Sunday's Sermon

There are so many things to love about the Episcopal Church. And as someone who was born a Cradle Episcopalian but held hostage by Methodist parents, I find myself loving the things that make us who we are more and more.

I love the fact that when I say, “The Lord be with you,” you will say “and also with you!” Do you realize that we are praying for each other and we are blessing each other when we do that? May God be with you now and always. And may God be with you now and always.

I love it!

And I love the fact that we read the Bible in church. We read a lot of the Bible. If you come to church every Sunday for three years, you will have heard the majority of the Bible read. Every Sunday we hear from the Hebrew Scriptures (or the Old Testament). We sing a portion of the psalms. We hear from one of the Epistles in the New Testament, and with great ceremony and reverence, we hear from one of the Gospels.

Not only do we get to hear from all parts of the Bible – but it keeps the preacher honest. I guess technically I could preach on any text from the Bible, but it would only make sense if I preached from one of the readings that we read in church.

And that’s not always easy. You see, if it were up to me, I would probably only preach from two or three different readings each week. I might throw a few more in there, but it wouldn’t be long before you noticed a theme. If it were up to me, I’d pitch a tent in the letters of John and stay a while.

Especially in John’s 1st letter where he says that we should love one another, because love comes from God – in fact, God is love. I love that passage. And because I love it, I think I would favor it. I would bring it back each week.

Or I would stay around in the 18th chapter of Matthew where Jesus tells his disciples that if you disagree with someone, don’t gossip or engage in passive-aggressive behavior. If you have disagreement, if you are at odds with someone, go to them. Talk to them face to face. Be an adult. Deal with it. If that doesn’t work, then take someone with you so they can be a witness. If that doesn’t work, then bring it before the church. Let’s work it out!

There is so much conflict in our lives, at home, at school, at work, and in the church – that I think I would favor that passage.

Which means I would never go to the 15 chapter in Matthew. Or in the 7th chapter of Mark – they both tell the same story. But in the Episcopal Church, we have the lectionary – the assigned readings for today. And as much as I do not like it – I have to turn to the 15th chapter in Matthew.

The problem with the 15th chapter of Matthew is that it puts me in a position that I am not comfortable being in. You see, in this chapter, Jesus does something that is, how do I say it, very un-Christ-like. Jesus says something that frankly, doesn’t sound like Jesus.

After Jesus finished talking with the scribes and Pharisees, he went with his disciples to the region of Tyre and Sidon. Basically he went to modern day Lebanon. A Canaanite woman from that region came out to Jesus and was screaming and shouting, “Have mercy on me – my daughter is tormented by a demon!”

And Jesus ignores her. That’s the first thing that Jesus does that is hard to explain. In the chapters before Jesus heals people, he has compassion on them, he even goes out of this way to visit them in their homes, but when this woman, comes out and pleads with him – he just keeps on walking.

The woman apparently doesn’t stop when Jesus ignores her because the disciples now start urging Jesus to send her away. “She keeps screaming,” they say.

Then Jesus does the second thing that is hard to explain – he tells the disciples and maybe even the woman, that he was only sent for the lost sheep of Israel. In other words, he was sent to be with the Jews – and not the Gentiles, and certainly not the Canaanites. But that goes completely against some other things Jesus has said – not to mention the famous John 3:16 – that God so loved the world that he sent his only son and whoever – WHOEVER – believes in him will be saved.

Jesus keeps on walking.

Now the woman comes up and kneels before Jesus and says to him, “Lord, help me.”

And Jesus does it again: It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to dogs.” That’s exactly what he said. He compared the Canaanite woman to a dog.

Now the Jews did not like the Canaanites – they had a long history of not liking each other. Remember when God showed Moses the Promised Land way back in the Old Testament? Remember when Joshua led the Hebrews into the Promised Land? The Promised Land was not empty – it was not vacant waiting on the Hebrews to move in. The Canaanites were there. And not only were the Canaanites in the land that God had promised the Hebrews, but they were polytheistic and the rumor was they would even sacrifice their children to their gods.

So on one hand, it wasn’t uncommon for a Jew to call a Canaanite a dog – but Jesus? It’s hard for me to swallow Jesus using a racial slur. Especially when St Paul says that in Christ, in Jesus there is not male nor female, Jew nor Greek, slave nor free. But that’s what he said.

And the woman is still there – still arguing – still pleading with Jesus – “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”

And that did it. I bet he even smiled when he said “your faith is great – your daughter is healed.”

Doesn’t sound like Jesus, does it? A woman comes to Jesus – the Prince of Peace – and begs for him to heal her daughter. He ignores her, and then says that he is only here for certain people and when she keeps bugging him he calls her a dog, and after she finally persists – he grants her request.
Either we don’t know Jesus as well as we thought we did or we don’t know ourselves as well as Jesus knows us.

Thursday night I had a conversation with an old friend. The details of that conversation aren’t important except that they are identical to thousands of conversations we’ve all had at one time or another – either with other people or conversations we’ve had with ourselves.

Something has happened. Something has happened in our lives that didn’t see coming. That we can’t control – we can’t fix, and now we are left holding a new hand of cards that life has dealt us and we have no idea how to play it.

Maybe we prayed. But nothing happened. Maybe we even went to church once or talked to the priest, but the situation stayed the same. So after trying to reach out to God and give everything to God, nothing happens. God either doesn’t care, is angry, or doesn’t exist.

It’s as if we are pleading with God but he just walks on by. We plead some more and we feel as if God said he’s more interested in other people. We plead even more and God asks us who we think we are. Sometimes it may seem that way.

But the woman at Christ’s feet kept on. That is the gift of the Canaanite woman. That is her gift to us – for even though she was a woman, she was the mother of a possessed child, and she was from a group of people that had long been at odds with the Jews – she persisted. She knew the odds were stacked against her, she knew the hand that life had dealt her was not a winning hand – but she did not stop.

The gift of the Canaanite woman to us is that she was convinced there was hope in her desperate situation. She was convinced there was grace. She was convinced of the truth contained in my favorite passage in 1st John that God is love.

It’s not that God plays with us, or toys with us. God is not racist, sexist, or mean. Sometimes we need to ask to right questions. Sometimes we need to have the right perspective. And God in his great mercy and love will sometimes challenge us to look at the world and to look at our problems differently to look for hope and to look for grace and to look for love even when it may seem as if there is none.

Because God knows us. God knows us better than we know ourselves. And if God knows us better than we know ourselves – God knows what we need, what we are looking for, and what hurts.

And if God is love, then God will not ignore us or insult us. God will help us see the world and our role in this world from a greater, better perspective. God will show us the hope, grace, and love that is in every situation and every person.

And even though we don’t always have it – God will help us be patient. God will grant us the strength to persevere. God will smile and reward our faith.

If it feels as if God does not care or does not hear us – let us not give up. Don’t leave.
If it feels as if there is no hope, no grace, nor love in our lives or situations – let us keep looking. Don’t leave.

We have to be present. We have to be present with God. That is the gift of the Canaanite woman. Amen.