The Voice of a Stranger

 

 

The voice of a stranger. 

A sermon preach on Facebook Live Broadcast

Sirach 26:10 The Headstrong Daughter

Pentecost XI - Proper 15 A - RCL Track I

August 16, 2020

There’s a very silly joke about a monk named Brother Bernard who was traveling and sought respite in another monastery for a few days. This particular order of Monks was not allowed to speak but they could chant at prayer times. Each morning they gathered for prayers and the Abbot intoned 'Good morning Monks' and they all chanted in reply 'Good morning Abbot'. 

 

Brother Bernard was just a bit mischievous, and, truth be told, a bit bored with the silence, so he decided to have a wee bit of fun. The next morning, when it was time to reply ‘Good morning’ to the Abbot, he, instead, intoned 'Good Evening Abbot'. 

 

The Abbot heard this, looked round and chanted (to the tune from the Broadway play, South Pacific) 'Someone chanted evening. He must be a stranger'.

 

Yeah, it’s probably a good thing I can’t see your faces or hear you groan. 

 

I’ve been prayerfully considering the story of Joseph and his brothers as well as St. Matthew’s story of the Canaanite woman. It occurred to me that in both of these stories, that sometimes, you need to hear a foreign voice – the voice of a stranger – before you can discover or uncover what’s been there all along, right in front of your very eyes.

 

Let’s take a look, first, at Joseph,the great grandson of Abraham and Sarah, the grandson of Isaac and Rebekah, and the son of Jacob and Rachel – her first and his 11^th son. We’ve been following his story of betrayal by those brothers who left him in a pit and then sold him into slavery in Egypt. 

 

Betrayal and abandonment is not unknown to this family, so we ought not be surprised by the way his brothers treated Joseph. What is surprising – to us and to them – is how Joseph has moved through all that and has risen from his imprisonment and oppression to a status among the Egyptians and in the House of the Pharaoh that placed him in a position to help his brothers in their time of need and distress because of the famine. 

 

The first words of Joseph to his brothers always undo me. After he wept so loudly that “the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it,” he says, “I am Joseph. Is my father alive?” 

 

 

Oh, can you hear the pain in his voice? 

 

Remember, Joseph was so beloved of his father (the first born son of his wife, Rachel, with whom he first fell in love and for whom he worked an additional seven years.) that Jacob made him a coat of many colors. 

 

His brothers, who betrayed him because of that very coat, did not recognize him at first.  Then, he recounts his story but tells them it was all for the good because now he is in a position to save them. 

 

Joseph, their own brother whom they had betrayed, whose voice they did not recognize, who had become a stranger to them in a strange land, turned out to be one of their own.

  

We’re going to come back to this in a minute but I want to also want to lift up the Canaanite woman. Mark calls her the Syrophoenician woman because he is writing to a Roman audience and wants to emphasize her race. Matthew’s audience is the Israelites so his emphasis is on the fact that the Jews thought of the Canaanites as half-breeds or “mongrel dogs”. 

 

Whether you read the encounter in Mark or Matthew, this story is painful to read. The poor woman isn’t seeking anything for herself but healing for her daughter. In both accounts, Jesus is rude, bordering on being cruel. 

 

This is when his humanity is showing, and it’s not his most favorable side. 

 

The woman’s intelligence and wit, however, turn his put down into an insight for him.  He said, “Itis not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said,“Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’table.”

 

And, just like that, the eyes of the heart of Jesus are opened. Just like that, the voice of a stranger pierces through the dense fog of his humanity and cuts straight through the place of divinity in him.

 

The voice of a stranger has enabled him to hear the deepest truths of his heart. 

 

He knows, suddenly, that his understanding of the scope of his ministry has made his heart “too sizes too small”.  The voice of a stranger opens his understanding and his passion and compassion. Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

 

We can get very comfortable, I think, with the familiar. And, that can work to our own detriment.  I don’t know about you but I have learned a lot about myself and my church and my world during this Time of the Great Unfamiliar which we know as the COVID-19 Pandemic. I don’t know about you but what I have learned about myself has sometimes surprised me and sometimes annoyed me. 

 

I’ve learned that I have more patience than I thought I had. Well, about some things. I’ve learned that my “normal impatience” becomes very aggravated when I’m annoyed – mostly by things I can’t do. 

 

I miss little things like meeting a friend for lunch. Or, just a spontaneous get together for coffee or tea at a Café. Hugs. I miss hugs. Oh, how I miss hugs! Yes, of course I miss Eucharist but I also miss baking things for Coffee Hour, even though Coffee Hour has never been my favorite thing about church. 

 

I had a doctor’s appointment for my annual physical this week and I found myself wanting to wear a dress or a skirt and a blouse. 

 

And, shoes - not flip flops or sandals. 

 

And, lipstick, which I used even though I was going to wear a mask (how silly is that?) And, I found myself spraying my hair lightly with hairspray which I only do when I’m going someplace special. Let me assure you that the doctor’s office for an annual Wellness Check has never been on my list of “someplace special”. 

 

But, it was this week. 

 

In this strange Time of The Great Unfamiliar I am learning things about myself that I didn’t know I didn’t know. I am listening to the voice of the stranger and discovering that it is me. My voice is strange to my own ears, telling me things I don’t necessarily want to hear about myself. But it is important – very important – for me to listen. 

 

A quick example: When I was in Thailand I initially had a very difficult time adjusting to the culture there. I kept asking myself, “Why do they do that?” Eventually, I started asking some of my Thai friends who had come to trust me, “Why do you do that?”

 

And then, one day, I was talking about soap, of all things, with one of my new Thai friends, most of whom had already created a term of endearment for me. I was the “crazy farang lady”. Farang means “foreign” and my craziness, I assume, was because I was Western. 

 

I didn’t realize it but they had been thinking, “Why do these Westerners do that? Why does she do that?” 

 

As we were talking about what kind of soap I should buy as souvenirs for my family and friends, my friend, Sunan, could not contain himself any longer. He burst into uncontrollable giggles and, when he came up for air, asked, “Why you do that?” 

 

Why do I do what? I asked. 

 

“Why farang lady have same word for thing to wash and thing to eat?” 

 

He saw that I was thoroughly confused, so he said, “You eat soup, yes? And you wash with soup? How that can be?” 

 

He was hearing “soup” and “soap” pronounced in the same way.  Well, of course, that sounds pretty crazy. Ridiculous. When I was able to enunciate more clearly for him and he understood, we laughed and laughed and laughed. 

 

The voice of Sunan taught me a very valuable lesson. From that point on, this crazy farang lady stopped asking, “Why do they do that?” Instead, I started to ask, “Hmmm. . . I wonder why I do that?” 

 

I stopped approaching the stranger from the perspective of judgment, that different must be wrong. Instead, I used the occasion to more closely examine why I do the things I do, to better understand myself from a different lens of reality.

 

I think that’s what happened to Joseph – a stranger in a strange land of Egypt – which allowed him to better assimilate into the culture of his new reality and find forgiveness and reconciliation and, eventually, salvation for his brothers.

 

I think that’s what happened to Jesus who allowed himself to listen to the intelligence and wit of the crazy foreign lady from Canaan and open the eyes and ears of his heart to see and hear something about himself he didn’t know or understand. 

 

St. Paul says to the church in Rome, “For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” He goes onto say a most remarkable thing, “For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.”

 

Truth be told, I’ve been sitting with that last sentence for many years now and it still sounds strange to the ears of my heart. Where I have landed with it at this point in my theological evolution is to avoid judging others before I examine my own actions and motives. God is merciful to all. So should I be merciful to others and myself. 

 

For me, that’s the Exit Door out of my own arrogance. 

 

Listening to the voice of the stranger – in the person of someone else or the voice that arises in me that is strange to me – is the more difficult path I need to walk in order to move past my cultural bias and prejudices. Or, as Paul would say, “imprisoned in my own disobedience”.

 

And sometimes, the key to open the Exit Door often lies in laughter. Laughing at “Soup and Soap” did it. Laughing at a silly story about chanting monks can do it. 

 

The brothers of Joseph listened to the voice of a stranger and discovered forgiveness and reconciliation and love and the path to their own salvation. 

 

Jesus listened to the voice of a Canaanite woman and it expanded his understanding of his ministry. 

 

Sometimes, you need to hear a foreign voice before you can hear what has always been in your heart but you were afraid to listen.   

 

Amen.