Remember playing on the playground as a three year-old and meeting a new kid? Whether or not that child became your Best Friend Forever that day depended solely on whether they played fair, seemed happy, and also liked M&Ms. It had little to do with race or gender or handicaps or nationality. Oh, out of curiosity you might play with their different kind of hair or their wheelchair or asked if they watched Daniel Tiger. But they weren’t ruled out if they were… different.

Very soon, though, researchers tell us that the surrounding culture taught us to be prejudiced — to pre-judge someone on superficial matters. We quickly learned who were US (to be given the benefit of the doubt) and who were THEM (to be suspected).

Strangely, the Gospels share a story ( Mark 7:24-30 ) in which Jesus doesn’t come off so well, at least to our modern ears. He encounters a Syrophoenician woman (an ancient term for a non-Jew in that area) who begs Jesus to heal her daughter.

Stop and read the story. What sticks out to you? That Jesus basically refers to her as a “dog”? That her witty comeback gains Jesus’ respect? That this experience might have changed Jesus afterwards? How might the early Church have heard this story? What affect might it have had on them?

Written at a different time and place, the letter of James ( James 2:1-4 ) speaks about prejudice against the poor (or for the rich). This was a real problem in the early Church.

Is it possible that Jesus actually learned something from this encounter? What encounters have you had since childhood that changed your mind and soul about groups you had previously discounted?

I’ll see you Sunday in the Sanctuary. I would love to get your comments or questions. Just click here.

(The contemporary service is in the midst of its own series introducing the re-start of that service now called Cross Connect. )