Biography
The Rev. Dirk Ficca is Executive Director of the Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions. The Council is an organization which fosters interreligious encounter, dialogue and cooperative action in Chicago and around the world. Through the Council, Dirk was a leader in the planning of the Parliament of the World's Religions held in Chicago in 1993, and more recently in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1999. He also directs the Metropolitan Chicago Interreligious Initiative of the Council. Dirk is an ordained Presbyterian minister and served for eleven years as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Benton Harbor, Michigan. He teaches at DePaul University, the Lutheran School of Theology and Garret Evangelical Theological Seminary. [Biographical information is correct as of the broadcast date noted above.]

"The Look on His Face"
I read to you from Mark's Gospel, 7:24-30:

And from there he arose and went to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And he entered a house, and would not have any one know it; yet he could not be hid. But immediately a woman, whose little daughter was possessed by an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell down at his feet. Now the woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. And he said to her, "Let the children first be fed, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." But she answered him, "Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." And he said to her, "For this saying you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter." And she went home, and found the child lying in bed, and the demon gone.

We're given a clue as to the look on her face. A frantic, desperate mother came begging for her sick daughter to be healed. It's not difficult to imagine the look on her face.

What I want to know is the look on his face. The look on the face of Jesus when he says to the woman, in essence, that she's a dog—and her sick daughter as well.

Is the look on his face matter-of-fact when he says, "Let the children first be fed, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." After all, the woman was "a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth." In other words, she was not a Jew, not one of the Chosen People, not a true "child of God."

Or was the look on his face harsh and full of judgment? How dare someone from outside the chosen circle presume on him and the kingdom he represented for this kind of special treatment. She was, after all, a Gentile, a foreigner, a woman, and God-only-knows-what-else.

Or was the expression Jesus wore a poker face, because he is in fact merely testing her. He wants to know what she believes, beyond her desperate need to have her daughter healed. Apparently she passes the test when she says that "...yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs."

In other words, she and her daughter have just as much right to the bread as any one else. For this saying, Jesus tells her, her daughter is healed.

Better yet, wouldn't it be nice to think that the look on the face of Jesus was gentle and jesting. His knowing half-smile immediately conveys to this woman that though this business about bread and dogs is the conventional wisdom, he doesn't buy it. She responds with an equally knowing relieved smile, uttering a saying which speaks of a wisdom that far surpasses anything conventional. Yes, it would be comforting to think it happened this way.

What we can be sure about is this: Conventional wisdom notwithstanding, this woman knew she was not a dog. She knew she had every right to ask that her daughter be healed. And she knew all of this before she met Jesus.

Behind this story lurks a question in the underground of the gospels as to whether Jesus' mission was consciously just to the Jews or intentionally extended to the Gentiles. Whether a definitive answer can be given in terms of scholarship, at least the biblical record is clear. Jesus never turned away anyone, Jew or Gentile, who sought his help. The kingdom he was proclaiming was above all a kingdom of grace, open to everyone.

Later on, in the days of the early church, the question had shifted to whether one had to become a Jew first before becoming a Christian. As far as history is concerned, Paul's way proved more telling than Peter's. The grace of God was offered freely, without the need for circumcision or a particular religious pedigree.

Now some two thousand years later, this question has emerged in yet another way. It comes to us transformed by the growing awareness that Christendom as we have known it in the West no longer is (and perhaps never was) the dominant religion in the world, and by the growing visibility of the great diversity and vitality of the many other religious and spiritual traditions in the world.

For me at least, the question is no longer how to make the world Christian. The new emerging question is: What does it mean to be a Christian in the world?

This is a question that confronts me daily in my work with the Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions. I am an Anglo-Saxon-Italian, Protestant, Presbyterian, ordained Christian minister from middle America, working with people from around the world who live here in metropolitan Chicago, and who practice diverse religious and spiritual traditions—from Baha'i to Zoroastrian and every tradition in between.

In the course of my work I've received a wonderful course in the world's religions. I've learned about these religious and spiritual traditions, not by reading books or listening to scholars or gurus, but by encountering the people who live these traditions out every day in their own lives. I learned about Islam by talking with Muslims, about Sikhism by attending Gurudwara, about Buddhism by observing their practice, and so on. In the midst of this fascinating adventure, I've gained some insights into what it means to be a Christian in such a religiously-diverse world.

For one thing, I have come to understand that people experience what Christians call the grace of God, and respond to it, without being a Christian. And this certainly is first always the case for Christians. What do I mean by that?

Think for a moment, those of you, who, at some point in your life, made the conscious decision to become a Christian. Did you not, then, after your conversion, begin to look back on your life, and see that the grace of God had already been at work?

Or those of you who grew up in a Christian home, who have always thought of yourself as a Christian - was not that grace present in your home, prior to your consciousness or understanding of it?

Whether converted or reared from childhood, did it not happen like this: through a particular person or community, in the midst of a particular situation, through an experience of forgiveness, healing, gratitude, joy, love, even despair, something was at work. Something which you responded to, with or without being able to name it as grace. And whether or not you responded, or you name it as such, this grace was there first, in fact, had to have been there first.

An experience of grace that Christians in fact proclaim is offered by God to everyone, at all times, all over the world—and I would add, offered whether a person responds or not, or calls it the grace of God or not.

Of course, that's what Christians call it. We call it grace and know it as grace when we experience or see it because we saw it lived out in one named Jesus of Nazareth.

Such a perspective, of course, has implications for how Christians might think about the Church and its mission. You've probably heard the saying, "The Church has God's mission in the world." What is important to note is the order: the church first, then God's mission, in the world. A wise nun I know loves to turn that saying around to say instead: "God's mission in the world has a Church." God first, whose mission in the world has a Church.

The implications are two-fold. On the one hand, it is an affirmation of the Church. What God wants to accomplish in the world has a vehicle, the Church. On the other hand, it leaves open the possibility that God's mission in the world is larger than the Church. That from a Christian perspective God can also be at work in other ways, through other people, and other traditions.

My experience of diverse religious and spiritual communities is that they are all contributing to the kind of world the Church is seeking:

The Hindu who believes that you cannot be at peace with your neighbor unless you are at peace within yourself.

The Buddhist who strives to overcome anger, greed and illusion because these three vices are at the root of all that ills the world.

The Jew who affirms life and its goodness, and then sets about Tikkun Olam, working to repair what is yet awry in the world.

The Sikh who proclaims that all persons are equal in the sight of God, regardless of sex, class, caste, or station in life.

The Muslim who believes that peace can only come through justice.

The Jain and Zoroastrian who each sees the Earth as sacred, and that to live in harmony with the Earth is a matter of spirituality.

From a Christian perspective, all of these traditions and the persons who live them out are making an indispensable contribution to a better world.

As does the Christian who believes that given the broken and inhumane state of the world, it's only by way of a love that is willing to serve and even suffer that the world and all those in it will be made whole.

Before she ever met Jesus, the Syrophoenician woman knew her worth. Call it by the grace of God, call it by whatever you want, at least what she knew was a reality for her.

The only question facing her and the healing of her daughter was: did Jesus know it? From the story we know he did. The question for those of us who claim to follow him is: do we know this as well? What is the look on your face, and mine, when we give our answer?

To be found within the Christian faith are the reasons and the resources to love our neighbors, whatever their religious or spiritual tradition may be. We are called by God to treat each and every one of our fellow human beings with respect and care, to actively work for their well-being, and to work with them for peace and justice in the world we all live in.

I believe I am called to do this whether or not my neighbor is a Christian, or even becomes a Christian. Rather, I believe I am called to do this because I am a Christian.

The biblical scholar and homiletician, Fred Craddock, tells the story of a missionary sent to preach the gospel in India near the end of World War II. After many months the time came for a furlough back home.

His church wired him the money to book passage on a steamer but when he got to the port city he discovered a boat load of Jews had just been allowed to land temporarily. These were the days when European Jews were sailing all over the world literally looking for a place to live, and these particular Jews were now staying in attics and warehouses and basements all over that port city.

It happened to be Christmas, and on Christmas morning, this missionary went to one of the attics where scores of Jews were staying. He walked in and said, "Merry Christmas."

The people looked at him as if he were crazy and responded, "We're Jews

"I know that," said the missionary, " What would you like for Christmas?"

In utter amazement the Jews responded, "Why, we'd like pastries, good pastries like the ones we used to have in Germany."

So the missionary went out and used the money for his ticket home to buy pastries for all the Jews he could find staying in the port.

Of course, then he had to wire home asking for more money to book his passage back to the States.

As you might expect, his superiors wired back asking what happened to the money they had already sent.

He wired that he had used it to buy Christmas pastries for some Jews.

His superiors wired back, "Why did you do that? They don't even believe in Jesus."

He wired back: "Yes, but I do."

Do you see the look on his face?

Interview with Dirk Ficca
Interviewed by Lydia Talbot

Lydia Talbot: A compelling message on the unconditional grace of God for all people, open to everyone. Take us back and share with us what that moment was for you when you first understood that meaning of grace.

Dirk Ficca: Actually it happened at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, when I was 18 years old at a church camp, sitting out and looking out over the water one night and having a sense that whoever it was responsible for this universe, this water, this evening, had great care for me, and if that force that I would call God had created in such a loving way, then I should surrender myself to the grace that God provides.

Talbot: An epiphanous moment, revelatory for you.

Ficca: Yes, it was.

Talbot: Have you told your small children about that?

Ficca: Not yet. I am trying to model the grace of God for them, my wife and I, in terms of how we care for them and love them so that as we talk about the grace of God, there will be some kind of personal experience that they can relate to.

Talbot: But for you, at the least expected moment, that gift was given to you. You are working with interreligious realities, the new frontier of religious groups here in the Chicago area and, of course, around the globe. Dirk, how has your mind changed since your work with the Parliament of the World's Religions about what it means to be a Christian in the world?

Ficca: Well, I know a lot of people are often afraid or uncomfortable when encountering people of other traditions that it will somehow call their own tradition into question. Most certainly now I think of the Christian faith in a much broader arena and horizon. I think of myself as a Christian over against a wider horizon of religious diversity. The paradox is that I am more deeply a Christian than I ever was before. There are aspects of the Christian faith that I am now aware of because I've seen it in another tradition. Or I have been challenged by my encounter with somebody of another tradition to look more deeply into what I believe, so in some sense the paradox is that by dialoguing with people and encountering people of very different traditions, I have become more deeply rooted in my own, while appreciating a wider view as well.

Talbot: Relationships, wonderful connections for the people of so many different faiths you are working with. In our final moment, a story.

Ficca: Well, it was a visit to Sikh Gurudwara in Palatine to share with them about the 1993 Parliament. All I can say is that I walked into the Gurudwara that day working with the Parliament on a part-time basis for just a limited period of time and with the graciousness and hospitality I experienced there when I walked out of the Gurudwara four hours later, I said, "This is work to be committed to for the rest of my life."

Talbot: Graciousness and hospitality. Thank you for leaving us with those wonderful gifts.

Ficca: A pleasure to be here.