Children of God

13Feb
Jesus said: ‘Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs. But she answered him, ‘Sir even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.’ then he said to her, ‘For saying that, you may go – the demon has left your daughter. 

-Mark 7.27–29


She was a Gentile. St. Mark says that she bowed down at Jesus’ feet “begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.” The prevailing attitude of the Jewish leaders of the day was that the Gentiles were less than themselves. They didn’t belong. They were like dogs and didn’t deserve to receive blessings or goodness. They should be kept away from the Chosen people, the true Children of God. 


Jesus voiced this attitude in his reply to her. I often wonder it there was mock disdain in his voice when He said: “It’s not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs”. 


She did not accept the put down but continued to assert her right for blessing and wholeness: “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” 


“The demon has left your daughter” Jesus told her.


Today in addition to this remarkable woman, we are remembering a remarkable man, Absalom Jones. Like her, he also gives us an example of determination to be treated like the Child of God. 


Absalom Jones was born into slavery nearly three hundred years ago. He worked in the fields as a child, but his enslaver recognized his intelligence and brought him to work in the house and gave him the opportunity to get an education. As an adult, Jones joined St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia which permitted blacks and whites to worship together. But when the church excluded the blacks from the midst of the congregation and tried to force them to sit in the balcony, Jones and other blacks left St. George’s.


Absalom Jones met with Philadelphia’s bishop, William White who accepted the group as an Episcopal parish. Jones was the pastoral lay leader of the church. Eventually he was ordained deacon, then the first black priest in the Episcopal Church in 1802. His congregation was admitted into the Diocese as the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas. In the first year of his ministry the congregation grew to over 500 members. His message was always that God was the Father who always acted “on behalf of the oppressed and distressed.”


Absalom Jones and the Gentile woman help me see a larger evil in our world today that needs to be cast out: the evil spirit of hatred, the evil spirit of exclusion and denial. Around the world today people are being uprooted from their homes and refused refuge or asylum. They are being treated like criminals. Basic human needs and rights of health, education, safety, and housing are being denied. They are being treated like dogs rather than like the Children of God that they are. 


How can we Christians open our arms like Jesus did and cast out the demons of hatred and exclusion to be instruments for healing and peace?


Musical Reflection - Make Me a Channel of Your Peace - The Dragon School


Set us free, heavenly Father, from every bond of prejudice and fear, that honoring the steadfast courage of your servants the Gentile woman and Absalom Jones, we may show forth in our lives the reconciling love and true freedom of the children of God, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Children

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