seder meal

last night's meal was a success. many of us gathered around a large table and said prayers together and followed a format similar to the Jewish Seder meal.

the great thing about many Jewish pasttimes is that they are so deliberate and intentional in showing how every action we make during something like a meal can have spiritual significance. we eat bitter herbs to show us the bitterness of the yolk of slavery experienced in Egypt. it also doubles to show us the bitterness of a life lived in sin and far from God.

we dip green herb in salt water and taste the tears and sadness of a life lived in bondage. we light candles and turn on lights to remove the darkness and, in so doing, enact the Light of the World entering into our communal and personal darkness[es].

we say prayers together, each of us taking a turn at leading, to show the priesthood of all believers. then, in the middle we sit down to eat a filling meal and talk about Jesus' attitude towards Gentiles.

we looked at Mark 7:24-30 the story of the Gentile woman who asked Jesus to heal her daughter. Jesus then calls her a dog and tells her that dogs are not deserving of food set aside for the children. she replies that even dogs get scraps that fall from the children's table. Jesus seems impressed and tells her that her daughter is healed.

this story causes some discomfort because it does not appear to be the usual, kind Jesus that is more than willing to heal anyone who comes, he seems rude and dismissive. but the core issue here is in the mission of christ.

jesus was jewish, was a jewish messiah and came to the jewish people.

a gentile had no place in that salvation story. and Jesus says as much.

but then something wonderful happens: the gentile woman gets it!

Jesus has been telling all the Jewish people parable after parable and few seem to get what he is driving at. however, this woman, this pagan, gets what Jesus means and incorporates Jesus' image into her rebuttal.

she knows that she is not a child of God's chosen nation and she accepts Jesus' description of her scenario. and in that humility this woman showed what it meant to be a true follower, she showed true faith, she showed the true character of a child of God. she accepted that even a dog in this man's house was better than being a king anywhere else. she was desperate to see her daughter better and took everything Jesus sent her way...even an insult.

therein lies the power behind Jesus' response to her: he acknowledged her humility and rewarded her.

it is important not to try to wash away the offensive elements of this story because they teach us something about the character of Jesus and how we can approach him.

we are given the delightful ability to walk into the very throne room of God and petition the Almighty with whatever we have on our minds, whether trivial or important. the key to the character of the true follower is in the state of humility with which we approach. do we come in arrogance assuming that God must answer our demands or do we come in humility begging God and accepting whatever we receive?

in other words: are we willing to be dogs in God's house or would we rather be kings in our own?

it is not that God considers us dogs but it is important to realize that the Gentile believers came to the fold later on...were adopted in as it were. we are very much part of God's salvation story now and for that we should be humbled and grateful. but we must never forget that the story came to us from our Jewish brothers and sisters and we cannot understand Jesus unless we understand that he lived and taught as a Jewish man. after all, Jesus was not a christian!

the scandal of the message was that, just before the incident with the Gentile woman, Jesus taught that the Jewish cleansing rituals were not important because it is not what we eat that makes us impure but how we live and what we say. with that Jesus removed one of the great traditions that separated the Jews from the Gentiles. with this teaching Jesus showed that a Gentile could be on par with a Jew in the eyes of God because a Gentile was capable of doing good and a Jew was capable of evil, whether or not they washed their hands before eating became irrelevant.

then Jesus goes on to heal this woman to further prove his point. after all, this woman showed that it does not take a Jewish mind to understand the message of Jesus but, rather, a humble and contrite spirit. coming with nothing to offer and with no hope and a profound understanding that she did not deserve Jesus' favour ending up being the very things that so touched Jesus about this woman and caused him to offer her daughter relief.

the arrogance and entitlement of the religious leaders continually put Jesus off and ultimately led to these conceited individuals crying out for the death of the One they claimed to serve!

so, at the close of the tale, let us christians not make the same mistake as the religious leaders of Jesus' day. let us not approach Jesus with arrogance or with the idea that just because we go to church, or sit on a committee, or attend Bible study that we somehow have earned God's favour. all those things aid us in finding out who God is but these things are all for naught if we lose our sense of reverence and humility.

if we come to God seeing ourselves as unworthy he promises to lift us up and show us just how loved we really are. for the dogs of heaven beat the rulers of earth every time!