What I wanted to preach...

A few weeks ago I preached on Mark 7:24-38.. the Syrophoenician Woman who wanted Jesus to heal her daughter of demons.. Jesus gave his weird response of "Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." Huh? The woman answered, "Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs..." Then because of her response, Jesus healed this woman's daughter.

It's a weird text, and I wanted to preach about how it's not fair that Jesus gave in to this woman's persistence and cleverness..while not to other reqeusts. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy this woman's daughter was healed. Quite happy. But what's the deal with this "clever response gets the healing"? Many of us have been persistently praying for crumbs of God's grace for years, and even resorted to clever responses, yet to no avail... Admittedly, we receive grace and mercy in other ways.. and I don't want to seem ungrateful. Because I am grateful for God's provision in numerous ways-Jim, my family, good friends, a job I enjoy, a house, the best dog in the world, etc. The list goes on. Truly. I am very fortunate. But I am also tired of begging for crumbs, crumbs that are not bad things to beg for. I'm not talking here about petty things like, "help me to ace my test, even though I didn't study." I'm talking about "God, help us to get pregnant.." or "God, please let Connie overcome cancer" or "God, please provide a good husband for my friend." Is this too much to ask? This is what I wanted to preach.

After my sermon, someone shared with me about a horrible situation in which someone is dying... She said she doesn't want to settle for the spiritual healing, or God's presence in ways we can't always see.. she wants God to intervene in obvious and tangible ways: she wants the main person in this situation to be healed. Physically. I completely agree with her. I told her that while I wanted to preach on how I don't understand what God's doing anymore, I just couldn't .. I couldn't preach on that, because I was concerned that too many of my recent sermons ("recent"= past year or two!) have dealt with those issues of faith... And so I had to be a little more optimistic in my sermon this time.

Don't worry, I was honest and believed every word I preached. But I'm caught in this strange spiritual place that has become home... knowing that God can work good out of any situation, but wanting God to start making some situations good to begin with... I want to scream, "I don't get it! It's not fair!" Why is God continuing to answer our prayers in others' lives, and not in ours? Why do good people who are needed on earth die? Why, when the fertility journey has already been too long and totally unbearable, does God then prolong the adoption process even longer? Haven't I given God enough clever responses?

I don't know.