You know, I know it’s hard to pay attention sometimes, particularly when we read the gospel and we’ve heard it before and we’re wondering what we’re going to have for dinner, or why that person over there is dressed the way they are, or whether the lights are on in my car, and we don’t always get it.  But this passage, you can’t help but be puzzled by it.  You can’t help but be curious about it.  You can’t help but be fascinated by it, because it shows us a different kind of Jesus.

First of all, Jesus is rude; he is rude.  He says, “This woman is asking for help,” and he says, “It’s for Jews only.  You don’t take the food from the children of Jewish people and throw it to the dogs.”  That’s pretty rude, pretty rude.  Secondly, Jesus is mistaken; he’s wrong.  And thirdly, he learns from his mistake and he corrects it.

You know, I don’t know about you, but I grew up with a picture of Jesus that from his infancy in Bethlehem he had it all together.  He knew everything.  I remember holy cards we had when we were in the fourth or fifth grade that showed Jesus in the carpenter’s shop with his foster father, Joseph.  And Joseph was saying, “make a stool, make a chair, make a table.”  He kept making crosses; he knew what was going to happen.

This gospel says no way, no way.  And the gospel says to us Jesus had to learn.  He grew in wisdom, age, and grace.  But Jesus had to grow up just like the rest of us.  He had to learn like we do, and he learns from the most unlikely people.  He learns from this figure.  First of all, she’s a woman.  And some Jewish Rabbi said, “Women are second-class citizens.  They should not even be allowed to read the scripture.”  One wrote: “It is better that the Torah be torn up and lost than it be read by a woman.”  How about that?  Or, Roman law and Jewish law at the time of Jesus didn’t trust women. They were not allowed to be witnesses in any court case.

So first, it was an unlikely person – it was a woman.  Secondly, she was a Gentile; she was non-Jewish.  And Jesus had grown up thinking salvation is for Jewish people only.  And thirdly, she was in sin.  At least that was the crazy thinking of the time, which we still have today.  When someone is afflicted in our family – the child is sick, the mother is sick, who committed a sin?  Somebody must have committed a sin.  That’s crazy thinking, but it was common then, it’s still common today.

So Jesus comes along and he is a lesson for us today that we can learn.  Certainly, if he learned, we can learn.  We learn from people who are different from us.  We learn from people who are needy.  We learn from people who are poor.  We have to be learners just like Jesus was.

You know, in the first week of July, twenty of our teenagers went to Tijuana to work with the poor and the needy.  And I think they learned something there, so I’m going to invite Meghan Dawe to share with us about that trip.

Megan Dawe

This summer I t raveled with twenty other teens to Tijuana, Mexico on our youth group’s annual service trip.  Each year we are assigned to different work sites where we meet and work with the citizens of Tijuana.

This year I spent half of the week at an orphanage for young girls where we painted and decorated buildings, tore up endless weeds, and began to transform their garden and orchard area.  In between all of this labor, we had time to play with the girls and get to know them better.  All the girls immediately became very fond of the boys in our group.  They would hang from their arms and necks, and loved to chase the boys all around.  And their giggling never ended.

For the second half of the week I spent my time playing checkers, chess, cards, and attempting to play dominoes at Abelitos.  Abelitos is a place for older men to reside and is run by the sisters of Mother Theresa of Calcutta.  Many of these men have nowhere else to go, and have been deported from America, or have been severely injured while attempting to cross the border.  Even after what all these men have gone through, their love of life still shines in each of them.  And their gratefulness to have someone to talk to each day is endearing.

I won’t bore you with the details of all the painting, weeding, digging and other manual labor that occurred that week, but rather, share with you some experiences, which have affected many of us in a completely unexpected way.  This trip is such a worthwhile experience because no mater how much you read about the injustices and living conditions in Tijuana, nothing is as shocking and as eye-opening as placing yourself right in the middle of it.

We were given the opportunity to show the people of Mexico that there is more to American teens that what they see on television.  The organization, Young Neighbors in Action, which coordinates our trip, continually stresses the idea that we are representing American culture to everyone we encounter.

A life lesson I learned on this trip from the young orphans and the older gentlemen is that being needy does not only include a need for food and shelter, but also a need for a gentle smile and a short conversation.

The men’s faces at Abelitos turned to instant smiles when we walked through the patio doors.  We bear no food or clothes, but we provided a checkers or dominoes companion and a conversational partner, and that is all they needed. 

As I watched them play dominoes, I was struck by a certain realization – just like dominoes, no one can control the pieces of life he or she receives.  Some get lucky, but some do not.  The point is to make the most out of the pieces you have and keep playing the game.

On Friday, the last day we went to our work sites, I began a game of chess with one of the gentlemen.  He eventually let me win and as everyone else went to eat lunch, we had a long conversation.  He was well aware that all of us teens would be crossing the border on our way home the following day.  He began to tell me about his niece and nephew, who were very intelligent, and whom he hoped would be able to start life in America.  The man who sat across the table from me dreamed endlessly about stepping foot onto the soil I would easily walk across the next day.  Knowing this made our much-dreaded four hour wait to cross the border the following day seem much more bearable.  He then smiled at me, gathered all the chess pieces and urged me to go on and eat my lunch.

This trip is like no other experience, and I urge you to contribute anything you can to ensure that the youth group is able to continue going on it.  We waited to do our fund raising until after the trip because we wanted to share our stories and pictures with you.  Other members of the Tijuana service trip will be going around with sombreros during the collection, and we are hoping to raise $5000 to cover some of our expenses.

Thank you for all of your contributions.