St. George's Episcopal Church
Roseburg, Oregon
The Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 15A
14 August 2005
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St. George's Episcopal Church |
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Genesis 45:1-15
Psalm 133:1-3
Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32
Matthew 15:10-28
The Collect of the Day
From the Revised Common Lectionary as Adapted for Use by the Episcopal Church
and Authorized by the 74 th General Convention of the ECUSA
Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” Then the disciples approached and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?” He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.” But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.” Then he said, “Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.” Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly. (Matthew 15:10-28)
It’s All About Faith
The Rev. Dr. Bill Stroop, Rector
She came to church, running just a little bit late. She never missed church; something about getting herself cross-wise with the Big Guy if she did. She slipped into “her pew” near the back of the church where she almost always sat by herself. When the minister called the congregation to pray, she closed her eyes. Suddenly she became aware of the stranger who had scooted into her pew and sat down right beside her. “He could sit anywhere,” she thought, her prayer interrupted by the man’s presence. “But he sat there; right next to me.” She scooted a little, to the very end of the pew. The man scooted too.
Then she felt it. His shoe touched her shoe. “There’s plenty of room, why must he touch me so? It bothers me, but it doesn’t seem to bother him at all.” So consumed by the stranger’s feet, she didn’t even hear the preacher as he led the congregation. “Our Father who art in heaven …” “This man with the shoes,” she thought, “has no pride. His shoes are dusty, worn, and scratched. Oh my, there’s a hole in the side of that one!”
The custom of the church was for the members to greet each other after the service – especially welcoming newcomers. Before she could do anything, the stranger said, “Hi. My name’s Charlie. I’m glad to meet you my new friend.” And he extended his hand. There were tears in his eyes, and he had a large grin. Before she could say anything, he said, “Let me explain. I’ve been coming here for months, but I usually get here on time and sit up front. I know my appearance is not like most of the folks here. I always clean and polish my shoes before I come, but I walk such a long way by the time I get here they are dusty like chalk.
The woman felt herself flush with embarrassment; a tear same to her eye as he continued to apologize for sitting so near. “When I get here, I know I must look a sight, but I thought if I could touch you, maybe our souls would unite.”
The woman thought a moment and then spoke from her heart and not from her head. “Oh yes sir, you did touch me all right. You have showed me that the best part of a person is what is in the heart.”
All too often we react with our heads to situations, not letting our hearts inform our actions. As children, we are like sponges soaking up cultural and social ideas, and without realizing it, those ideas become so ingrained, they might as well be genetic. They become reflexes, and we do and say things assuming that everybody believes as we do. Ideas that are really just culturally or socially ingrained opinions become dogma. Everybody knows, don’t they, to respect the three foot bubble that surrounds everybody? Doesn’t everybody know that they are not to touch any part of a stranger?
Even ideas that seem to have divine origin – like rules from the Bible – can take on such importance, as to become tools of oppression or exclusion. As Jesus put it when addressing the Pharisees and scribes, “For the sake of tradition, you make void the word of God.” (Mt 15:6).
In today’s gospel lesson, Jesus tells a crowd of fellow Jews that things they have believed for generations to be divine Truths are inaccurate. This is a very dangerous slippery slope to step on. Because if one thing in Holy Writ can be questioned, then everything is subject to scrutiny. Where does it stop? And who defines what is right and true and who defines what is wrong and false?
And the first person to discover just how slippery this slope is was Jesus. Just after blowing the minds of his fellow Jews, Jesus went deep into Gentile territory and was shouted at by a Canaanite woman who had a sick child. “Everybody knows” that no Jewish man is allowed to converse with a single woman, yet the Canaanite woman addresses him, “Have mercy on me, my daughter is tormented by a demon.” Now, it is very instructive to notice here how clearly defined social barriers are so easily ignored or overcome when the life of a child is at stake. His disciples act as the body guards of Jewish tradition and try to keep Jesus from pulling religious guffaws by speaking with an unescorted woman who was also a Gentile. But, her faith in this man named Jesus was greater than the socio-religious barriers between them. Jesus, already sliding down the slope, spoke to her while the disciples slapped their foreheads. “Oh man, he’s gone and done it this time.”
With an air of self righteousness and racial bigotry, Jesus tells the woman that the Truth is only for the Jews; the Gentile races are not worthy of the word of God. “Oh, oh,” down the slope we go. Jesus’ rationale gives the woman something tangible to debate. By using her wit and an ironic sense of humor, coupled with her sincere humility and faithfulness, the woman refutes Jesus’ excuse. The woman argues that even Gentile dogs like herself are worthy of God. And Jesus, realizing that she is absolutely right, changes his mind. He knows that he could uphold tradition and act in an ungodly way toward this woman, and his disciples would back up 110% of the way. Or he could openly acknowledge the fact that her faith was clearly as strong, if not stronger, than that of the Jews. Faith won – not dogma or tradition. “Woman, great is your faith!”
Faith. Belief. Understanding. Whatever you call it, it is what connects us to God, and to each other. It is what transcends dogmas, and will unify us as one people. Jesus sees the table of God stretched to accommodate a far more inclusive group of diners. But note that it is not the woman’s cleverness Jesus praises or deems as the reason he will now give her the healing she desires. With his declaration, ‘Great is your faith,’ Jesus defines faithfulness as the new qualification for admission to the table.
What follows is a true story of faith. One that is ongoing as we speak, and I tell it to you with the permission of the family.
When she was about nine years old, Sarah Smith developed severe leukemia. She underwent chemotherapy, but that left her body susceptible to infection. She developed a life-threatening bacterial infection that necessitated the removal of part of her intestine. Recovering from that ordeal, she next had total body radiation and received a bone marrow transplant. She has been free of leukemia for four years.
However, now at the age of thirteen, Sarah lies in a Portland hospital bed. Because of the radiation she received, Sarah developed a connection between her intestine and her gall bladder that caused pain and severe nausea. So an attempt was made to remove her gall bladder.
Unfortunately, the surgery did not go well. Her body was damaged by the radiation she had previously received, and the gall bladder could not be removed. She is currently suffering and in great pain.
Sarah’s parents are distraught. Yet despite the terrible ordeal her daughter has been through, their faith in a powerful and loving God has not been shaken. As they recently wrote, “Sarah has been through worse, and God has done miracles. We now ask for one more. We are ask for a ‘creative miracle.’ We ask God [for] a more ‘normal’ life for Sarah. One filled with the joy that a thirteen year-old should experience.”
Great is their faith.
In the gospel story we do not hear from the Canaanite woman’s daughter. But, through her mother we hear from Sarah. “As [Sarah] lay in her bed crying, she lifted her little arms straight up, tubes and all. Her voice full of tears and somewhat distorted because of the nose tube causing pain in her throat, she began to pray. To the best of [her mother’s knowledge], she prayed like this: ‘Dear Jesus, please hear me. Please heal me. I am only a thirteen year-old kid, and I don’t know what it is like to be normal. Your word says you will never leave us or forsake us. It says that if we ask, we will receive. I am asking for you to heal me. I am begging for you to hear me. Please Jesus, I don’t know what else to do. Please let me see you, or hear you, or feel you’.”
Great is her faith.
The Letter to the Hebrews defines faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Heb 11:1) To that I would add that faith is the absence of fear. Sarah and her parents have much to be afraid of. But their faith helping them to control their fear and anxiety, and perhaps that is the greatest witness to the power of faith.
Jim Cymbala once wrote, “ I thought the greatest Christian must be the person who walks around with shoulders thrown back because of tremendous inner strength and power, quoting Scripture and letting everyone know he has arrived. I have since learned that the most mature believer is the one who is bent over, leaning most heavily on the Lord, and admitting his total inability to do anything without Christ. The greatest Christian is not the one who has achieved the most but rather the one who has received the most. God’s grace, love and mercy flow through that person abundantly because they walk in total dependence.”[1] Burdened as they are, Sarah and her parents bless us by their examples of faithfulness and love.
Great is their faith.
St. Paul wrote that when he was a child, he spoke like a child, thought like a child, and reasoned like a child. But when he became an adult, he abided in faith, hope, and love, and of those three, he felt love was the greatest. I believe Paul recognized that God’s unconditional love given freely to all is the foundation for the kind of sustaining faith that moved the Canaanite woman to speak, and that sustains and supports Sarah and her family. I pray that it supports you too.
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Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried out, “Send everyone away from me.” So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it. Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?” But his brothers could not answer him, so dismayed were they at his presence. Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come closer to me.” And they came closer. He said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years; and there are five more years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, ‘Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not delay. You shall settle in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children’s children, as well as your flocks, your herds, and all that you have. I will provide for you there--since there are five more years of famine to come--so that you and your household, and all that you have, will not come to poverty.’ And now your eyes and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see that it is my own mouth that speaks to you. You must tell my father how greatly I am honored in Egypt, and all that you have seen. Hurry and bring my father down here.” Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, while Benjamin wept upon his neck. And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.
1 How very good and pleasant it is
when kindred live together in unity!
2 It is like the precious oil on the head,
running down upon the beard,
on the beard of Aaron,
running down over the collar of his robes.
3 It is like the dew of Hermon,
which falls on the mountains of Zion.
For there the LORD ordained his blessing,
life forevermore.
I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew, for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, so they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy. For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.
Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” Then the disciples approached and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?” He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.” But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.” Then he said, “Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.” Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.
Almighty God, you have given your only Son to be for us a sacrifice for sin, and also an example of godly life: Give us grace to receive thankfully the fruits of his redeeming work, and to follow daily in the blessed steps of his most holy life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen
[1] Jim Cymbala. Fresh Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1993), 45.
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11 July 2005
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