Streams in the Desert
Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 5, 2021
Isaiah 35:4-7a • Mark 7:24-37
Over the past several weeks, like many of you, I have watched with a mix of awe, disbelief, numbness, frustration, grief, and relief as the war that lasted through most of my twenties, and thirties, and early forties ended. It defined the same number of years of many soldiers, airmen, intelligence officers, diplomats, aid workers, their families, and everyday Americans – and millions of Afghanis. There was always news of Afghanistan – another mission, another list of lives lost, another province won.
Like you, I will remember how our seemingly forever-war began. But I think I will remember just as well, just as clearly, how it ended. Politics aside, decisions aside, our withdrawal from Afghanistan ended with desperation. And, like many of you, the image that will be seared into my brain forever – into my heart forever – is the picture of the Marine atop a wall reaching down to grab an Afghani child. That child’s mother, or father, or family member had likely made it through an ordeal, likely risked life, and limb, and safety to reach the gate of the Hamid Karzai International Airport. They persisted. They crossed boundaries. And they dared to cross the final border that separated desperation and despair, from security and hopefulness: the airport gates. They risked everything and gave their all to push their child up. They pushed their child up, and, in an instant, a Marine reached down; and, then, salvation. Just gotta get up over that wall. Just gotta get her to the other side... then... deliverance: the place where waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert, where the thirsty ground becomes springs of water!
In the Syrophoenician woman in today’s Gospel, we see a similar persistence rooted in desperation. With an ill child at home, she was desperate. She had heard rumors of Jesus, that he was nearby, that maybe he could help. She traveled across cultural borders, and braved her own borderlands to seek his help. Only to be called a little dog. But she was determined to be heard and seen. And she pushed back. She had come this far, risked this much, and she would not go away that easily. She would not let Jesus keep her in a place of desperation and despair. As Padraig O’Tuama writes in his prayer: “Little dogs need little crumbs, she said, and [Jesus] listened, and praised her for her words.”
The Syrophoenician woman had come to her own wall that separated desperation and despair from hopefulness. And she reached up. She resisted, and reached up, pushing her child up, raising her child up in Jesus’ consciousness and awareness. Just gotta get up over that wall; gotta get to the other side! Her child deserved better than to be overlooked. And her advocacy, her resilience, her persistence moved Jesus to reach down; to acknowledge the dignity of the woman; to respond with words promising healing and wholeness for her child. And, in an instant, for the Syrophoenician woman and her child, waters broke forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert, and the thirsty ground became a spring of water!
The story of the Syrophoenician woman is a story of desperation. In a variety of contexts, over millennia, the stories change, the characters change, the needs change, but the fundamental human condition of desperation remains with us. And, in many ways, the conditions that create despair, that allow people to feel and remain desperate, are the products of choices that we make together, as a community, about what matters most. How we, as a community, allocate our resources speaks to the values that we hold dear. And, as a community, we have for the past two decades spent more than $8 trillion dollars since 2001 fighting a war on terror. Over those same decades, we have made other economic choices that have benefitted the wealthy – benefits that have never trickled down. Due to legislative inaction, the federal minimum wage remains at $7.25 per hour, while, by some estimates, the wealthiest Americans earn hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars per hour. The same political and economic forces complicit in creating this perverse system would have you believe that those fighting for fair wages, those organizing workers to stand up for their rights, those organizing communities to seek better futures are mere rabble rousers! Little dogs!
“But little dogs need little crumbs,” she said. Like the Syrophoenician woman, the voices of workers and labor leaders and organizers, the Poor Peoples’ campaign, and so many others push back, resist, and speak up. Too often the fight for working people and the labor movement are cast in cynical and politicized language, and limited to partisan frameworks and worldviews. But, at its core, the labor movement and the work of labor leaders and organizers is a lot like the story from Afghanistan; it is a lot like the story of the Syrophoenician woman. It has always been about people, and getting people over the wall that separates despair from hope, and insecurity from stability.
Securing better futures for working people involves industry and businesses making choices that benefit their workers; and it involves adopting public policies that benefit working families. Yet another part of that work involves choices we all make in our daily lives to help move the needle even just a little bit. And I invite you to consider the ways that you can support working people and worker justice. Is it doing what you can to pay your employees a little more? Is it shopping from merchants who are committed to paying fair wages? Is it reducing your use of online retailers that union bust when their underpaid, overworked warehouse workers want to organize? Is it buying union-made products? Is it advocating for living wages, universal health care, and secure retirements? Is it something else?
Whatever you do, I invite you to avoid looking at this with partisan lenses, and, instead, see this as the work of lifting people up; see this as the work of reaching down; see this as a way, through policy and personal choice, that you can participate in moving people across a barrier that separates desperation and despair, from security and hopefulness; over a wall that separates death from life; beyond a barricade that separates injustice from love. And, maybe, just maybe, if we do this work together, we all will see waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert, and see the thirsty ground become a spring of water!