Do we think that Jesus is some sort of Super Hero that removes his outer robe and shows us his super J and then flies to the rescue of those in need. Well then we have not read or thought about the reading for this coming Sunday. Matthew 15:10-28. Jesus tells us it is not what goes in us, but comes out of us that defiles us. It is not the fact that we do not wash our hands before we eat (children you must always wash your hands before you eat!) that defiles us. It is not what we eat, it is what we say and think and how we act that defiles us. But then he goes on to Tyre and Sidon. Here he has gone to get away, but a Canaanite woman comes out and asks him to heal her daughter. Now Jesus does not act the way a superhero would does he? Read the passage. He actually calls this woman a dog. He reacts, much the way most of us do, when we have gone somewhere to get away. We put on the dark sunglasses, and the clothes we never wear around our hometown, and we put on that hat we never wear, and go to the town three towns away. Just to get away from everything, but then we are made. Someone sees us and knows who we are and we have to do what we always have to do. And when you are the Son of God that is healing the sick and casting out the demons. Maybe Jesus wanted to be left alone and that is why he went to Tyre and Sidon. He reacts, and the woman responds and says yes you are right, I am not one of you, but even the dogs get to eat from the masters scraps, shouldn’t I also receive a scrap of mercy? And Jesus is awakened with a comment that is not expected, and one that is something that helps him remember why it is he is walking on this ground in the first place. He is here to give us an example of how to live, how to love, how to treat each other. Even Jesus needed to be reminded of it.
This might seem like a stretch but this was a part of the discussion today at the text study I attended with several other pastors. Some of us thought that this could be an answer… we pondered the humanness of Jesus, and wondered about how we sometimes make Jesus out to be a superman, and know he will swoop in to save the day, and we believe he will always be there to give us a hand, but not to be a superhero to save us in our time of trials by taking care of the problems. He never promised us a rose garden, he said he would always be with us, and in last weeks reading the storm did not stop when Jesus pulls Peter out of the water, but when they step in the boat. Jesus and Peter talk in the wind and the waves, the storm raging around them.
What do you think? Is Jesus a superhero, or a human, who needs to be reminded who he is and why he is here? And think about Mother Teresa’s quote of Loving God like he has never been loved before, to remind him how he should be loved…
aSacredRebel 