I recently picked up a copy of Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg’s book, “On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World,” and I cannot recommend it highly enough. Like most books nowadays it begins with a trigger warning, but given the subject matter, it’s clear from the outset that the whole book is a trigger.

She cautions her readers to take care of themselves accordingly, and I would extend the same invitation to you right now.  Not because I’m going to get into any gory details about the horrible things people do to each other. I won’t.

But because when it comes to the work of repentance and repair - whether we are talking about the intimate ways we hurt one another or the institutional ways we hurt one another - we are all effected and we are all implicated.

We all have something to apologize for and we could all use an apology. We have all suffered harm, we all have a responsibility to make amends for the harm we have caused, and neither end of that process is comfortable for anyone. So in the interest of full disclosure, you need to know that today’s sermon might make you uncomfortable.

The truth is, there are a lot of hard and painful stories in this book, but the one that stood out to me in light of our reading for today isn’t hard to hear because of how awful the harmful action was, but how awful it felt to address it.

Early on the book, Rabbi Ruttenburg tells us the story of a supervisor named Christina and one of her team members named Eva. Most of the work in their company took place remotely and so team meetings were often held over zoom. As the manager, Christina would create and then walk her team through color coded charts and spreadsheets to outline their plans, goals, and expectations. Early on in their work together, Christina referenced the difference between a green part of a chart and a red part and Eva interrupted. She explained that because she was color blind, she couldn’t differentiate between the different parts of the chart Christina was referring to.

Not wanting to lose momentum in the meeting, Christina glossed over Eva’s need and told her it wasn’t important. But years later, she still dwells on that moment:

If anyone were to have suggested that I was mistreating, gaslighting, or disrespecting Eva, (she says) I would have convinced the observer that I was being as supportive as possible in the moment. Only now do I realize that I was publicly downplaying Eva’s inability to scan and understand the group document.

She was literally not seeing what everyone else saw - and, rather than my apologizing immediately or at minimum offering to make it right in the future, I actually made it worse - in front of our entire team - by assuring her that the thing we could all literally see and she couldn’t wasn’t important. And, to be completely honest, this happened a few more times.

I could never remember which colors she couldn’t tell apart, and would get visibly annoyed when she reminded me. I wish I could go back to that moment and apologize immediately.  (But) now almost three years later, it feels like too minor an infraction to apologize about” (p. 48).

Given that this is a book that doesn’t shy away from how we might address the horrors of the Holocaust or slavery, a micro-aggression against a colorblind employee might seem trivial. But what I want you to notice is how even a seemingly trivial offense, if not addressed, effects both the offended and the offender. The fact that she dismissed Eva’s needs and concerns still haunts Christina. She knows she made the wrong decision in that moment.

She knows she caused harm and failed to take the time to rectify her mistake in the moment. It would have been so easy to pause, apologize, and do better, but because she didn’t, Christina can still feel the weight of this in her soul because she is still carrying the guilt of that failure with her.

And maybe you are too. I know I am. This story feels all too familiar. I can’t begin to tell you the number of stupid, insensitive, cruel things I have done or said in my life.

To say nothing of my ability to add injury to all my insults - injury to them and to my own soul - by moving on without apology, rationalizing my actions, or minimizing the harm I have done in my own mind because I was afraid to own up to what I did, apologize, and do better.

And sure I had my reasons. You probably did too. But, as Rabbi Ruttenberg writes: “Reasons don’t address harm. And neither do excuses. Addressing harm is possible only when we bravely face the gap … the gap between the story we tell about ourselves - the one in which we’re the hero, fighting the good fight, doing our best …-  and the reality of our (harmful) actions” (p 49).

Interestingly, I think it is in that gap where Jesus, of all people, finds himself this morning. Was anyone else shocked, confused, or put off by Jesus’ response to the mother in today’s story? It’s okay if you were, because the truth is that Jesus, at least initially, behaves very badly in this exchange.

And you know what? He had his reasons too. The truth is that Jesus is tired by this point in the story. He’s worn out. Maybe even, and don’t tell him I said this, but, maybe even a little bit cranky. 

He’s been traveling a lot, feeding and healing the masses, arguing with Pharisees and experts in the law, and when we encounter him in today’s reading, he is trying desperately to leave them all behind and just find some peace and quiet. 

You see, the people have been very difficult of late. He’s just spent a considerable amount of time and energy trying to explain that what goes into your mouth isn’t what makes you unclean but what comes out, that you can be as holy as you want to be on the outside but if you look down on other people on the inside, then you’re nothing but a judgmental hypocrite because no one is perfect.

Unfortunately, not even his disciples understand what the heck he is talking about.  Jesus knows he is just not getting through to people, so he steals away. He needs a break. Mark tells us that he skipped town, “went into a house, and didn’t want anyone to know that he was there.” It seems that Jesus has had enough and he has the self awareness to know it.

He shuts himself away and for a moment everything is quiet. Then, just as he’s about to exhale, into the house comes this person, and it’s not even a man, it’s a woman (which could cause problems), and she’s not even a Jewish woman, she’s a Syrophoenician woman... ie: a Gentile (which will definitely cause problems) and the only reason a gentile woman from Syrophoenicia would follow Jesus into a house would be… if she had a problem, so, well… this is going to be a problem. 

I can just imagine Jesus closing his eyes and thinking, O for my own sake; why me? What does a Gentile want with me if I can’t even get my own people to see reason.

Well, what she wants is help. She prostrates herself before him and says: “Take pity on me, sir, my daughter is possessed of a demon.”

And what does Jesus say to this desperately distraught mother? He says, “It is not right to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

Yeah. Not good.

Friends, you need to know that I’ve done a lot of research on this passage and I can tell you there is no way to soften Jesus’ words.

He was being as demeaning and rude then as he sounds to our ears right now. Some scholars try and gloss over this passage or try and justify Jesus’ behavior.  There is even a painting of this scene from the Renaissance in which the Syrophonecian woman is portrayed as holding a small dog, as if that makes it better. 

But if you put your self in the shoes of this woman and you take a moment and think about how you would feel if anyone responded to you that way- let alone some guy who is reported to be holy, a guy who just gave a bunch of Pharisees a dressing down for being rude to his disciples for not living up to their standards of purity - well then you know Jesus’ response to her is racist, hypocritical, demeaning, uncalled for, and unkind. 

If someone spoke to me that way, I’d probably get up, turn around, and walk right out the door.

But this woman doesn’t even flinch.  She’ll take whatever Jesus is going to throw at her as long as there is a chance that he might help her little girl.  She stands her ground and lets his insult hit her square in the face and then fall right off. She isn’t about to let her pride get in the way of finding help for her little girl. So she says:

 “True sir, yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.”

Her presence of mind is striking.  Her resilience, her wit, her courage; all are admirable, and her response disrupts Jesus’ pity party. It shakes him out of his funk.

            He answers, “Well said. Now go home; the demon has left your daughter.”

            And when she went home, she found the child lying in bed, and the derangement was gone.

As I said before, the Syrophoenician woman does not let her pride get in the way of her desire to help her daughter, but what I want to focus our attention on is Jesus’ willingness to set his pride aside.  Her gentle retort exposed Jesus’ initial response for what it was; rude and insensitive.

A lesser man could very easily have rationalized his behavior and thought to himself: after the day I’ve had, who is she to come in here and make me feel bad about myself? I’m just trying to get some peace and quiet. I knew I wasn’t fit for company, and that is why I removed myself in the first place. Lady, you need get out! It’s your fault I lost my temper.

A lesser man would have grown angry and defensive when confronted with the truth about his own behavior.  He would have cast about for some way to save face and preserve his dignity, and most likely he would have done it at the expense of this poor woman. 

But here is the beautiful thing about this story: Jesus rises above his mistake, and yes, I’m going to label this a mistake. I think Jesus made a mistake here when he talked to this woman the way he did, but I think he realized it immediately. 

And although acknowledging that Jesus actually messed up can pose some interesting theological problems, what interests me most here is not that Jesus made a mistake, but rather, how Jesus handles his mistake.

Notice: he doesn’t get defensive about it. He doesn’t deny it.  He doesn’t attack her to make himself feel better; reverse engineer the exchange in his mind such that he is the real victim and she is the perpetrator.

Instead, he immediately owns his misplaced disdain and out of a new found respect for this woman, he turns around and acts differently. He heals her daughter just as she asked. 

Most Christians believe that while in this world Jesus encountered and overcame every possible temptation and I don’t think this story necessarily contradicts that belief. I don’t think Jesus gave into temptation when he made his offhand comment equating gentiles with dogs. It was rude and it was insensitive, and it was said, like so many of the, rude insensitive things we’ve all said, without thinking.

I think the real temptation for Jesus came in the moment immediately following. The real temptation for Jesus was to give into his pride and cast this woman away for speaking the truth, because the truth would require him to acknowledge that she was right, and he was wrong. 

The truth would require him to humble himself before her, acknowledge that she deserved his attention as much as anyone, and force him to change his course. The truth would force him to face the gap between who he wanted to be, who he claimed to be, who he was put on this earth to be…and how he was actually behaving.

Ruttenberg says that the word for “repentance” in Hebrew (tshuvah) literally means “returning.” It connotes a return to the person you know you are capable of being, a return to your best self, “a coming home, in humility and with intentionality, to behave as the person you’d like to believe that you are” (p 25).

I know not everyone would be comfortable with the idea of Jesus repenting, but if you ask me, that is exactly what he does in this story. Jesus humbled himself before this mother. He allowed her to teach him a lesson. He rose above the temptation to preserve his ego over her wellbeing.  And not only was her daughter healed, I think Jesus was healed too.

Friends, saying stupid, harmful things, as far as I can tell, is one of the side effects of being human. It’s so easy to mess up. 

What is hard is cleaning up the mess without succumbing to the temptation to blame others. What is hard is acknowledging our faults gracefully rather than becoming defensive, humbly offering an apology when an apology is due, owning our mistakes and then choosing to do differently.

This is one of the harder arts to master in this life because we’re all caught up in this mess together. We always have reasons for the harm we cause. Hurt people, hurt people, right? And who hasn’t been hurt. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t stop the hurt and choose to do better.

And when is the best time to apologize, for your sake and for the sake of those you have hurt? As quickly as possible. Don’t let it go. Don’t let it fester.

I think it is striking how, immediately following this exchange, Jesus heals the very next Gentile that he meets. He then goes on to teach the people of that region and feed four thousand of them, just as he had fed five thousand of his own people back home.

Had Jesus not caught himself in the moment and acknowledged his need to change course, his exchange with Syrophoenician woman could have further hardened his heart to her and her people.

Instead, because he repented in the moment of a harsh word, his heart was opened not just to love her and her people but love himself. In repenting, Jesus found his way back to his best self and in his repentance he shows us the way back to ours. Thanks be to God for such a difficult but familiar story. Amen.