In the Methodist denomination we have an annual congregational meeting in which we’re joined by our District Superintendent. It’s called Charge Conference. Charge is Methodist jargon indicating the congregation or group of congregations served by one pastor. Some pastors have multi-point charges. I don’t but I’m only part time.

So charge conference is a much anticipated and very exciting event, as are all meetings. I can’t wait.

There are only about 25 forms and reports that need to be filled out by myself and various congregational committees. Yes, charge conference brings together everything I love about the church: administrivia, endless paperwork, and committees. Oh, and let’s not forget a long meeting that no one wants to attend.

This year our charge conference is on a Saturday evening, so people will be busting down the doors to get in.

So as soon as I finish writing these article and the chapter of the Boyertown Pictorial History book and these pesky sermons and visit some shut ins and meet with the various members of our church who are wanting to meet with me, I’ll sit down and do some Charge Conference paperwork.

After I deliver the mail, that is.

Does that title sound a little off to you? Considering my experience of a little over a week ago, I wouldn’t be surprised if it did.

But Comcast has turned me into something of a fan.

This was largely due to the efforts of someone named Jennifer. Once I contacted the Comcast Cares team about the ridiculous customer service I had been receiving (that contact was initiated as a result of this post), Jennifer was the one who took leadership on their end.

I have spoken with Jennifer four times now (in less than seven days).

The first was the very morning I sent that first email. She called, apologized, got my service appointment moved up by two days and did it all with a (virtual) smile.

The second time she called was two days later. That was to make sure the crew arrived when they were supposed to and did the work they were supposed to do. They did and I told Jennifer that. She asked if there were any other issues. The only thing left undone, I said, was that they were going to schedule another crew to come at an unspecified time to replace the line running from the pole to our house.

Jennifer said she’d see what she could do about nailing a date down. That was Saturday.

She called Monday to tell me that a crew would be at my house before the end of the day. This also occurred just as she said it would.

My fourth and probably final call from Jennifer occurred today. She called to find out if the crew had come yesterday as they were supposed to. I told her that yes they had, that I noticed a difference in the performance (this is true, I had) and that I was quite happy not only with the service I had received after my initial disappointing interactions but also with her performance, especially the consistent follow up and follow through. “Nicely done,” I told her.

So Jennifer, whoever and wherever you are, thank you. You are a model to which others should aspire. May your star be ever on the rise at Comcast, or wherever you choose to work.

I was talking with one of the editors at our town newspaper about submitting our church’s Sunday service information for publication.

She mentioned that she had started a clergy column where area clergy could submit articles on a rotating basis and asked if I wanted to participate. No brainer, that.

As soon as I agreed she said, “Well the person who was supposed to submit for August 16th canceled. Do you think you could submit one on short notice?”

Not a problem, I said. Now, I thought she told me that these columns were not published online but apparently they are. Here’s mine. The picture’s not very good, but it’s all I had. Anyone with mad photography skillz who wants to shoot me (digitally speaking, that is) for free?

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!

UPDATE ^2 (8/15): The two man crew arrived early (they called first). It took them longer to climb the ladder up the pole than it did to fix our problem. Thank you comcast cares for hookin’ us up!

UPDATE (8/14): I tweeted a link to this post last night hoping that the people from Comcast who monitor twitter would see it. They did, as you can read in the comments section. I sent an email this morning at Frank Eliason’s suggestion detailing the events of Tuesday and Wednesday, even including my unfortunate show of temper and hangup on that customer service agent.

Someone from Comcast corporate called me late this morning to apologize. She moved the service appointment up to tomorrow instead of Sunday and gave me her direct phone number. That response scored some major points with me. I still think it unfortunate that it was necessary to raise a holy stink about it, but the response I got reassures me that there are people at Comcast who take even the issues of relatively insignificant customers like me seriously. We’ll see what happens tomorrow.

I arrived home from my mail route today to find 2 messages from comcast confirming my appointment for between 12-4.

BRRRRAAAKKKK!

Survey said, between 5-9pm. That’s what the customer service guru told me last night, but it apparently was not what she wrote on the service ticket. What she also failed to write was the cell phone number I gave her, even though she repeated it back to me before we hung up last night. That’s why they called the home phone, I learned later.

Comcast sent a tech out at about 1pm. That was the second message: there was no one home at 1pm.

When I called comcast to get them to rectify their mistake, their implication was that I was the one who was in the wrong. Hmmm… let’s see. Tech comes out to fix internet, succeeds in doing that but gets rid of cable tv signal in process. Customer requests another tech and plans day around promised evening appointment. Comcast sends tech out at wrong time and communicates via the wrong phone number…

Yep, must be my fault!

Now they’re not sending anyone out until Sunday. They wouldn’t budge on this either even though I repeatedly reminded two different customer service people that this was comcast’s mistake and not mine. All they could say was, “Well, the service ticket says 12-4,”

I actually got so angry with one of these people (the one who promised to call back in fifteen minutes but didn’t for almost an hour) that I said, “I’m done talking to you,” and hung up on her. I’ve never done anything like that before, ever and I probably won’t again. The absolute refusal to admit a mistake and make some sort of good faith effort to correct it simply astounded and infuriated me to the point where I couldn’t have spoken anything helpful. I probably should have held my breath and counted to 10, but there it is.

I’ve heard horror stories about comast’s cycnical approach to customer service before and now I have my own.

We’ve got no cable until Sunday morning at the earliest. This did not sit well with my wife because who wants to watch the Olympics.

And Comcast is better than Verizon. I was a verizon customer at one time and their customer service makes Comcast look fabulous. So, where does one go? Nowhere, apparently.

Comcast, if you’re listening, it must be nice to be you. Provide crappy service, maintain a staff of semi-competent or incompetent tech support and customer service people, rake your customers over the coals and laugh all the way to the bank. Good for you! I’ll be sending you a carefully worded letter/email about this even though you won’t do anything about it.