Today’s service was awesome!

Not because it was well put together, or because I was especially poised and graceful in leading it. In fact, for the first third, I felt like I was flopping around like a fish on the floor of Peter’s boat.

Today’s worship was extra cool because three of my fellow postal employess showed up. Ann, Tina, and Doug (two subs and the regular carrier who I serve) all pulled in within minutes of each other. Doug didn’t arrive in his delivery vehicle, but Ann and Tina both did.

To say I was floored would be putting it mildly.

It was a touching show of friendship and I was overjoyed to have them at worship, even if I stammered and stumbled my way through the first few minutes of the service.

 

In honor of the event, and just because I feel like posting it, here’s the sermon they heard:

 

Okay, So, She’s a Dog (based on Matthew 15:21-28)

My daughter Kristin says that I always go against the common interpretation of scripture. She has said this more than once.

“Not so!” I usually respond. “I only disagree with the common interpretation when the common interpretation is wrong…”

“like this week.”

The most common interpretation of the Gospel story we just heard, about the Canaanite Dog Woman, is that in this battle of wits with Jesus , she gets him to change his mind. That in this encounter Jesus, in fact, learns something new about the Kingdom of God.

Well, I don’t buy it and I’ll tell you why. But first I want to talk about one of my favorite movies.

It’s called Unforgiven and stars Clint Eastwood as an old, reformed gunfighter who gets called in to service to avenge the rape and beating of a woman of questionable morals. Over the course of the story, Clint’s character, whose name is William Munny, gets back in touch with his inner vicious killer. Near the end of the film, Munny guns down an entire saloon full of deputies and seriously injures the town’s sheriff played by Gene Hackman. Munny has come to kill that sheriff and before he does so, he engages the doomed man in conversation as he lies dying on the floor of the saloon.

“I don’t deserve this, to die like this,” says Little Bill. “I was building a house!”

“Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it,” says Munny.

What a great line. I mean, I was in love with that movie from pretty much the opening shot, but if I hadn’t been, that line would have done it. It’s spoken by Eastwood in that voice that only he has, the “Make my day” voice.

The needy person in today’s gospel who comes to Jesus seeking healing for a family member doesn’t deserve a thing from him.

First of all, the person in this case is a woman. Now, that’s bad because Jesus’ culture as I’m sure you know did not hold women in high regard. But what’s even worse than the fact that she’s a she is that she is also a Canaanite.

The Canaanites, you remember them. They were the people that Israel was supposed to wipe out when they entered into the promised land. They didn’t wipe them out, but they did conquer them and occupy their native land, so as you can imagine there’s been hostility ever since. Actually, hostility’s not strong enough. Hatred would be closer; an abiding, mutual hatred that’s this close to boiling over at all times.

So this woman from a despised culture comes looking for a favor from Jesus. And apparently, she does so loudly.

Jesus says nothing. And you might wonder why not. The disciples certainly wondered. They react exactly as good Jewish religious people should react. When Jesus doesn’t do anything to shut her up, they tell him send her away, to get rid of her.

I love it when the disciples tell Jesus what to do. You know it’s a setup, that Jesus has lured them into his trap.

It is only then, after the disciples have spoken up, that Jesus says his first words to the woman. “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

The woman then begins to beg on hand and knee for Jesus to help her. Now, I wonder at this point what the disciples were thinking? Matthew doesn’t tell us and I take his silence to mean that they were still thinking, “Get rid of this filth, Jesus. She doesn’t deserve a thing from you.”

Jesus must have sensed this vibe from them, because he seems to go at the woman with both barrels. “It’s not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”

Yowza. Did he just call her a dog? Yes, yes, I think he did.

The woman is unfazed. She comes back at Jesus with both of her barrels, reminding him of the crumbs that fall from the master’s table that the master probably doesn’t even know nor care about. Obviously she’s willing to take even the smallest of crumbs if they come from the bread of life.

Jesus is amazed and he seems to, no he does more than seem to, he loses the argument in front of God, the disciples and everybody. He accepts that she has bested him in this battle of wits and gives her what she asks, “It is done,” he says.

And the twelve? What were they thinking then?

“What has he just done? Omigosh! He just, like, totally gave the grace of God to someone who didn’t even deserve it! The shock!”

But Jesus is only getting started. What’s he do next? Well it’s not part of our passage today, but he feeds 4,000 people in a sequel to his recent miraculous feeding of 5,000. But the second feeding, though slightly smaller, is in Gentile country. So all sorts of outsiders are suddenly experiencing the grace of God.

Because of this progression, a lot of people think that Jesus learned something from his encounter with this Canaanite woman. They think that Jesus realized only when the woman made her argument about crumbs that God’s purpose was to include the Gentiles in his saving act from the beginning.

Well, that’s fine and if it weren’t for the fact that Jesus had already healed a Roman Centurion’s daughter from across town (that happened way back in chapter 8), I might buy it. In that instance, he also pointed out the great faith of the Centurion, a faith that he said he had not seen in Israel.

It seems Jesus never had a problem with God’s grace being shown to the gentiles. It was his people that had the problem.

Which is why Jesus hesitated with the Canaanite woman here. His initial lack of response forced the disciples to play their hateful hand. And play they did! His first words to the woman, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel,” sound more like an apology. “I’m sorry but…” Like maybe by speaking the disiples’ thoughts out loud, he could shame them into letting go of their judgment about the woman in favor of mercy.

Instead, though, the disciples are probably tapping their feet impatiently, looking at their watches, and wondering when they might get to minister to people who are worthy of God’s grace for a change.

Jesus again reveals what they are thinking, and calls the woman a dog.

By the time it’s over, Jesus has intentionally lost the argument, but who is shamed? Certainly not the Canaanite woman! If anyone is red in the face, it should be the disciples who wanted to keep someone from the grace of God simply because she was the wrong sex and the wrong race.

Jesus may have lost the argument, but he made his point. He wasn’t testing the woman’s faith, he knew she already had it.

He was testing the disciples faith because he knew theirs was lacking. Remember last week? Peter went walking on the sea toward Jesus but hadn’t been able to move from fear to faith so he began to sink? Well, this is perhaps a few days later at most, and the disciples are slow learners.

God’s kingdom was open to Gentiles from the beginning. It’s not news to Jesus, but it is news to the disciples.

They don’t get it. They will, but not yet.

For now, they’re stuck. They’re stuck thinking that some are ‘in’ with God and some are ‘out.’ That some are worthy of God’s favor and some are not nor will they ever be. They’re still stuck on ‘deserve’

…but deserve’s got nothing to do with it.

The truth is that no one is deserving of God’s favor, but God gives it anyway through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. They don’t get it. Do we?

Do we get that God’s kingdom is bigger than Temple Church?

Do we get that God’s kingdom isn’t Jewish or Greek, man or woman, Pottstown or Owen J., white or black, Asian or Hispanic.

Do we get that God’s kingdom isn’t just who we choose to accept but many times exactly who we don’t want?

Do we get that God’s kingdom is open to outsiders, outcasts, rejects, reprobates, the unlovely, undeserving and formerly unforgiven, in other words… us.

Just wondering: Are there any Jewish people here? Well, so all of us are Gentiles, just like the Canaanite woman. Interesting.

We come to church thinking of ourselves as the People of God. God’s people. We think of ourselves as included. And we are, but the twelve who hung out with Jesus would have had a hissy fit about us, because we are not the chosen race. We are not supposed to be included, but we are.

We are not the right skin color, we don’t talk the right way, eat the right foods, we were not born in the right place, etc. etc. etc.

How can we possibly be the people of God? It’s all wrong! We are not worthy to be recipients of God’s grace.

We’re just like the Canaanite woman who sought only a crumb from the bread of life, we don’t deserve it.

Well you know what Jesus says to that.

“Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it.” … and thanks to be to God!