Hearing Jesus’ Voice

11 February 2007
Carolyn L Roberts
Luke 5.1-11

It happened in the Disciple Bible study class when we were reading the first of the gospels, the gospel according to Mark. One of the members of the class said they had a problem with the story of Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman. That’s the story where the woman begs Jesus to drive the unclean spirit from her daughter. Jesus’ response is harsh: “Let the children be fed first, since it isn’t good to take bread out of children’s mouths and throw it to the dogs!” When the woman replies that even dogs may eat the scraps the children drop, Jesus tells her to be on her way, that her retort effectively earns her the right for her daughter to be cured.

The main reason this story caught the class member’s attention is that it doesn’t square with his understanding of, his experience of, Jesus. It simply is too harsh, and betrays a cultural bias on Jesus’ part that seems out of place to the Disciple class member. I responded that it was a story I like precisely because it shows a very human Jesus, a Jesus capable of reconsidering, of being moved to bring healing in spite of his apparent prejudices. But that wasn’t a fully satisfactory answer. That conversation has nipped at my heels for the past couple of weeks—and surfaced again as I began preparing this sermon. In the interim, I looked up the Syrophoenician woman’s story in The Five Gospels, a scholars’ translation of Mark, Matthew, Luke, John and Thomas. Their work comes from an effort that was pursued in earnest by Albert Schweitzer and a number of subsequent biblical scholars in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the 1980’s it was taken up even more comprehensively by a broadly-based group of scholars that came to be known as the Jesus Seminar. Over the past two decades, these scholars have focused on the question, “What did Jesus really say?”—a question sometimes labeled as the search for the historical Jesus.

This may seem like one of those ivory-towered exercises—and for sure, there are a number of those towers involved. But it carries tremendous weight for those of us who want to claim an authentic faith that doesn’t shy away from difficult questions. Like, why would Jesus be so dismissive of a Greek woman from Syria? And far more important, why would I want to follow someone who treated others that way? Short answer: I don’t. I am helped immensely by the commentary in the Scholars Version, which says that “[all] statements about the extent of [Jesus’] mission…are…taken to be the retrospective theological assertions of the early Christian community. Jesus himself does not claim that he [is] assigned a specific mission…to carry out.[1,70] In other words, the scholars’ consensus is that Jesus didn’t behave that way toward the Greek woman—but whether disciples of Jesus should extend the healing community to Gentiles was an issue that was not yet resolved at the time of Luke’s writing.

Think now of the scripture we read this morning. There are the radical, discomfiting blessings—challenging enough in their own right, but perfectly consistent with the Jesus we recognize. Blessings for the poor, the weeping, the hungry; the injunction to love our enemies, to give to beggars, to turn the other cheek, and give both coat and cloak—all these reflect a certain, challenging, consistency. But then Luke adds the four condemnations, or woes, and we have whiplash. Is this the voice of Jesus?! This voice that damns the rich, the well-fed? Only moments later, this same voice calls upon us to love our enemies! The scholars’ consensus is virtually unanimous: this is not the voice of Jesus of Nazareth.[1,290] Instead, it is the voice of the early Christian community, for whom Jesus is quoted.[1,24]

It is far simpler, of course, to claim that we are such dedicated followers of Jesus, that we take every word of the gospel as, well, gospel. But that’s a cop-out of the highest order. We don’t have to do the hard work of discernment. We simply look for all those quotation marks around Jesus’ speeches in the Bible—preferably the King James version—and our path is laid out for us. Except, of course, where it isn’t.

Consider the invitation Colby Harmon handed out a couple of weeks ago for the second session of the Open and Affirming discussions. I did’t keep a copy, so this is a rough rendition, but the cover of the invitation says something like, “Come to the next ONA forum and learn what Jesus said about homosexuality.” When we open the invitation, the entire inside is blank. For good reason. Those texts in the Christian scriptures that address homosexuality at all come from Paul or from those writing in Paul’s name. Jesus isn’t reported to have addressed the issue. Nor did Jesus address the issue of women in the church…or slavery…all of which have been or continue to be hot-button items for contemporary disciples.

So it seems to me that the whole business of being a follower of Jesus ends up being more involved, because it also means that we have to discern where we hear the voice of Jesus. Is the voice to which we are listening authentic? Or is it more likely to be expressing the concerns of the gospel writer or the early Christian community? How close to Jesus do we have to be in order to hear his voice? How close to Jesus do we have to be in order to receive his blessings? To know the healing of his touch?

Are we seated picnic-style on a ground cloth with a few sandwiches and cold drinks as Jesus teaches us from the mountain-top, after the style of Moses in Matthew’s version of the beatitudes? Or are we gathered with a huge crowd of disciples on a level place, a plain, listening to Luke’s version, complete with the condemnations that Matthew so pointedly omits? Does the obviously different locale mean that the gospel writers were too dense to tell the difference between a mountaintop and a plain? Or does it mean that one writer is making a strong comparison to Moses, while the other is painting a far more egalitarian picture?

In our listening for Jesus’ voice, to which Jesus are we listening? The Jesus that condemns the rich and the well-fed? Or the Jesus that blesses the poor, and the weeping, and the hungry? Are we doing the hard work of discernment so that can tell the difference between the voice of the historical Jesus, and the voice of the early church? And what about all those hot-button issues that Jesus doesn’t even speak to?

Last week, I was meeting with colleagues in the Germantown area about plans for our ecumenical Ash Wednesday service. For the past five years, this joint service has been shared by Trinity United Methodist, our own United Church of Christ of Seneca Valley,Open Door Metropolitan Community Church, St. Marks United Methodist, Asbury United Methodist, and John Wesley United Methodist. I was saddened to learn that the three other United Methodist congregations will not be joining us this year. When I pressed about the reason, it became clear that there was discomfort in worshiping with the Metropolitan Community Church—and probably with the United Church of Christ. The specific issue is our affirmation of individuals, regardless of their sexual orientation.

I still find within the story of Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman a reflection of humanity capable of doing the right thing in spite of clear prejudice. But at least in the instance of that story, I am also hearing more clearly the change in “voice” our Disciple class members heard. This reveals yet another reality for those of us seeking to hear Jesus’ voice: he is always described as teaching a group—never just one-on-one. No one of us has a lock on hearing Jesus’ voice—myself included. But this I know: the authentic voice of Jesus is one that brings healing where there is hurt. The authentic voice of Jesus invites all of us to eat at the same table. Our best understandings come when we gather around him and listen to him together. The closer we come to Jesus, the more clearly we can hear his voice and receive his blessings. Thanks be to God!

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