This sermon was preached on 14th February 2017, two and a half weeks after Donald Trump’s Executive Order 13769 banning travellers from seven Muslim countries from entering the USA. I had been given this troubling passage to preach on, in which Jesus seems to hesitate before healing a foreign woman's child:
From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, ‘Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ But she answered him, ‘Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.’ Then he said to her, ‘For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.’ So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone. - Mark 7.24-30.
I wonder what Donald Trump would make of Jesus’ words here? Let the children be fed first. Or, in the NLT: First I should feed the children—my own family, the Jews. "My foreign policy will always put the interests of the American people, and American security, above all else. That will be the foundation of every decision that I will make. America First will be the major and overriding theme of my administration."
America first.
Britain first.
Israel first.
First my people, then the others.
First Jews, then outsiders.
First children, then dogs.
It is not right to take housing and benefits from our own people and give them to foreigners.
It is not right to threaten the children’s safety by letting in Yemeni foreigners, Iranian foreigners, Sudanese foreigners.
Our safety comes before the welfare of outsiders.
Our resources feed us first, foreigners second.
Woman, you and your child are the wrong religion, the wrong nationality – I am here for the benefit of my own people.
Did he really mean that?
Did she change his mind?
Abraham persuaded God to have mercy on Sodom and Gomorrah if just ten righteous people were found there. Moses persuaded God not to bring disaster upon the Israelites for worshipping the golden calf. Is this what is happening here? Does just one clever riposte make the difference between indifference and action, between misery and healing?
Is this the well-articulated protest which makes a powerful man change his mind?
Was it all a test?
Was Jesus’ apparent insult a way of finding out how much she wanted his help, how much she trusted him?
Like the persistent job applicant who wears the boss down;
Like the lobbyist who carries their point through sheer perseverance?
Or do we have here a case of reading the Bible through the lens of our own age?
As we gaze back through 2,000 years of history, do we look for attitudes we should never expect to see there?
It was back in the old days, when racism was okay.
They spoke their minds back then, not like now when you have to be so careful.
Must we remember the profound miracle of the incarnation to understand what is going on here? The eternal Son, born as a human being, limited by a human body, human emotions, human culture? Was Jesus simply being a normal first century Palestinian Jew?
Did she come at the wrong time?
Was her arrival a few months premature?
Jesus tried so hard to keep his ministry a secret, but the miracles kept bursting out of him,
refusing to be contained within the secrecy he mysteriously felt necessary.
A time would come when Gentile dogs would become God’s children;
When Jesus would send his servant Paul as an apostle to the Gentiles;
When not even the outpouring of the Holy Spirit would be withheld from them.
Perhaps she came at the wrong time.
Like the party guest who arrives fifteen minutes before the start time, diregarding party etiquette.
Like the person who calls when you’ve just sat down with a glass of wine and the remote control.
Like the knock at the office door when you’re concentrating on something.
Like someone else’s domestic crisis that erupts and knocks your week sideways.
It’s not the right time.
But she’s begging for your help.
And Jesus does help
The children may be hungry, but he feeds the dog anyway;
It may be Israel first, but here a Gentile jumps the queue.
A foretaste of the banquet to which ALL will be invited;
A foreshadowing of the time when the curtain will be torn from top to bottom, and even a Gentile centurion will say, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”
Jesus shows mercy.
He changes his foreign policy.
He recognises the desperation – and the hope – in someone who worships the wrong gods.
He allows himself to be taken off course, to be interrupted, by someone who needs his help.
Eleven million refugees from Syria
Many thousands attempting to cross the mediterranean every summer;
Hundreds of children travelling alone, welcome nowhere.
They do not have valid visas.
There is no room for them here.
Our country is not a lifeboat to be swamped and dragged under.
We have our own problems, we have austerity.
Britain First.
It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.
Three point three million Muslims in the USA
Most of them are not from around here.
They worship the wrong god.
A few of them are violent;
A few of them hate us;
So all of them are suspect.
It is not right to threaten the children’s safety by letting them come and go as they please.
Our safety comes before the welfare of foreigners.
America First.
At a school in London a chaplain asks a group of 14-year-old schoolchildren which issue is most important to them. Not housing, they say, not jobs for us, money, or safety on the streets.
What is most important to us is the refugee crisis. They develop the idea of Refugees Welcome Schools. They will teach about refugees, they will provide a practical welcome; they will take part in public action on refugee resettlement. Schools all over the country will sign up. The students join a delegation of Christians, Jews and Muslims who go to Lambeth Council to discuss and offer support for refugee resettlement. The council promises to resettle 20 families as well as unaccompanied children.
In Benfleet, a group of yarnbombers decide to create a 14ft Christmas tree out of knitted and crocheted green squares. Squares in various shades of green, from palest sage to deep forest, arrive from all over the world. A ball of yellow yarn adorns the top of the tree. In January, the tree is disassembled and the squares knit together by an army of volunteers to make blankets for refugees in the Calais Jungle.
In New York City’s Museum of Modern Art, some changes have been made to the museum’s most iconic exhibit — the 1880s–1950s collection. The Museum of Modern Art has quietly taken down works by artists like Matisse and Picasso in favour of pieces from those like British-Iraqi painter Zaha Hadid and Sudanese artist Ibrahim el-Salahi. (Artists from the countries included under President Trump’s recent executive order). Each work is accompanied by the usual description of the piece itself, as well as a statement explaining why MoMA is now highlighting it:
This work is by an artist from a nation whose citizens are being denied entry into the United States, according to a presidential executive order issued on Jan. 27, 2017. This is one of several such artworks from the Museum’s collection installed throughout the fifth-floor galleries to affirm the ideals of welcome and freedom as vital to this Museum as they are to the United States.
Feminist icon Gloria Steinem, star of The Big Bang Theory Mayim Bialik, activist Jonathan Greenblatt and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright declare publicly that, in the event of a register of American Muslims, they will register as Muslim in solidarity with their Muslim brothers and sisters. All four are Jewish or have Jewish heritage.
A Syrian man writes: we left Kurdistan by midnight heading to Erbil’s airport. where we stayed until 4.30 am. Bristol two days later at 4:00 pm. We were received by delegates from the British community which was form of a lady called Gill, the interpreter ‘Hosam’ from Hamah, the driver and two other people. They gave us a generous and beautiful reception that I have never witnessed in my life. They had toys for my children and held a banner with my first and second name and were calling ‘Hussain’s family, where are you?’. We were totally pleased with this unique reception.
They led us to the van and headed to where we will be residing ‘Taunton’. On the way, the lovely tender Gill was hugging my children, Alaa and Bahia until we reached our home where also very kind people were awaiting us. We entered our second floor flat to find all sorts of food, electric goods and toys for my children available.
By my name and the name of my family, I would like to thank the UN and the UK for providing refuge for me and my family and for treating my wife. This beautiful kindness will remain with me until my end. May I also thank the lovely tender/loving UK and inshallah – I hope – we won’t let them down. We will serve this country and its people, whom we will be sharing their bread, faithfully.
Lastly, I wish my children a promising future in this loving country.
A.H.
So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
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