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Lyrics open us up to God’s teachings

Almost nothing touches the heart like a song. A song opens us to God, teaches us and strengthens us. Through music, we are bolstered in our experience of God, and our faith is expanded.

The musicality– the melodies and harmonies are great–but, for me, the lyrics are really where it’s at. And, when I hear the story of Jesus and the Gentile Syrophoenician woman, I am drawn to the lyrics by the contemporary Christian group Third Day:

” To all of the people with burdens and pains, keeping you back from your lives, and you believe there is nothing and there is no one who can make it right.

Jesus was in the Gentile region of Tyre, when he entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, and a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him and came and bowed down at his feet. This woman was of Syrophoenician origin, and she begged Jesus to cast the demon out of her daughter.

This woman is unhappy. Her daughter is tormented, so she is tormented. The woman’s daughter had some extreme issues that were especially grievous and vexing. This family was facing issues and anguish.

And we hear more from Third Day:

” For the marriage that’s struggling just to hang on–who’ve lost all their faith in love, and they’ve done all they can to make it right again.”

For the ones who can’t break the addictions and chains, who try to get up, but they crawl back again.

To the widow who suffers from being alone, wiping the tears from her eyes; and for all the children round the world, without a home tonight.

Jesus comes to the woman. She says to him, “You are the Son of David! Have mercy on me!” During a lifetime, we all have many hurts and needs. “Help me, Jesus! Have mercy on us.” This is what worshipers of Christ do each Sunday morning when they sing the Kyrie Eleison. The Latin translation is literally, “Lord have pity on us and be merciful!”

By calling Jesus the Son of David, the woman is calling him “Lord,” the ultimate title and compliment. The disciples have not done that–they have called him rabbi and sometimes master, but what the woman calls him is more. She needs his help in the worst way, and so she comes to Jesus with the fullest request possible. She entreats him to her plight. It’s kind of like when a person in the courtroom says, “Your Honor.” This is a certain kind of appeal–with some flattery–but grasping in order to get something. We see this with this Gentile woman. She is desperate!

Jesus then says to the woman, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” We couldn’t ever expect this with Jesus. And the usual interpretation is that Jesus was testing the woman’s faith. At this early point, however, that may not be so much what is happening because Jesus doesn’t put people to the test when they first come to him–he doesn’t play around with their needs, testing them to see how far he can push them around. When he says, “Let the children be fed first,” it could mean something like, “Sorry–as I see the Jews not receiving their messiah, and they were supposed to be the first ones–you, as a Gentile–right now you are simply outside the framework of my first mission.”

Be that as it may, there really is no way to apologize for Jesus. His response dumbfounds us. The first time I heard his response I thought it was insulting. Basically calling somebody a dog? This is particularly rough language. Most dogs in the context for that part of the world where Jesus has his encounter with this woman were disgusting scavengers living in streets and off garbage. What could Jesus mean by this?

You’d think the woman would be put off and go away, but she stays right there with Jesus. She’s resilient, she’s pushy, she’s determined to get a hearing–she is desperate! She then says: “In our houses, even the little puppies that run around on the floors–even they can have the crumbs that fall off the family table.”

Remember how practically all summer we saw how Jesus is the Bread of Life? And, Jesus marvels. He says to the woman, “I have not seen such faith even in Israel.” He marvels because she has pressed into his identity. He marvels because she is coming to him to get fully what he alone has to offer. Jesus then says to her, “For saying that, you may go–the demon has left your daughter.”

And, we also marvel: How did this woman move from being outside of the faith to being recognized by our Lord as being in the faith? How do we do that? Sometimes we casually say, “I follow the Christian faith.” By that we usually mean something like we observe Christian principles or try to model our lives on certain Christian precepts. But this woman is recognized by Jesus even before having any previous context or history for that. She just simply is recognized because she is desperate–at the end of her rope–without hope–unless and until Jesus reaches out to her.

Therefore, this is the center of faith: When human need is desperate, frantic, heated, searching, reaching, and never giving up–this is where Christ’s compassionate is most felt and known and found to meet the need. And, sometimes church-type people don’t think of faith this way. Irrespective of requirements, faith is somebody just being desperate enough to reach out and grab ahold of Jesus.

The Gentile woman makes this leap of faith, and she and her daughter are close to the heart of God. We, also, can be close to the heart of God. We can risk Jesus’ love. We can do it now. It’s okay to be desperate. In fact, when it comes to faith and Jesus, it is good to be desperate.

Third Day finishes: To all of the people with burden and pains–cry out to Jesus! There’s hope for the helpless, rest for the weary, and love for the broken heart. There’s grace and forgiveness, mercy, and healing–he will meet you wherever you are. Yes–he will meet you wherever you are.

Jesus told the Gentile woman this is why he had come into the world. For her–and for you and for me. And, because of it, we see this day not so much as an ending accomplishment of faith in Jesus, but as a turning point and continuation of a JOURNEY of faith–where God continually gives LIFE!

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Jerri Carlin is the reverend at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Lewistown.

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