Every Skinny Tree

read mark 7.24-37, or take my word for it, its the story of the woman who argues with Jesus and then Jesus heals a deaf man by making some spit mud and sighing in his face.

I have learned not to chat up hairstylists about my job--especially at Rudy's, the cheap salon chain with an edge, which is where I go for a hair cut these days. The news that I am a children's minister can really confine my hairdresser (confessor's) imagination. Instead of working on the hair of a brazen and irrational emotionally driven seminarian, the stylist works on making me look the pastoral part. Tell her you are a pastor and she is afraid to chop too much or in the wrong place, even if you insist that you do envy her fire engine red dredlocks or laugh heartily at the trucker fucker bumper sticker over the mirror.

So when she asked how I usually wear my hair I began whining to her.
I am sort of at my wits end about it but I am trying to grow it out so I can cut it off and mail it away, but I really don't like it long. I sounded pretty lost. It had been a long day. I practically wilted in her chair, the way I do on my therapist's couch. She made a face as though she needed a bit more information so I went on to confess that in high school my mom left me home alone almost every night. Left to my own devices, I used to bleach it, dye it green, red, purple or chop it all off with the kitchen scissors, on a regular rotation. I explained that even though it was my mother's favorite feature of mine, I wasn't too attached to it, and though that was long ago and far away I still am not too picky about it and that is pretty much the story. It must have sounded like I was begging her to just fix all my problems.
Because
She backed away from the chair, put her hands on her hips and looked into the mirror, she met my gaze and I thought maybe she would just point to the door and tell me to come back tomorrow, when she wouldn't be working. She said, "I'm not a miracle worker. You're not helping." And I responded, only half-sheepish, "I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be a bitch about it."

She went on to tell me, and I'm sure she wouldn't have had I been honest about my other life as a children and family minister, instead of honest about the broken bits of my story, that the best haircuts are the drunken haircuts. She began cutting and said I should just get drunk, not belligerent, but good and crazy, and then just hack away. She said I probably care a lot but I'm just not brave enough to take the big risks to get what I really want. Suddenly we weren't talking about my hair at all. In fact she was almost insulting me, telling me about the things I hate most about myself--my insecurities and fears my proclivity to drink too much and freak out about my hair. I'm sure people overhearing the conversation were worried I wasn't going to take much more of this abuse, that I'd stand up and leave with half a hair cut, over such personal remarks.

But I didn't mind it, really. I knew she was crossing boundaries and I didn't really want her telling me about myself but something kept me in my chair. And it wasn't just the weight of my shame. It was as if she was reading between the lines of the dysfunction that surrounded my misguided relationship with coiffure and took it a step further in that direction. She responded in favor of my disregard for conventional hair care and validated my rebellion and confusion in an unequivocal--if not brash--tone. I wasn't insulted, even if I should have been, because she wasn't really trying to be a bitch, even if she sounded like one.

Experiences like these sort of tough love conversations always make me think of Jesus' response to the syrio-phoenician woman. This story haunts me because I am not a nice person, and I hang out with some really not nice people. And so with regularity I call God out as a real asshole and wonder why Jesus is being such a little bitch, bothering only to tell the woman enough about herself to insult her, if all he need do is wiggle his nose or wave his hand to heal her daughter.

If it really isn't any trouble for the savior to heal, then why does he argue like an incorrigible curmudgeoly holy man with this desperate not Greek, not Jewish lady about whether or not healing her daughter ought to be on his itinerary? Why doesn't he just behave himself, look her in the eye, smile benevolently, maybe even embrace her in one of those half-assed quickie politico handshakeslashhugs and tell her, "well, it was so nice to meet you, I've taken care of everything, take care and tell your friends!" And that might sound more like good news, but it really doesn't fit into my picture of the creation as cruel and calculating.

It would be easy enough to tell you that it is possible, exegetically speaking, that Jesus is engaging in some kind of wackadoo spiritual direction, guiding her to a deeper truth about her worth. I could brush aside your concerns that the savior was not nice, excuse him as the Lord and tell you, just don't worry your pretty little head about it, he would never speak to you that way. I would like to think that the Christ must have known how her belief worked and he must have but the idea that she walked away with newfound pride and a whole new story to go on, well that preaches really well if you don't want to preach what is written because according to Mark, all that we have to go on is an insult, a desperate rebuttal and a happy ending devoid of emotion.

In light of my recent experience at Rudy's I don't think that is all that is happening here and I'm willing to stand up here and tell you that I've exegeted the text and you, the community for which it was written and I've come to the conclusion that there is a real struggle for story going on.
The woman is begging and Jesus just lets her. By the time he gives her what she wants she is probably exhausted and confused, relieved yes, wondering what all the arguing was about, but broken down just enough to give Christ the benefit of the doubt.
His arguing with her is evidence enough for me to prove that he didn't heal her daughter just to pacify her, he didn't want to make her happy and send her on her way. He must have wanted to wrestle her, rather than feel sorry for her.

Something shook free for me, in realizing that my stylist wasn't feeling sorry for the choppy haircut, verbally abused, emotionally neglected 17, 18, 23 year old me. She wasn't going to tell me that I should just quit cutting my own hair because I am worth the money it costs to get a good hair cut. Maybe she knew that advice would fall on ears deaf to simple kindness.

She wasn't interested in rescuing me, or rewriting my story, she was interested in pushing me to risk more, she was telling me that according to the story I'm telling, I am entirely capable of being a lovely, if mildly dysfunctional woman, who shines in the risk and glows in the chaos, who is unafraid of fisticuffs, and enamored of blood and bodies broken for those I love.

That pierced and tattooed certified beautician was sure, as Jesus must have been, that there is plenty of beautiful healing to be gleaned from the story just as it is, without her adding to it cloying optimism or half-assed, dead-end encouragement. I imagine Jesus, wearing her red dreds, saying, no, you don't need my sympathy, you don't need a smile and reassurance, you need me to enter the story you are telling,

You don't need the Baby Jee smiling sweetly and sugar coating it just to tell you "you are worth more than you thought," not right now anyway.

God tells the truth about the minimal worth I feel, God is entirely capable of looking me square in the face and saying
"the humility you know so well is what I love most about you and I wouldn't take that away from you, not for all the self-esteem in the world. I will not humiliate you by censoring the story you know so well, by skipping over it just to get you where I want you that much faster. You are human and you are selfish and raw and I love to be broken with you, for you, in you, over you. Your body is my temple, your bed head, tossing and turning all night hair-do is your crowning gory glory and I love to see you wear it around, all crazy all the time."

Please hear me, I'm not saying Jesus is opposed to self-esteem or good haircuts. I'm saying God is against mindless optimism and unfounded hopes. And I'm also saying that God probably love to wrestle.

I mean to say that if the giver of Life gives you lemons and you come around asking a few questions, or lodging a few complaints, God is probably going to offer you lots of tequila and salt to go with them, get you good and sloppy drunk because maybe then you will finally listen when God tells you that you are loved.

According to this story, God is just mean enough to let you keep those lemons. God isn't going to pull you aside, reprimand-style, just to tell you that you had better figure things out, and either appreciate your lemons or realize that, obviously you are worth more than lemons, and what a fool you have been to have been to drag all those goddamn lemons over here because we have plenty of those already, we were hoping you would get rid of them for us, we are really not the mood for your lemons, can you please just get over them, let them go and move on? We're just going to take those lemons, throw them away for you and send you on your way, before someone sees us here with a crazy-complaining lemon laden idiot like you..."

If you come to God dragging around the bits of self-awareness you have left, the little you happen to know about yourself, even if all you have with you are the parts you hate, God is probably going to offer you something familiar, which will probably sound or feel an awful lot like the junk you've already been told about yourself.
Even in the counsel of the savior you may still feel the familiar sting of a thinly veiled insult, or the ache of tactless truth even though it is not the same old insult or the same brand of junk truth. I'm here to tell you that as far as I can tell, it will feel a lot like wrestling, or arguing or even a knock down, drag out fight and you will be caught up in the struggle because God is not afraid of your rebuttal or even your anger.
God isn't going to tell you to stop complaining or feeling sorry for yourself. God isn't the type to laugh in your face if you hope someone will respond in the way you have always been hurt, rather than in a way that sounds so good all you can do is wait for the bottom to fall out.

God is not in the business of rescuing us at the expense of our stories; there is no need to erase what will be redeemed

God isn't above using whatever you bring, whatever is handy: a wonky metaphor, an angry sigh, a little mud... a savior with snide remarks and garlic breath, sighing into your face, exhausted from a day of confrontation, might be just what the doctor ordered in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

I once shared with you that your gifting was to bring serious conversation about Christ to the Church of Christ; to challenge our contemporary culture to move from a self-centered "foo-foo" picture of Jesus and to call people to experience the real Jesus, the one who wrestles with each of us. Some how I do not believe Jacob had a "white latte" moment with God, during his darkest hour of desperation. You are moving closer to fulfilling your gifts and it will continue to be a trial--Great thought is born out of great challenges and pain. Just make sure you are not creating your own pain. There are enough people in the world who are ready to hurt others. Beware, be focused, be Christ! From the one who wants to love you more than Christ, but knows he can not, so I love you next to God only!