Grace and Peace to you from God, our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
We have been blessed, and lucky, to have had 4 wonderful exchange students live with us for a school year as a family. You learn so much about the culture they come from and about your own culture through their eyes. The last one we had was Perla from Mexico. She brought with her a tourist guide from her hometown of Monterrey. It was a beautiful book full of pictures. There was a picture of a soccer team, and just for fun, I asked here to pick out the best looking boys. She picked out 4 of the 11, the 4 who was the most “gringo” looking. To look “gringo” or European in Mexico is to meet the accepted standard of beauty.
We don’t realize it but beauty is a concept that is always culturally determined and in some very real sense fickle. In the middle ages, for example, when many starved to death, being plump, a bit corpulent, was the standard of beauty. Thin people were poor, or they wouldn’t be thin. Scarlet O’Hara hated her freckles and never went out in the sun. She wanted her skin to be pale and white. Tans were only for field hands and poor people. Nowadays teens labor for hours to get a great tan. I could go on and on throughout history but I hope you get the point. Beauty is a very relative concept and almost totally culturally determined.
In today’s Gospel, the woman begging Jesus for help for her daughter is a Syro-Phoneican. She is a non-Jew. She is what psychologists call an “other”. “Others” are the “not us” folks, and they are always less than. In a war the others are given pejorative names. In World War I they were the “Huns”. The Japanese, in WWII, were the “yellow peril”. The Vietnamese were the “Gooks”. Emphasizing their otherness makes it much easier to kill them. We make them less than us.
This “other” begs Jesus to cure her daughter. Jesus responds very curiously. He said, “Let us first feed the children. (Meaning, of course, the Jews). It isn’t right to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs”. Clearly Jesus is comparing this woman who is “other”, to a dog. No one in the church’s history has given a very satisfactory interpretation of these words. They are so un-Jesus. Jesus is the savior for all people. It makes no sense that he would put this woman down and treat her contemptuously. Of course, Jesus doesn’t reject her. She remarks rather cleverly, “that even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the children’s table!” He rewards her faith with a healed child. God’s love is for all people. God sees all of us as beautiful. We all belong to God. Beauty and otherness is a human construct. We are all beautiful in God’s eyes.
Michael Jackson died this week. His death has been marked by an outpouring of public grief that I haven’t seen since Princess Diana died in 1997. Like Princess Di, Michael Jackson was a projection of very deep human yearnings and aspirations. Princess Di was the personification of beauty, fame and wealth. Michael Jackson personified the aspiration in all of us to be creative and to derive fame and public adulation from that creativity. His name was a household word. His albums sold more records and CDs than any other artist in the world. He made hundreds of Music Videos and his dancing ability was unparalleled. He was the Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire of pop culture. I remember little African boys in Kenya and Zimbabwe working for hours to perfect their moonwalk in imitation of him. Anyone who worked with him remembered his kindness, humility and professionalism. He was fabulously wealthy, yet his soul was deeply, deeply troubled.
Michael was launched into superstardom at the tender age of 11. His father, a driven, competitive, frustrated performer himself, drove his 5 children to become the incredible performers they became. Michael, the most talented of them all was never allowed to be a child – to run free and play, to be age appropriately irresponsible. The personal consequences for Michael were devastating and affected him his whole life through.
Michael affection for and obsession with children is well known. He called his estate “Neverland” after Peter Pan the boy who never grew up. Traumatized by being robbed of a childhood, Michael spent the rest of his life trying, unsuccessfully to obtain one.
Michael also spent a fortune on straightening his hair, anglicizing his nose and lightening his skin. Although he denied it, Michael could never see himself through God’s eyes. Whiteness was the standard of beauty and Michael could not see his African feature or heritage as beautiful. Paolo Friere, a Brazilian theologian and philosopher talks about how oppressed people internalize their oppressors. Since these oppressors – those with political power, social status and wealth define what is beautiful and sought after, those who are “others”, who are oppressed by this system of privilege consciously or unconsciously desire to become like them. Michael internalized the racial contempt that he found around him. If only he could have seen himself through God’s eyes. If only he could have seen that the amazing spirit of creativity, of originality and of generativity that he was graced with. It made him one of the most beautiful and striking of all God’s creatures. Unfortunately he couldn’t.
Yet, Michael was baptized. Baptism frees us from the shackles of this world’s standard of beauty.
Your baptism frees you too.
God’s spirit will give us a spirit of self-acceptance if we simply have faith in Him. May you see yourself through God’s eyes. May you understand and believe that God sees you as a unique and priceless Ming Dynasty vase or an original Picasso or Salvador Dali. May you always care for your body, your mind and your spirit as though you were worth dying for.
You are.
Jesus gave his life for you.
Honor Jesus’ sacrifice and bask in his peace and favor.
In Jesus’ name. Amen
Who We Are