Transcription
And our New Testament lesson from Matthew 15, we’ll start with verses 10 and go all the way to verse 28. On Pew Bible page 791. Hear God’s word.
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 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 is what defiles. For out of the heart comes evil intention, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. There are, these are what defiles 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, is it 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 master’s 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. This is the word of our Lord.
Let us pray. Loving and gracious God, we thank you. We thank you for your word that lives and breathes and teaches and guides us. We ask, oh Lord, that it would open our hearts and minds, not just today, but for every day and all the days to come. Gracious God, open our hearts and minds to be changed and transformed through your word. Gracious God, in your name we pray this, amen.
As I read and reread this passage from Matthew, something just felt off. You know, like when somebody brews flavored coffee in your coffee pot and then you have that residual something off when you drink your coffee. I’m sorry if you’re one of those flavored coffee drinkers. I can taste the flavored coffee about three pots down the line. So yes, I know I’m weird. But it’s also like when you have that little stone in your shoe. It’s not yet enough to where you have to take off the shoe and shake it out, but there’s just something that feels a little off in this passage. Something different from Jesus. And Jesus does do something strange and out of normal for him. When he meets this woman, he’s not exactly doing the normal Jesus stuff. Normally we have a woman who is in need, who comes to Jesus and Jesus says, wonderful, I love you. Here, let me help you and heal your child. Except there’s baggage in this moment. And when I say baggage, I mean hundreds of years, wars, battles, death, animosity. It’s not a pretty picture between two groups of people. The Canaanites on the one hand and the people of Israel on the other. Now, when Jesus makes this movement, this trip to Tyre and Sidon, it doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Remember, we’ve been seeing all the things that have constantly been happening to him and for him ever since John the Baptist was killed. And the reality is Jesus is tired. Where is he going to get a moment to himself? If he goes up onto the mountain to be alone, what happens? The disciples go out in a boat and have trouble trying to zigzag across the waters. He goes to be alone and 5,000 people find him and need to be fed. He just kind of needs that little bit of time to reinvigorate, to rest. So he goes to this foreign land, a land most Jews would not have gone because the land of the Phoenicians, the land of the Canaanites had been off and on at war with the Israelites since the time of Joshua. No, no, I didn’t make a mistake when I said from Jesus to Joshua. That’s how long the animosity has grown. Now, he goes because everywhere he has to go, everywhere he wants to go, people are constantly going and asking. He needs a moment. And yet in this foreign land, even there, there is the call to the son of God for something. Now, understand this is not a place steeped in the Jewish faith. This is a land with its own gods, its own rulers, and that long, long, long history of animosity. And if you want a list of some of those historical moments, read the book of Joshua, Kings, Samuel, Chronicles, the prophets, just keep on going through the Old Testament and eventually you’ll get to the New Testament where you’ll hear new stuff about the animosity.
So it’s not just religious issues that are up there, it’s cultural. And here goes Jesus and he is, remember, son of God at all times. And as he comes, he enters into this foreign land and things happen. Things are off. Now, we might sit there and wonder how this woman’s heard of Jesus. Well, maybe the occasional merchant has brought a story to Tyre and Sidon about this Jesus. She’s heard about all the things he’s done, all the things he is doing. I mean, what else are people talking about in this region? They can’t talk about what happened in the Giants game. They can’t talk about what happened in the Knicks game or the Yankees game. They can talk about what Jesus is doing down in Galilee or they can talk about how the harvest is going. Now, I remember trying to have a conversation with my great uncle who was a farmer about how the harvest is going. I could listen for about two minutes and then, it’s just not gripping conversation. So how does this woman hear about Jesus? Because it’s excitement, it’s amazing things. She’s hearing about the people, he’s healing, all the things he’s done and she has somehow come to believe. Just hearing the stories of Jesus has come into her heart and changed her. She has quite a bit of work in which she is trying to do. But she’s also a mother. And so while this faith grabs hold of her, she also looks at what she’s going through. Her daughter is sick, she’s ill with a demon. She’s suffering and in need of help. And as this woman has proceeded through her old faith and now into her new faith and belief in Jesus, what is happening? He can heal her, as he’s healed all the other people. He can heal her. She has belief and strength. And in her cry to Jesus, she does a lot of things. First, she announces her daughter’s plight. Help my daughter, help her, help her. But she also calls Jesus, the son of David and her Lord. In her statement, she’s as if a person is kneeling before a king and declaring themselves the subject of that king. She is throwing her old gods, her historical family gods, her national gods, and throwing them into the garbage. She will follow Jesus no matter what. She is throwing the culture that has told her she cannot be around the Jews and throwing that away. She is transforming what and who she is and it is a huge deal for her. It is huge for her to give up on all of this trappings and historical stuff of her family. But then Jesus ignores her. Jesus does the most un-Jesus thing and doesn’t listen to her. But then her petitions don’t stop. They keep on and they start to wear out the disciples. And if you’ve ever seen this happen with kids, it happens to other people more than it happens to the most aware person in the room. Usually it’s one of the parents. The kid is losing their mind in the store. Everybody’s kind of looking at the child like, please, please, please, stop, stop, stop. And you’ve got the one parent sitting there, chips and salsa, chips and dip, and just keep on. What, there’s a kid yelling, it’s mine? Oh, didn’t notice. Now, everybody else is anxious, but that one parent isn’t. But this woman, even though Jesus is not giving her the time of day, keeps on. And then he counters with, why would I give what is the people of Israel’s to the dogs? But then she counters with, even the dogs get to eat at the table. She is not going to take no for an answer. She is not going to stop until her Lord heals her daughter. She will crash through whatever barrier that humans have built up. She will jump over whatever hurdle exists to have her Lord, Jesus, heal her child. In this moment, we see this woman’s faith laid bare. We see what this mother is willing to do, willing to call on her Lord to do, and how she will not stop. She will persist to get her child healed by her Lord. She will not let the trappings and barriers of the world, the trappings and barriers of Canaanite versus Jew, block her from her Lord healing her child.
Now, I’ve said before that miracles come in all shapes and sizes, and different levels of wow factor. And casting out a demon, I’d like to say, is up there on the wow factor. But here’s the other part. Jesus isn’t on his home turf. He’s not in Israel proper. He’s in a foreign land, and he does this deed of power. But what is more is this woman is not an Israelite. This woman is a foreigner, and in this moment when he heals her daughter, Jesus is tearing down the cultural and societal barriers that have been built up between peoples. None of those differences matter to us now. We don’t care if somebody’s an Israelite or a Canaanite, do we? We don’t care if somebody’s a Roman or a Gaul or a Briton. I mean, we kind of care on our family trees if we go far enough back, but we don’t care for the most part. But the people at the time cared. And in that moment, Jesus brings us to where we are now, where nationality, culture doesn’t matter. Jesus risks alienating part of his followers, who will say, oh my gosh, Jesus, I can’t believe he healed that Canaanite woman. He risks hindering his own ministry because of helping this woman’s daughter. He puts his entire path forward at risk in some way and some level because of his willingness to heal this mother’s child, this mother who is so strong in faith. You can imagine Peter, and yes, I’m picking on Peter again, later down the road saying, Jesus, did you really have to heal that kid? You know, all of the cultural barriers bubbling up with the disciples. And you can imagine Jesus’ statement. My father did not send me to this world to harm or hurt. The reality is these two women, the mother and her child, were not steeped in the faith of Jacob, but they are now believers among unbelievers. You could call them even missionaries. We’ll see the church go forth into areas like this later under Peter and Paul, but in this moment, Jesus shows us the way, the way forward for the church, a way where who we are matters the most when we are Christ’s. Whatever we identify ourselves to be, now Democrat and Republican, then Jew and Canaanite, Jesus doesn’t care if you’re a Gaul, a Briton, an Angle, a Saxon, or a Roman. He cares that you come, you come before the Father. You come and listen and follow. You go into that world of ours and you bring the gospel. You go and you tell of the good news of Jesus Christ. The reality of this moment would not be lost as you see Peter and Paul in their later ministries, as suddenly the doors of the church got a lot wider and the building of the church got a lot bigger because suddenly it is not the Messiah that Christ is for the people of Israel. No, in this moment, Christ shows that he is not that small of a Messiah. He is a greater Messiah. He is the Messiah for the whole world. He is the Son of God for the whole world.
And so here we have to ask our questions. What are we willing to move beyond like this mother? What are we willing to set aside to follow God and follow Christ? What things are we holding onto that are holding us back and keeping us from announcing who Christ is for us and what Christ is doing in our lives? We need to ask ourselves how we can be more fully live into what God is calling us to do and how we can set aside the barriers that exist in our world, like the woman set aside the barriers that existed in her world. Brothers and sisters, may we today and tomorrow and all the days to come live fully into our call to follow Christ and model how Christ has shown us to live and to be.
Amen.
And now brothers and sisters, let us respond to God through our gifts.
Let us pray.
Gracious and loving mighty God, we thank you. We thank you for all the ways that you bless us, be it with goods, but also with gifts. And we ask Lord that as you taught us through the parable of the talents, that we would use our gifts for your kingdom, that we would use them to build up and grow your kingdom here on earth. Watch over us and guide us Lord as we use these gifts to serve you. In your name we pray, amen.
You may be seated.
I do have two prayer concerns. I have an update from Joy. She is grateful for your prayers. We do have a card in the narthex if anybody would like to sign and we’ll get that to her. But in happier news, Reverend Stickley this week celebrated 90 years. He is 90 years old or 90 years young, if you pay attention to how lively his mind is. And we have a card for him as well in the narthex if you’d like to sign. One other note, Wally, we’re gonna work on getting a, we’re gonna call it reminiscences with Rev, where Reverend Stickley is gonna kind of walk us through some of the living history of our congregation over the years. Some of the things he experienced when he first came and kind of the little stories. So that’s gonna probably happen in November or October, but it’ll be kind of an informal, we’ll sit him down and we’ll let Rev tell stories. I will forewarn you, you might wanna give him a call if there is a story that you in no way want told. So just putting that out there, but make sure you sign the card and let him know happy birthday and many more to him.
Are there any other concerns or joys this morning?
Let us pray.
Gracious God, we thank you. We thank you for the wonder and joy that we have in welcoming Parker this morning into the Covenant community. We celebrate with his family as his church family. And we know and look forward to all the ways in which he will work in and through his life. Gracious God, we ask that you would continue to be with Joy, give her better health, improvement. But we also, Lord, in this time of wondering and waiting, praise you for the wonder and joy of having the guests be with us and help us. We praise you, Lord, on this day for Andrea being able to play with us. And we thank you for all the subs that we have going forward and for all the work that Dino’s putting in in getting them. Lord, we ask that you’ll be with Reverend Stickley as he sets out on his 90th year. We ask that you’ll continue to bless him and keep him as you have all these 90 years. Continue to bless he and Esther in their ministry together.
Gracious God, for all the cares and worries that we have, we know that we can set them at your feet. We ask that all the natural disasters that people have experienced, be it earthquakes, tornadoes, flooding, we know that in spite of all these tragedies, you are there in the comforting neighbor who lends a hand to help rebuild. In the loving officer who pulls you out of the flood. In all the ways in which our communities come together, we know that our God is present in those moments. And we know that we can face whatever trial because you are with us.
Gracious God, hear our prayers, but also hear our prayers as we pray for those who are struggling, whether it’s us or someone we know. In whatever way they struggle, be it financial, addiction, struggles in family and marriage, all the ways in which we struggle, Lord, we know that you support us through those struggles. And we also know, Lord, that whatever comes, no matter how weak our voices are when we raise up our brothers and sisters in prayer, as we pray together during this time of silence, all those whose names we struggle to give words to.
Hear these, our prayers, O Lord. Hear our prayers for our brothers and sisters who are sick and shut in. For Judy, for Lori, for Terry. Watch over them and keep them and give them strength. Gracious God, we raise all this to you in the name of your son, who taught us all to pray, saying, our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
And now, children of God, let us rise, if we’re able, for our final hymn. Number 33, How Great Thou Art.
♪ I sing this song, Lord, and sing my song. ♪ ♪ And sing my song, Lord, and sing my song. ♪