about family, marriage, sex, friendship, neighbors, money, anger, alcohol, debt. Some of these came from ancient Egypt more than three thousand years ago.[6]

The taliban’s prohibition of public speech reminded me that in the Book of Proverbs Wisdom is personified as a woman preaching in public about the goodness woven into the fabric of the universe. Wisdom teaches that when we act with integrity we are going along with the grain of the universe.

The Book of Proverbs ends with a king (Lemuel) writing about the wisdom he learned from his mother including an acrostic poem describing what a woman who embraces wisdom looks like. “She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue” (31:26). She sounds a lot like Heidi in the driver seat.

How could I summarize what Proverbs teaches? For me the point of it goes far beyond ancient gender roles. Proverbs begins stating simply, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Prov. 1). This does not mean that we should live in a terror of the God who Jesus describes as like a loving parent to us. It means revering God and recognizing our own place in the world. It is hard for us to realize that we are not God. We cannot simply make up our own definitions of good and evil. We need the wisdom and humility to realize that we are not the center of everything.

It’s hard to explain but the world of Proverbs is about probabilities not promises. If you act with integrity, as an honest and generous person, if you love justice, help others, etc. you are more likely to have a good life. But there are no guarantees (as we see in other examples of the wisdom literature such as the books of Job or Ecclesiastes).

Before concluding let me share a few parables. “The purposes in the mind are like deep water but the intelligent will draw them out” (20:5). “Better is a dinner of vegetables where love is than a fatted ox and hatred with it” (15:17). “Better to meet a she-bear robbed of its cubs than to confront a fool immersed in folly” (17:22). “What is desirable in a person is loyalty, and it is better to be poor than a liar” (19:22).

How can we open ourselves to God? When we go beyond who we think we are, beyond the border of how others experience us, beyond our sense that we are the center, we will encounter Jesus’ God of love.

[1] In the sixteenth century Juan Valdes wrote the following in his book The Spiritual Alphabet. “In everything you fear and love, closely observed, you will discover yourself.” Cited in Margaret Ruth Miles, Augustine and the Fundamentalist’s Daughter (Eugene, OR: 2011) 204.

[2] “No education beyond the sixth grade. No employment in most workplaces and no access to public spaces like parks, gyms and salons. No long-distance travel if unaccompanied by a male relative. No leaving home if not covered from head to toe.”

“And now, the sound of a woman’s voice outside the home has been outlawed in Afghanistan, according to a 114-page manifesto released late last month that codifies all of the Taliban government’s decrees restricting women’s rights.”

“A large majority of the prohibitions have been in place for much of the Taliban’s three years in power, slowly squeezing Afghan women out of public life. But for many women across the country, the release of the document feels like a nail in the coffin for their dreams and aspirations.”

“Some had clung to the hope that the authorities might still reverse the most severe limitations, after Taliban officials suggested that high schools and universities would eventually reopen for women after they were shuttered. For many women, that hope is now dashed.”

Christina Goldbaum and Najim Rahim, “With New Taliban Manifesto, Afghan Women Fear the Worst,” The New York Times 4 September 2024. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/04/world/asia/women-taliban-prohibitions-afghanistan.html?searchResultPosition=1

[3] 14 Pentecost (9-10-06) 18B. M18.

[4] The word in Greek is the diminutive like little dogs (maybe “doggies” or “puppies”).

[5] Ibid. 3.

[6] See the brief Wikipedia article on “Instruction of Amenemope.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instruction_of_Amenemope