Let us prefer nothing to the love of Christ;
and may he bring us all to everlasting life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In today\u2019s Gospel we hear the remarkable story of a Canaanite woman who comes to Jesus seeking healing for her daughter. \u201cCanaanite\u201d signified \u201cpagan\u201d to the Jews of Jesus\u2019 time. The area of Tyre and Sidon, on the Mediterranean coast northwest of the Jewish region was where those called pagans traditionally lived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The woman was obviously desperate. Jews had nothing to do with pagans. Why, they would barely speak to the Samaritans! Besides that, women didn\u2019t ordinarily speak to strange men. Yes, she was desperate, all right \u2014 desperate to find some help for her daughter. That much is obvious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is also obvious that this woman knew something about Judaism, and about Jesus. \u201cHave mercy on me, Lord, Son of David.\u201d \u201cHave mercy on me\u201d is a cry of the afflicted often found in Scripture, especially in the Psalms. And in using the title \u201cSon of David,\u201d she recognizes Jesus as the Messiah. No doubt his fame had spread as far as Tyre and Sidon, but perhaps, too, her recognition was divinely inspired. \u201cHave mercy on me, Lord, Son of David,\u201d reminds us of the blind men sitting by the roadside in Chapter 20. \u201cLord, have mercy on us, Son of David,\u201d was their cry. Jesus touched their eyes, and their sight was restored, and they followed him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those blind men, however, were Jews. The cry of the Canaanite woman was not so welcome. At first, Jesus didn\u2019t answer her. And his disciples urged him to \u201csend her away, for she keeps shouting after us.\u201d Even Jesus seemingly tries to brush her off. \u201cIt is not fair to take the children\u2019s food and throw it to the dogs.\u201d But this woman is not easily discouraged. \u201cEven the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master\u2019s table,\u201d she answers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWoman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.\u201d Here lies the key to the whole story. It is her faith that makes the difference. \u201cGreat is your faith\u201d \u2014 compare this to the words we heard addressed to the apostle Peter in last week\u2019s Gospel: \u201cYou of little faith, why did you doubt?\u201d Peter was a Jew, Jesus\u2019 friend, and one of the chosen twelve; yet this Canaanite woman had shown greater faith than Peter. And her faith is rewarded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are certain implications that could be drawn from the story of the Canaanite woman and her faith. You might ask, for instance, who are the Canaanites among us today? Who might a modern Christian want to see Jesus send away? Who would we modern Christians not welcome into our fellowship? And what message do we send, knowingly or unknowingly, to \u201cthe others,\u201d the Canaanites in our world?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Jewish woman, no longer active in her own religion, has told of being repeatedly chased home after school by \u201cChristian\u201d children who threw rocks at her and yelled, \u201cChrist-killer!\u201d She is an agnostic now, she says. She doesn\u2019t know if there is a God or not, but it doesn\u2019t really matter to her. The actions of those so-called \u201cChristians\u201d took care of that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A dark skinned family, in the wake of the disaster of September 11, suddenly found themselves shunned in the neighborhood where they had lived for years. \u201cNuke the ragheads!\u201d signs appeared on their front lawn. It has always been like that. Children and adults were once brought from their native lands and enslaved, right here in \u201cthe land of the free and the home of the brave.\u201d In the 19th century, \u201cNo Irish need apply\u201d signs once discouraged recent Irish immigrants to the United States from seeking employment. And Ireland itself is still split by sectarian, Roman Catholic-Protestant conflict. Loyal Japanese-Americans were interned during World War II. German-Americans were called \u201ckrautheads.\u201d Many people automatically assume that all Italian-Americans belong to the Mafia. People from the Ozarks are called \u201crednecks.\u201d Jews and Palestinians remain enemies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey\u2019ll know we are Christian by our love,\u201d the words of the song say. Not by hate. Not by fear. Not by excluding anyone. We humans keep on drawing circles where only \u201cme and mine\u201d belong. The circles, some people think, will keep us safe. The circles will keep \u201cthem\u201d out \u2014 whoever they may be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the funny thing is, God keeps drawing bigger circles. God\u2019s circles are not meant to keep out anyone. God\u2019s circles are meant to invite people in. And isn\u2019t that a good thing for us all? If that weren\u2019t the case, we might risk finding ourselves on the outside. \u201cAnd the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants\u2026these will I bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer\u2026for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.\u201d God invites the people of all nations to God\u2019s holy mountain and it certainly isn\u2019t the place of Christians to ask God to send any of them away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One other implication in this story is the importance of faith. \u201cWoman, great is your faith.\u201d The Canaanite woman claims her place in the kingdom based on faith. In fact, the kingdom of God depends exactly on this kind of faith, rather than the particular family or ethnic group to which we belong or the socio-economic status we might have attained. \u201cHave mercy on me, Lord, Son of David,\u201d was the cry of this pagan woman whose prayer was heard and whose faith was rewarded. We echo her prayer today: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of David, Son of the Living God, have mercy on us. Amen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This sermon was written by the Rev. Barbara Beam<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Let us prefer nothing to the love of Christ;and may he bring us all to everlasting life. In today\u2019s Gospel we hear the remarkable story of a Canaanite woman who comes to Jesus seeking healing for her daughter. \u201cCanaanite\u201d signified \u201cpagan\u201d to the Jews of Jesus\u2019 time. The area of Tyre and Sidon, on the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":201212,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_tec_requires_first_save":true,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[43,52,33,1953],"tags":[101],"class_list":["post-511357","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sermons","category-sermons-that-work","category-the-season-after-pentecost","category-worship-and-prayer-menu","tag-proper-15a"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":43,"label":"Sermons"},{"value":52,"label":"Sermons That Work"},{"value":33,"label":"The Season After Pentecost"},{"value":1953,"label":"worship_and_prayer_menu"}],"post_tag":[{"value":101,"label":"Proper 15A"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":[],"comment_info":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/511357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/sermon"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/511357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3474599,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/511357\/revisions\/3474599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}