This morning Jesus faces a conflict we all face. It’s a conflict that is easy enough to deal with in the abstract, but, as often happens with such conflicts, a complication arises.

The conflict is between specific passages of the Bible and the implications of God’s loving character as revealed in the Bible. In this case, the passages deal with foreigners. Biblically, the Jews relied on Scripture, especially the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, that said they were not supposed to mix with foreigners. The Jews were to be a holy people, set apart. To them and to them alone had been given the law and the covenants, and they weren’t to risk polluting or diluting them by messing with outsiders. Nehemiah finishes his book by saying, "Thus I cleansed [Israel] from everything foreign. . . . Remember me, O my God, for good." (Neh. 13:30, 31).

Jesus had grown up in a culture that considered foreigners not only inferior, but unclean, disgusting, and certainly outside the bounds of God’s love. So, both socially and biblically, Jesus had been taught that there was room at God’s table only for children of Israel.

But, there was that nagging problem that God loves everyone, and that, for example, the Bible also said that foreigners who worshipped God must be accepted (as we heard this morning). But that was understood to apply to foreigners who lived in Israel and regularly worshipped there. Not to foreign women you run into in Tyre. Still, there was this nagging problem of God loving everybody.

So, the conflict Jesus faced was between the specific language of the Bible (cleanse yourself of anything foreign) and the implications of the loving character of God as revealed in the Bible. Jesus seems to have been handling this conflict the way most of us do; if it’s not going to bother us, we won’t bother it. Let sleeping dogs lie — ignore it.

And then the complication. A human face. Jesus goes to the district of Tyre and Sidon, way up north—foreign country. And here she comes, a Canaanite woman. And just to be sure we get the point, Matthew adds, "from that region." A foreigner. And she says, "Have mercy on me, cure my daughter," and she calls him "Son of David." Amazing. This foreigner, and a woman to boot (women weren’t supposed to speak to initiate conversations with men outside their family), this foreign woman calls him "Son of David," a messianic title.

Well, Jesus knows just what to do. He’s known all his life what to do. He ignores her. She doesn’t exist to him. The disciples say, "Get rid of her!," but he softens a little and looks at her, saying, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." She kneels before him: "Lord, help me." Jesus thinks, "Ah, this is what I get. Shouldn’t have even talked to her. But this should do it." And so, not sounding very Jesus-like, he delivers an humiliating insult: "It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs."

"There," he thinks, "that was ugly, but it will get rid of her. Even a Canaanite woman will understand how insulting it is to be called a dog." And so, Jesus resolves his conflict in favor of what he’d been taught all his life and specific passages he can point to in the Bible. "Thank God," the uncomfortable disciples think. "For once he’s not going to rock the boat." Everyone is relieved.

Jonathan Myrick Daniels did not resolve the conflict the same way. In 1965, he was student at Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts when the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. issued an appeal for help in Selma, Alabama. Jonathan was not a Southerner; he was not an African-American. He was a white guy from New Hampshire. It was not his fight. But he had no doubt seen faces. Life Magazine, maybe. Faces. It was not his fight. He went.

By going, he weighed in on one side of a conflict that has plagued the American soul. For two hundred and fifty years, slavery was legal in this land, and for a hundred years after that, segregation was the official policy of the United States, held by the Supreme Court to be part of the Constitution. And the Southerners had specific passages from the Bible on their side. As Peter Gomes points out in his book called The Good Book, "[I]t would not be hard, even today, to make a biblical case for slavery. Nowhere does the Bible condemn it, and everywhere in the Bible it is the practice." The New Testament tells slaves to "count their masters worthy of all honor," to "be submissive to their masters," and "to obey [their] earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as [they] obey Christ." Jonathan Myrick Daniels was going into a Southern culture that had been built upon an institution that had the weight of specific biblical passages on its side.

But Jonathan threw his lot in with a long line of Christians who could not point to specific passages, but could only speak of the God they knew and say, "There is a wideness in God’s mercy. There must be room at the table." And so Jonathan went.

I think Jesus’ mistake was in speaking to her. Because that made him look at her. That made him see her face. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that was his mistake, seeing her face. Faces really complicate academic, intellectual issues, especially those that deal with excluding people. But you have to hand it to him; he had done his best to chase her off. I mean, he called her a dog, what do you want? But she didn’t go. She must have known a lot about him, because when he rejects her, she not only won’t leave, but she sounds very Jesus-like. "Yes, Lord," she says, "yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table."

You see, he shouldn’t have spoken to her, shouldn’t have looked her in the face, because that gave her the opportunity to become human to him, to become a child of God to him. This is very, very dangerous, this seeing foreigners, outsiders, outcasts, people with something wrong or unclean about them, as really human, children of God, like we are. It is a very, very dangerous thing to see a human face. You can almost feel the disciples cringing, thinking, "Don’t do it! Don’t go there!"

But he does. It is too late. Like Jonathan Myrick Daniels, Jesus has seen the face of someone who is supposed to be "other," and in their eyes he has seen his own humanity. It is too late. He goes to the dangerous, dangerous place. "Woman," he says to this foreigner, to this female, to this the only person in Scripture to teach Jesus a lesson, to show him God, to change his heart, "Woman," he says, "great is your faith. Let it be done for you as you wish."

This business of seeing a human face instead of a theological issue is still dangerous. In his book entitled Servanthood, Bishop Bennett Sims, Sixth Bishop of the Diocese of Atlanta (Bishop Alexander is the Ninth), writes about how his heart was changed in the area of human sexuality. In 1977, as Bishop of Atlanta, Bishop Sims knew only one "out" gay man. The man’s self-acceptance in the face of persecution and confidence that he was as loved by God as was the Bishop rattled Sims, challenged him in places he didn’t want to be challenged, and he avoided the man.

Homosexuality was emerging as a theological issue, and that year, Bishop Sims wrote a lengthy pastoral letter advocating the traditional position. He has always been a marvelous writer, but this project was thoroughly researched as well. It was heavily laced with biblical, historical, theological, ethical, therapeutic, and scientific references, and it ran to nineteen pages (single spaced). It was reprinted in full in the conservative magazine Christianity Today. It was read all over the world, translated into many languages, and became the official statement of the Lutheran Church of Sweden.

Bishop Sims says he waited for an angry attack from the gay community, but the only response was wounded silence — and an invitation into a personal and sustained conversation.

Shouldn’t have gone. Too dangerous. But he went. And so he heard stories, stories of faithfulness in the face of oppression, stories of people loving a church that ostracized them. He shouldn’t have gone. Too dangerous. But he went, and, sure enough, he began to see faces.

I commend the chapter in his book that deals with this issue. It is the poignant story of why he was willing to suffer the embarrassment of being the internationally acclaimed poster child for the traditional view and then publicly changing sides. And it happened because he saw faces.

This is very dangerous. Later on, the same thing happened to Bishop Allan. I’m telling you, when you’re faced with people for whom there is no room at the table, don’t look at them! Just don’t answer. Whatever you do, don’t look at their faces.

But Jonathan Myrick Daniels had looked at their faces. In Hayneville, Alabama, he and others were thrown in jail for joining a picket line. They refused bail and spent several days in jail. Then, without explanation, they were suddenly released. They knew they were in danger. Daniels, a Roman Catholic priest, and two young black girls headed for a nearby store. Then Daniels was shot to death by a deputy sheriff. His last act was to push one of the girls out of the line of fire. Jonathan Myrick Daniels was twenty-six years old.

I’m telling you, it is a dangerous business, this seeing human faces on people that are "supposed" to be "other." Maybe the person who kneels before you is the "wrong" color, or the "wrong" orientation, or the "wrong" religion, or the "wrong" gender, or nationality, or ethnicity, or something. Be careful about looking into their face. Jonathan Myrick Daniels did, and he died in Alabama. Jesus did, and he died on the cross.

You be careful about looking into their face. But I can promise you two things. If you come to this table, there will be a place for you. There is a wideness in God’s mercy. And if you come to this table, God will look into your face.