A Hugh Challenge!

"A Hugh Challenge!""

Mark 24-7-30- Net Version

A Syrophoenician Woman’s Faith

24?After Jesus[a] left there, he went to the region of Tyre.[b] When he went into a house, he did not want anyone to know, but[c] he was not able to escape notice. 25?Instead, a woman whose young daughter had an unclean spirit[d] immediately heard about him and came and fell at his feet. 26?The woman was a Greek, of Syrophoenician origin. She[e] asked him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27?He said to her, “Let the children be satisfied first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and to throw it to the dogs.”[f] 28?She answered, “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” 29?Then[g] he said to her, “Because you said this, you may go. The demon has left your daughter.” 30?She went home and found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

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??? Sweat trickled down the side of my spine in the airless. SRO room. The power had gone out in the Tenderloin; there were twenty of us, in this room, gay and lesbian young homeless youth.? I had been? asked to lead a devotion remembering one who had died. As I scanned the room, I was wondering what can I say to this mixture of people so wounded by the church and society.? What could be personal to them.

??? And than this text of the Syrophoenician woman? came to mind. In this room were young people rejected my the church and society, who simply were questioning the meaning of their own lives. One in particular smiled and caught my eye, "Stephanie" a seventeen year old transgender girl, abused repeatedly, her parents and home church heap the coals of hell on her head. Only 1 percent of the Queer population is transgender, and she is persecuted by the majority of them as well, but she kept her faith.This text became personal.

??? From the deep reaches of a spirit-fed place. I asked, "Do you think this woman was challenging Jesus on his tribalism?". They looked up. This struck close to home. We began to talk about assumptions made? and exclusions that resulted from narrow understanding of tribe and culture. If Jesus could change his perspective on who belongs to a tribe, can't we?

??? Today, I look down the street, out into the state, and the nation.. There are "tribes" from the political right and the left, social justice advocates, traditional Republicans and Democrats, and politically passive neighbors.

??? And my mind goes to "Stephanie", who came to San Francisco at 17, believing she was safe, to find herself abused by people from all groups, gay, bisexual, lesbian, feminist, the politically left, and the politically right. There was a story in the Chronical of one transgender woman in San Francisco, recently, who lives in fear of her own life in San Francisco.

??? Through the fifteen years I knew "Stephanie" she struggled, with the most important thing in her life, acceptance, by people, by various religious groups. She prostituted to make money, beaten up, abused, and finally she found her final solace in an over dose of heroine. Suicide, or over dose, why does it matter, she was into the drug to give her solace.

??? To whose tribe would "Stephanie" belong? To whose tribe do the 67 other expressions of gender belong?

??? But instead of contradictions, we are invited to see the world from a new perspective--through the lens of Jesus. In Jesus' economy, grace, invites us? into the freedom of relinquishing our lives for the sake of a better. truer, and more restful life under? the yoke of Christ! Deo Gratias! Thanks be to God!

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Put me in jail, then. Throw me behind your religious bars since you have dubbed me a breaker of your law. I live my days in the courtroom of your criticism. I move unbothered under the gaze of your gavel. I have no interest in defending myself before your bench. Go on, clench your fists, raise your voice to make your point. Type the rebuke that you must make on my page. Who asked you to come through anyway? Is this rage your duty? We operate under a different set of obligations and get worked up to frustration for different reasons, even though we both claim fidelity to God. If you were interested, which I doubt, here is where my passion lies: feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick, defend the rights of the orphan, plead the widow’s cause, and woe to you who unjustly enforce God’s Law. Why spend your energy policing me when that same energy could be used to love, fiercely? Justice, mercy, and humility. Go learn what this means. Drew Jackson

Deo Gratias! Thanks be to God!

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Temenos Catholic Worker

P.O. Box 642656

San Francisco, CA 94164

Dr. River Damien Carlos Sims, D.Min, D.S.T.

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“People ask me why do you write about food,

and eating and drinking. Why don’t you write

about the struggle for power and security and

about love, the way others do? The easiest answer

is to say that, like most other humans I am hungry (M.F. Fisher!”

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(Temenos and Dr. River seek to remain accessible to everyone. We do not endorse particular causes, political parties, or candidates, or take part in public controversies, whether religious, political, or social--Our pastoral ministry is to everyone!

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