The Outsider

Good News! There's Hope!

September 7, 1997

Mark 7:24-30 The Syro-Phoenician woman with a daughter distressed with an unclean spirit.

This has been a week we will remember a long, long time. The death of the Princess of Wales has caught the attention of many millions of people around the world. At the outpouring of words that immediately followed the news of Diana's death, I think I was most impressed that Mother Teresa of Calcutta had loved Diana, and had said, among other things, that Diana "was in love with the poor" of the world. And then Friday afternoon we heard: Mother Teresa was gone!

Two women, so very different— one 37, and tall and stately and beautiful— one 87, and tiny and wrinkled and, yes, beautiful, too, in her own wonderful way. One born to great riches, and living in the glare of the spotlight. One with absolutely nothing of this world's goods to call her own, under a vow of chastity, poverty, obedience, and of service to the poor.

[[[Diana Frances Spencer was born on the first of July 1961, just over 36 years ago and married Charles Philip Arthur George, the Prince of Wales, in a spectacular wedding in St. Paul's Cathedral on July 29, 1981. Mother Teresa was born, Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu on the 27th of August 1910 to Albanian parents in what was then Serbia. She was called "Mother" but was a nun for 69 years. ]]]

Two women very different— and yet both of them remembered with love for one thing: they made the people they met feel valued and respected. They somehow carried the message: "Whoever you are, you matter!" And in so far as they carried that message, they were messengers of truth. This world is starved for genuine love. We need to hear the message "You are a person of worth! You matter!"

The first message that God wants this world to hear is that same message: YOU MATTER TO GOD! Before they can really understand anything else of spiritual worth, they need to know that God cares about who we are and how we live.

It may not be the first message the church thinks the world needs. We begin with Lesson Two or Lesson Three. We attack the evils of our culture, and get wrapped up in boycotts and legislation, and no doubt there is a place for all of that and much, much more. (After all, Mother Teresa took every occasion she could to speak out against abortion. But first she paid her dues; first she saw in every face she met the image of God— her base from which she worked was: YOU MATTER TO GOD!) We tell the world "Change the way you're living, and God will accept you, and you will be saved!" We say, "Confess your sins— and turn to Jesus and be saved!" and of course this is the very heart of what we are here for— but first, "Lesson ONE" is the message the world needs to hear: God cares about you! You matter! You are of worth to Him!

It seems so simple, perhaps. We've heard it so many times. But the fact is, there are times when we need to hear this first word again. But if we, who know our Bibles, and know something of God's love need this, how much more people who have never met Jesus Christ need to hear the good news of strong hope— that God loves them, and that THEY MATTER TO GOD!

In the gospel lesson today a woman, a foreigner, heard that Jesus was nearby, in the coastal town of Tyre. This woman was an outsider so far as the pious Jews were concerned. She had two big strikes against her, maybe even three. She was a woman in a society where all the religious leaders were male; she was a Syrophoenecian, a sort of half-breed foreigner who was despised by the pure orthodox Hebrews. This woman had a daughter in deep trouble, deep spiritual trouble.

This outsider thought she saw in Jesus that same quality we have been speaking about— the love and respect for all people that drew people to Diana and Mother Teresa. Jesus had actually crossed a political and religious boundary in entering Tyre, a city in Gentile territory. It seems as though Jesus was trying to get a little down time— a tiny vacation, but it doesn't work and people flood in to ask for his help.

The Syrophoenecian woman came to where Jesus was trying to rest, and she watched for a while as people came and went, and saw his kindness and power and healing compassion. Then she, too, asks for help with those who are breaking into his time of rest.

Mark doesn't tell us, but Matthew does, that this woman was noisily bothering the disciples and that they wanted Jesus to send her away. He doesn't do that however, and I wonder if maybe the interesting interchange between Jesus and the woman is more for the disciples (read "us") than it was for the woman.

But this "outsider" saw what we all will see if we will look and live— she saw that no one who ever came to Jesus was turned away, except those who came in hypocrisy to defeat Him. By his own words we know "The one that comes to me I will in no way (ever) cast out!" This "outsider" saw that compassion, and dared to ask for help. And she found that she mattered to God. She got the help she needed.

YOU MATTER TO GOD! That is Good News!

Do you really believe that? You don't have to break down doors and try to persuade God you are worthy to be loved by him. He loves you just as you are! He cares about you! He wants to come into your life and brings HIS HOPE to bear on all that you are and do.

YOUR NEIGHBOR MATTERS TO GOD!

How are you going to tell him/her? Probably imperfectly, if you're like the rest of us. But it will begin with an attitude.

James has some suggestions in our epistle lesson. He tells us that we had better stop deciding who is "in" and who is "out." He says if a person with money starts attending, and we act as though she matters more than another person who is poor, we are missing the message: you matter to God.

Don't get me wrong— rich people need to hear this message, too. Don't despise your neighbor because he may have more than you do. The message is the same: you matter to God!

(Conclusion:) Not one of us here will ever catch the attention of the entire world like Diana or Mother Teresa. We won't have the spotlight in which to tell people that they count, they are important. We probably can be thankful that we don't.      But we will all have the privilege, first of all, to know that fact for ourselves. IN JESUS CHRIST WE HAVE A DOOR TO AN ETERNAL RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD! We matter! We are as important to God as anyone who ever lived!

And then we have the privilege and the duty to begin where we can by spreading the word far and near: YOU matter to God! You are NOT an "outsider" to him! That is the message of our church! Will you help tell it this week?

Prayer

Hymn #543 - Let Your Heart Be Broken