Jesus is trying to get in the zone. He has a mountainous, twenty mile walk ahead of him to get to Tyre and Sidon. He is exhausted from the intense conversations he has just had with the group of Pharisees who came all the way from Jerusalem to challenge his religious practice. The religious leaders are concerned because they have heard that Jesus is not a good, observant Jew. He does not always ritually wash his hands before eating. Jesus tries to explain his biblical interpretation to the Pharisees, he quotes the Torah and Isaiah. He tries several sermon illustrations with the gathered crowd and the disciples. None of it goes anywhere with them.  He is done.

Jesus leaves the area around Gennesaret and walks to Tyre and Sidon, over the mountains, toward the Mediterranean coast. Tyre and Sidon do not have the best reputation; after all Jezebel was from that region. But these cities are not quite as bad as Sodom and Gomorrah. Jesus seems to think that Tyre and Sidon would be like Nineveh and repent  – if given a chance. (Matthew 11:20-22)

Perhaps that is what is on his mind, the potential repentance of these sinful cities. Or maybe he is just trying to clear his head, recenter himself. In any case, he is not paying attention to those who pass by. (Those of you who run or walk regularly may know this feeling. You see someone you know along the trail but you just put your hand up to say “hello” and you keep going.  You are in the zone or you’re trying to get there.)

Jesus doesn’t hear the local woman, a foreigner, a Canaanite, who shouts at him about her demon-possessed daughter. Or if he does hear, it washes right over him; it is not his concern. He is in the zone.

The disciples – they hear the woman. They can’t help hearing her. She will not stay quiet. She yells and squawks at them until she begins to get hoarse. Her dogged pursuit of Jesus over the mountain paths so unnerves the disciples that they start their own clamoring. The woman is yelling, “Help, help me, help my child,” and the disciples loudly protest, “Make her shut up, Jesus, just make her shut up.”

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I am sure many of us this past week have been following the events far from Tyre and Sidon, in Ferguson, Missouri. Last Sunday Jake shared that he didn’t know much, but he had read on Twitter that an unarmed teenager named Michael Brown was shot by police. Now a week later, we all wonder what happened in Ferguson last Saturday afternoon and what in the world is going on now.

The protests and pleas for information in Ferguson have been mostly peaceful. People march with raised hands chanting, “Hands up, don’t shoot.” Yet the response has been a militarized police force. Quiet neighborhoods have been turned into war zones with tanks and tear gas. A pastor, present to help keep the peace, was shot by rubber bullets. Journalists have been arrested and shot at.

For some, Michael Brown is just another person lost to the streets. But African American parents, all over the country, are shouting until they are hoarse, “Help, help me, help my child.”

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Back on the path to Tyre and Sidon, Jesus still has not said a word to the woman or to the disciples. He finally allows himself to hear the disciples continuous pleas to get rid of this woman.

Jesus stops walking. He turns to the woman. He says slowly, so that he is sure she will understand, “I have come to the Jews, to the lost sheep of Israel. You and your daughter are not part of my mission. ”

The disciples are pleased that at last Jesus is dealing with this crazy woman, who seems to be as possessed as her daughter. Yet this kind of response, from the usually compassionate Jesus, is shocking.

The mother however will not be deterred, she is desperate – and quick; she comes right back at him. “Rabbi, help me.” She knows that he is a teacher in the Jewish tradition, that he is descended from King David. He tells her she is not part of his ‘mission’ – but she calls him “Rabbi” anyway.

Now she has his attention, Jesus has to respond, no matter how cruel it may sound. “I can’t take what is for the children and throw it to the dogs. Your people are not my people.”

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Of course there are a number of ways to understand this biblical text and there are numerous lenses through which to see the events in Ferguson, Missouri. Please understand, I am not saying that all parts of these two stories coincide perfectly. Yet this week, as I read the gospel text, Ferguson echoes in my ears – where a predominantly white police force says to a predominantly African American community, “Your people are not part of my mission. Your people are not my people. Your sons are not my sons.”

In Ferguson, the cries and wails of one mother were not loud enough to get the attention of those in power. So now many mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers stand in the streets. And still the police with their tear gas and rubber bullets say, “Your people are not my people.”

And so more mothers and fathers, more sisters and brothers, black and white and Asian, journalists and activists, are taking to the streets. This past Thursday night at 7pm, people all over the country, gathered in parks, in city squares, in public spaces, to remember Michael Brown and the many other men, women and children of color who have been killed or brutalized by police in this country. We all cried together, “Help, help us, help our children.”

What is the demon that makes this mother so reckless she follows Jesus for miles? Is her daughter a more rebellious teenager than a mother knows what to do with? Is the daughter mentally ill? Is the mother? Does she have seizures? Will she not eat or sleep?

We don’t know what the demon is. But it creates such desperation in the mother that she calls to Jesus’back as she follows after him – “Son of David, have pity.” And then to his face, she calls, “Rabbi.”

And Jesus calls her a dog; he says “Your people are not my people.”

Then this unnamed mother, quietly, respectfully, bows her head and makes her case one last time. “Yes, but even the dogs get the scraps that fall from the table.”

Jesus must hear himself as soon as he says it. But at what moment does he realize that the prophet Isaiah, that he just quoted so angrily to the Pharisees, now has a word for Jesus himself?  Isaiah says, “I will bring the foreigner to my holy mountain.” (Isaiah 56:1-8)

At what moment does Jesus remember his ancestor David’s great grandmother, Ruth. Foreign-born Ruth, who said to her Jewish mother-in-law, “Your people are my people. Your God is my God.” (Ruth 1:16)

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It was a long week in the streets of Ferguson. All week people protested into the night because they were not heard, they were not seen. With the police in riot gear, brandishing military-style weapons, assuming that all protesters were violent, the mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers continued to cry, “help, help me, help our children.” But the message from the police still seemed to be, “Your people are not my people.”

Then on Thursday, the governor appointed an African American State Police captain, Ron Johnson, to be in charge of the police response in Ferguson. Captain Johnson took to the streets, in his regular uniform, and walked with the protesters. Captain Johnson looked at people, he listened to them and he said in effect, “Your people are my people.” After all the violence, people were practically jubilant. It was a glimmer of hope in a situation that seemed hopelessly deadlocked.

Jesus looks at the woman, the mother who challenges him, who dogs him until he finally understands his own ministry anew. He sees that indeed her people are his people, that her daughter is his daughter. He finally responds, “Woman, you have great faith. Let it be done as you wish.”

Indeed, the woman and Jesus are both changed by the encounter. The woman returns home to her daughter who has been healed of the demon that has tormented them both for years. Jesus, instead of continuing on to Tyre and Sidon, goes back toward the Sea of Galilee where he meets large crowds of people that he heals. And after three days, he feeds this crowd of 4000 non-Jewish families with seven loaves and a few small fish. Her people have become his people.

And what of Ferguson, Missouri and Michael Brown’s mother, Lesley McSpadden who still cries out for justice for her son? What of all the parents who still cry for justice for their children?

We have a long way to go until we hear Jesus say, “Great is your faith, let it be done as you wish.” The demons of institutional racism and militarization are deeply entrenched in the foundations of this country. It will take all of us, shouting and pleading, marching and strategizing, working together faithfully, believing that the demons can be cast out.

So we must get to know our neighbors, the people we walk beside, the Michael Browns and Lesley McSpaddens. As we follow Jesus, demanding healing and justice, we must look around at all the other mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers who walk with us to plead for all the children. We must look at each other and say with great grandmother Ruth and with Jesus, “Your people are my people.”

May God give us the persistence of the Canaanite mother to dog Jesus, to follow him until the demons of racism and militarism are cast out. Let us work together until one day we hear Jesus say, “You have great faith. Let it be done as you wish.”