“Maybe you can accept it, but I
can’t,” Zdenka screamed. “This is not God’s will to have our daughter
suffer so. You go off in the fields . . . and you work hard, Melkart, but
you are not here all day. I am. I look into her eyes and see that
this is not what God wants.
Melkart sighed. “But Zdenka, but Zdenka . . . how much energy do we give
to this false hope that anything can be different?”
“What you call false hope, when all around us is blind acceptance. We
blindly accept being stripped of our farm. We blindly accept losing all
honor. We blindly accept when the landlord refers to our daughter as a
dog.”
“What am I to do?” Melkart screamed back. “You want me to fight the
Romans myself?!”
“No, Melkart, that is certain death, but aren’t we living death now?”
Melkart hung his head. He felt responsible.
“No, Melkart, you are a farmer, a good farmer, and not a warrior, so I do not
expect you to take on centurions. But we should not live as dead.
Maybe I’m willing to change because I’m too tired . . . or too hungry . . . or
too cold to care.”
Melkart moved to the floor and sat. “What then? What is possible?”
“I don’t know.” Zdenka said, as she continued placing bread and other supplies
in her pack. Zdenka shook her head all the while, like she was trying to
stop Melkart from any more agreeable comments about the life they led.
“How long will you be gone?” Melkart asked.
“I hear he has gone to the coast—to Tyre. I will try to see him
there. Mother will be alright with Kashlan[1].”
“Kashlan needs you. You are the only one who knows who she is. Do
you think a Jewish prophet or a Jewish God will know who she is?”
“This Jewish prophet tells Jewish farmers they are the children of God. If he knows them, then maybe the Jewish God knows Kashlan.”
“A Jewish God knows our Syro-Phoenician daughter?”
“I don’t knowwwww, Melkart. I have just heard this prophet is
creating a different place. He does not accept the living death.”
“The Romans will still kill him.”
“Maybe so, but he is not dead yet. Be good to my mother. She thinks
Kashlan is a dog too. Show her a different way.”
Zdenka moved to the passage-way.
“But what if I don’t, what if I can’t . . .”
Zdenka stopped and leveled her eyes on Melkart. “Show her a different
way, Melkart!” And with that, Zdenka left.
It took Zdenka more than two days to arrive outside Tyre. The heat
pressed down on Zdenka during the day, and the cold had her bent over and
clutching at night. She had not thought her journey would last so long,
perhaps hoping it would not last so long, and she only had bread for three
days. This would make things more difficult for Zdenka. She had
barely enough bread for her trip to Tyre and back. As the crowd became
more thickly Jewish, people who were not her own, she knew that begging might
not even gain her bread.
She went a day without bread so that she would have some for the trip
home. When she finally reached the seacoast, her feet ached . . . but
Zdenka was convinced she knew something.
Along the seacoast of Tyre, she was shameless in asking every Jew she saw where
she might find the prophet. Some men, so startled that a foreign woman
would talk to them, pointed the way for her. Most of the women scolded
her.
Zdenka entered two or three private homes, hoping to find the prophet.
She was shooed away.
Finally, Zdenka came upon a gathering of men and women eating at a table
together. It was a strange table. Some of the women seemed to be in
a much more prominent position than the men.
Zdenka’s nails dug into her palms as she thought, “He must know my
daughter. He must!” She quickly approached the man who seemed to be
enjoying himself at the table more than any other.
Zdenka knelt behind him. He looked back to see her and then turned back
to the group, ignoring her. She moved closer to the table and knelt
again. Again, he turned and then ignored her.
“He must.” Zdenka thought.
When she heard the women around the table freely speaking out of turn, she took
a chance. “Prophet,” she paused, “prophet, my daughter has demons which
possess her. She is oppressed by them, and needs . . .”
He interrupted. “This is no concern of mine, Phoenician,” he said,
without even looking at her, “we don’t give food to the dogs.”
The room erupted in laughter. Zdenka dug her nails deeper into her palms
and clenched her teeth. The laughter kept coming and coming, pushing her
from the room. She tried to speak again.
“But, prophet . . .” Nobody could hear her over the laughter.
“But, prophet . . .” Still they laughed.
“But, Lord . . . even the dogs get to eat the crumbs from the master’s table.”
This time the prophet turned. He had been caught off-guard by just how
shameless this foreign woman was willing to be on behalf of her daughter, how
persistent, how unrelenting. And this time the prophet saw Zdenka, and his
heart expanded, and he didn’t know what she knew . . . but the prophet knew
Zdenka.
“Go,” the prophet said, “Your faith has exorcised the demons from her. They no longer run her life.” And it
was so.
Now there are many people who need to be known in the world. The day may
come when we begin to know them as Christ knew Zdenka, as Zedenka knew Kashlan,
as God knows Kashlan. For God’s home is made among the living dead.
Amen.
Now there are many people who need to be known in the world. The day may
come when we begin to know them as Christ knew Zdenka, as Zedenka knew Kashlan,
as God knows Kashlan. For God’s home is made among the living dead.
Amen.
[1] When I served as a
missionary in Chiapas, Mexico, “Kashlan,” was the name used by the Mayan
indigenous to describe “outsider” or “foreigner.” The big discussion was whether I was “Kashlan.” I was told it was a slang term for “chicken.”
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