Persistence, speaking out, abundant grace and prayers answered

I’m not sure who said it first but a phrase that has been used quite a lot in recent times says, ‘When you have more than you need build a bigger table, not a higher fence.’ Reaching out generously to others in need has happened in many cases whether it be putting money into a charity box or making a church donation or supporting things like the Foodbank. 

Sadly however, the idea of building a bigger table is not one that has been universally accepted. Without wanting to make this too political it is clear that there are politicians in the world with wide support who seem intent on building fences to keep out those who seem different, rather than inviting them to sit at the same table with them. 

And our gospel reading today (Matthew 15:21-28) has a lot to say about this. I should start by saying it isn’t at all easy to understand – at first sight Jesus seems to be unkind and rather grumpy, it isn’t what we expect !

Lots of people have spent time trying to explain this behaviour – did those from outside the chosen people have to work a bit harder to be accepted ?did Jesus change his mind as the woman approached him with such faith ? Or was he simply enjoying a bit of banter with the woman to teach others an important lesson, knowing that he would heal her daughter ?

We don’t know is the honest answer. We do know that he had been dealing with the Pharisees and was quite likely to be pretty fed up and tired of their attitude. These were people who were overly religious and legalistic – they enjoyed finding fault with things and with people. Their faith, undoubtedly strong in some ways, was somewhere hidden amidst the countless laws they were so eager to enforce… 

And so after dealing with these people Jesus went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon, a Gentile district, away from God’s chosen people and this woman came and started shouting and here we have this rather strange exchange… She pleads with Jesus to heal her sick daughter. First he ignores her and the disciples encourage him to send her away. Then he responds saying his work was amongst the lost sheep of Israel and he talks about it not being fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs, but she responds… ‘Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters table…’ 

Immediately Jesus rewards her faith… And that is what is important in this account. I don’t know whether Jesus was in a bad mood when he first encountered this woman. I suspect rather that he was making a point to those around that nobody was outside his circle of compassion. 

When Jesus was involved in his earthly ministry there was no really clear answer as to who his ministry was to – was it just to God’s chosen people or was it wider. From our point of view looking back it’s easier to see that his ministry was to all but that wasn’t as clear then so issues like this were important in pointing people to a clearer picture of what Jesus was doing and who he was doing it for. 

And as Jesus listened to the woman and as he complemented her faith, he healed her daughter and then if we read on a little bit from our passage he fed the hungry… Jesus knew that words and actions so often are needed together.

This encounter took place not in the land of the chosen people and from then on it was clear that those who were called the dogs by some were to eat from the same table, and not just eat the crumbs that fell from it… It was a lesson of equality which so often is lacking in the world today and has been highlighted all too violently in the United States over the past week. 

Jesus himself made no distinctions in colour or background. In this action the words of the Prophet Isaiah that we heard (56:1,6-8) were fulfilled about the foreigners being brought to the holy mountain, not judged by anything but their faith.

Through the determination of this Canaanite woman, through her willingness to speak out, we are able to see something of God’s vision for the world and it’s a vision where grace is given in abundance, where mercy is freely shown, where colour and background don’t matter, and where those who seem the smallest can speak to the most powerful and be heard… It is a vision which powerfully reflects the unfathomable and far reaching love of God… 

This week I was talking to some people and one described a time he’d spent recently with a group of young people, most of whom weren’t really interested in the church. They saw something that insisted on too many rules, and I suspect something that was too easily associated with looking too judgemental.

And when we look at how the church is portrayed in papers and on television it is very often in a negative way – far from this picture of abundant grace and mercy and love for all… 

And that is our challenge. The early church had debates and sometimes arguments about who the gospel was intended for and I think sometimes we risk quietly doing the same… It was interesting reading an article about the 150th anniversary of St James’ church recently where reports at the time it was built suggested it was being built for the more respectable members of the community… 

It’s a frightening thought that 150 years ago we were building churches for the more respectable members of society… At the start I used that quote about the need to build bigger tables not higher fences and as a church we need to continually work out how to do that… 

I hope that we wouldn’t put restrictions on who can ever come in here because it is very clear that God makes no restrictions as to who can enter his kingdom and he’s wiser than us and his kingdom is more important than any church building !

And I don’t think we would make restrictions, but beyond not making restrictions, we need to be ready and willing to reach out because too many people don’t know that, and too many people do see the church as an organisation that says ‘no’ too often, rather than as a family united in love for God, for each other and for the world. 

And we live at a time when I think there are people still like that Canaanite woman – people who feel excluded but who desperately want to connect more closely with Jesus… People who are reaching out to God, sometimesthrough the church and sometimes not, and we need to be ready to help them and welcome them… 

In a world where people can wear Nazi symbols in supposedly the most advanced country in the world as happened last week. In a world where people fight over arguments from hundreds of years ago, in a world where too many people suffer simply because of where they come from, the gospel message shouts at us and others – love your neighbour whoever they are – and take every possible opportunity we can to share that love widely… 

Our readings today emphasise over and over that we are all created in the image of God and each of us will bring different gifts and attitudes and thoughts into the family, but we remain a family – a family, as Isaiah put it, that is called to the holy mountain; a family that, in the words of the psalm (67) is called to be a family of praise and a family that has no boundaries of race or colour or background or anything else but a family that is united in faith – the faith that Jesus lived and died and rose again and that he loves us with a love that simply won’t let us go…. AMEN