O, Tiberias

“O Tiberias”
The Rev. Dr. Fred G. Garry

Matthew 15.29-31

After Jesus had left that place, he passed along the Sea of Galilee, and he went up the mountain, where he sat down. Great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the maimed, the blind, the mute, and many others. They put them at his feet, and he cured them, so that the crowd was amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the maimed whole, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel.

The Gospel of Matthew describes Jesus walking around the region of Galilee, spending time by the Sea of Galilee; he names the towns and villages. Yet, in all the accounts there is no record of Jesus going to the seaport town of Tiberias. There is no mention of Jesus venturing into this key city; it is never mentioned at all. If you visit the Sea of Galilee today and explore the communities near it, you quickly discover you cannot help but go through, be around, or come by Tiberias. The omission is odd.

This sort of detail is usually not the stuff of a sermon, but in our reading today there are two curiosities, two strange moments in and around Tiberias, and if you put together, they form a picture, and this picture is the stuff of a sermon.

The first curiosity is that in our reading today Jesus is just outside of Tiberias. It would have been much clearer had Matthew said, “the people of Tiberias came to him on the mount beside the sea.” For the mount beside the sea is Mt. Arbel rising above Tiberias. It is as if Tiberias cannot be named, mentioned. It is unspeakable. Curious.
The other curiosity is something that doesn’t look strange at all, “the people praised the God of Israel.” Of course they did, right? Jesus is the Messiah of the Jews, the Jews worship the God of Israel, this is the fulfillment of the ancient covenant, so naturally the people would praise the God of Israel. Only, this is the only mention in Matthew of the God of Israel, and this is the only mention in all the gospels where the “God of Israel” is praised by people. Which is odd. Right?

What is more: this story has no purpose. Jesus went to a place, healed people, people were amazed. This has already been recorded. Nothing new here. So why record it; why mention the mount by the sea and the praising of the God of Israel? Doesn’t tell us anything new. But maybe it does.

Our little story is about what cannot be said and what must be said. There are things that we cannot talk about and there are things we must say. Not just as individuals, but in our culture. In our community, our church, our country there are things you must say to be a part and things you must not say so not to be excluded. Our curious little reading is a moment where Matthew is struggling with this truth: there are totems (the ideals and icons and idols we must affirm and appease) and there are taboos (shame or the limit of propriety, the unspeakable).

In my first semester of college a professor told a story that stays with me. He spoke of his first teaching position after completing his degree. Graduating from a prestigious school in the Northeast, he ventured to Texas to teach history. This was the 1960s. The dean of the department pulled him into his office before classes began and gave him a word of advice. “Son,” he said, “you need to understand that if you come down here and try to teach these young folk that the south lost the war, well, not one of ‘em is going to believe you.”

My professor went on to describe his time in Texas and how the dean’s words were entirely accurate. The war of Northern Aggression had not been lost, but merely reduced to a long suffering stalemate, the lost cause. True, slavery was no more, but the south was the south and that was not lost, a way of life was intact, true, unyielding to Yankee tyranny. Little did he know that there was nearly a century of culture established on the totem (the south will rise again) and the taboo (the war was not lost).

When we left San Diego in 1990 and ventured east to the promise land of New Jersey, the women in my mother’s church, the church where I was raised, the women of the church came and expressed their concern to her. Her son was in jeopardy— venturing into the citadel of heretics, the bastion of unbelief. I was going to be corrupted by false teaching and lose the salvation of my soul; I was heading to hell.

I wish I was exaggerating.

They were right of course. I was leaving aside the totem of the bible’s inerrancy and infallibility; I was leaving this idol behind. The bible was not to be questioned and here I was moving to the place where the bible was criticized and even considered something that would be rejected.

For the church of my childhood, affirming the belief that the bible had no errors and held the truth of all things, this was a required confession, a totem. If you didn’t believe this, you were not a Christian. To criticize the bible was unspeakable, taboo.

Most people under the age of 40 today were introduced to the notion of totem and taboo by reading the Harry Potter series. In the Harry Potter stories the antagonist’s name cannot be spoken. Voldemort is known as “he who shall not be named.” This is the taboo, the line that cannot be crossed. Of course each book is about how we must not be bound by such a taboo. What cannot be spoken must be spoken.

In my adolescence the totem and the taboo were found on a television show. “All in the Family” explored this again and again and again. It was even in the theme song, Those were the days, girls were girls and men were men; mister we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again. Didn’t need no welfare state; everybody pulled his weight; gee that old LaSalle ran great. Those were the days— the days when the totem was not challenged.

Each week Archie and Meathead went toe to toe. Archie would try to put the toothpaste back in the tube, get people back in their lane, put the blinders back on. Meathead would plead the case for a culture without bigotry and racism, a conversation with honest confession. They were both struggling with what must be said, America is right no matter what, and what must not be said, we live in a legacy of slavery and genocide.

In 2006 Jimmy Carter published a book: Palestine Peace not Apartheid. Apartheid in the title was a bit controversial. The outrage was swift. A former president declaring something as insidious as apartheid about an ally of the US: it didn’t go unnoticed. He spoke an unspeakable.

Carter’s presidency was deeply involved in the challenge of Israel. He famously brought together Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat at Camp David. At that time the potential to go in a different direction than apartheid was still on the table. Yet, after thirty years, and now nearly twenty more, it is clear that the path of apartheid had been chosen. The only issue was that no one would say it out loud. Now it is not a matter of avoiding apartheid. Today, our question should be, how to get out of it?

By claiming apartheid Carter not only spoke the unspeakable, but he also challenged the totem. The nation of Israel’s totem is the right to exist, to be a legitimate state, to be a nation among nations. This is what must be said. To claim apartheid is to question that totem, that legitimacy.

Why was Tiberias so taboo, so unspeakable Jesus couldn’t go there or even be close to the name? Scholars venture theories about the Roman colony as being built on a graveyard thus having Jesus venture there would have made him ritually impure. Not good. Another theory is that the city didn’t take part in the rebellion of 67 and thus were seen as traitors or collaborators of the empire, unworthy of Jesus. The simplest theory is that the city was an image of Roman power and to honor, to mention it, would be to betray the martyrs dying under the reign of Domitian as the gospel of Matthew was being written. Taboos are made of less.

What is most curious though is why did Matthew describe the people as praising the God of Israel? It doesn’t seem like a strange thing to do, but it is never mentioned save here. Why was this such an outlier, a unique moment? Why does it need to be said?

It could be that our little reading today is not a teaching with a resolution, but a teaching in the form of a question. What must you say, what must you not say? What is your totem and what is your taboo?

There are things in our community which must not be said and things which must be said; we have these right now. The most popular children’s song right now, “we don’t talk about Bruno.” And the state of Florida just passed a law grade that school teachers cannot say the word homosexual.

Gender is quickly becoming the latest ground of totem and taboo. When a Supreme Court nominee is asked to define what a woman is, it is certain we are struggling over totem and taboo, what must be said and what must not be said about gender.

The odd thing is even though the totem and the taboo are always there, they change. They change when we make certain people our totem or a certain ideology our taboo. We treat what is temporary as eternal. There was a time when even the most subtle reference to communism, this unspeakable offense, got you fired, blacklisted. There was a time when the president of the United States could not speak the words AIDS and thus speak with compassion for homosexuals. A strange irony— what is beyond challenge, beyond change, what must not change, changes all the time.

Maybe that is the teaching here. Matthew was making reference to the totem and taboo of his generation as if to say, we do this. We make things unspeakable (Jesus cared for the Roman colonists of Tiberias); and we demand people say certain things (they praised the God of Israel).

It could be what Matthew is offering in this little story is a moment of honesty and humility. You are going to do this; we always craft totems and create taboos. It’s part of living in a time and place with others. But what if the challenge is not to avoid this or justify it, but simply to be honest.

I believe what could not be mentioned and what was mentioned in our little story is a moment of transparency. It is a recognition of how challenging it is to speak the truth together. Be it Bruno or Voldemort, be it Archie or Meathead, there is always a struggle to speak and be silent. Perhaps it is just enough to be humble and honest about this.
The church can be a lot of things. On Friday I heard a beautiful word from Virginia Shaw, she spoke of the church as a family. This is true. And the church can be a place where we praise God in prayer and song. We are a sanctuary, a temple. This is true too. And the church can be a place of compassion. I love the fact that I need to walk through our food pantry to go to work. It is a witness at the beginning of each day: this is a place of compassion. This is true.

But what if this is a place to be honest and transparent in ways that begs humility. Here we can dare to admit what must be said is so often what we are convinced cannot be spoken. And to demand confession, to demand allegiance of any is to cast aside the freedom of the Kingdom of God. What if a church is the place where we risk truth and transparency? Amen.