Take a Risk and Introduce Yourself Again
Year
A, Pentecost 10
Recently I was at a meeting with
various members of the church and we were talking about things that we could do
to help people get to know one another.
One person commented that there were a lot of people whose family had
been here for generations and some were born into this church. That is a unique thing about St. John’s. It speaks to a very passionate loyalty and
love for the church. That’s a good
thing. Everyone should be so fortunate
as to have people in the church like that.
But it can also cause some roadblocks or maybe just speed bumps for new
people to get involved in the church. One person said that he had been coming
for over 25 years but it had taken him 15 years to feel like he was a part of
the church. Another person had a similar
story. What was astounding to me was that both people waited it out and were
committed to the church. That tells me
two things. One is that their faith is tenacious and they were here for
God. If it took 15 years, it took 15
years. It also tells me that St. John’s
is a special church. They knew that or
they would not have stayed.
I recently heard someone say that, “[Faith]
is not necessarily perfect belief or consent to a list of doctrines. Sometimes faith is simply tenacity.”[1]
I think faith is a combination of a number of things, but tenacity is a key
ingredient and often one that we overlook.
It is not part of our creed or most of our prayers. But tenacity is all over the place in other
ways like today’s Gospel reading. A women approached Jesus shouting, “Have mercy
on me, Lord Son of David…” He heard her but he did not answer her. His disciples also heard her and urged him to
send her away. She must have noticed
that he ignored her and his companions were telling him to send her away. This did not discourage her. She came and
knelt before him so he could not ignore her.
She said, “Lord help me.” His
response is one that bothers a lot of people. “It is not fair to take the
children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
What has bothered people is that Jesus seems mean here. He is denying
this woman and then referring to her as a dog. Yet despite this response she
persisted. She responded, “Yes, Lord,
yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”
Here is where things get even
blurrier. It would appear that Jesus
changed his mind. Her response and her
persistence had an effect on him. Some
say that he was merely testing her or he was testing his disciples. People argue this because to say that Jesus
changed his mind would be to say that he was wrong the first time. That is not a fair conclusion. It reminds me of that riddle. Could
God make a rock so heavy that even he could not lift it? My answer to that
was always, Sure, but why would he? To say that Jesus can’t change his mind
would be to say that Jesus did not have the power to change, which seems
contrary to what we believe as Christians.
Jesus grew in mind and body when he was on earth. He did not come out of the womb speaking in
complete sentences with the body of a fully formed man. There is no way Mary would have survived
that. So of course he changed.
Some say that Jesus embodied the old
way of the Jewish faith as well as the new way which would become the Christian
way. He was both the God of the Old
Testament and the God that brought salvation through his sacrifice and
resurrection. Stories about God in the
Old Testament can occasionally depict a God who was more limited in who he
accepted. It the Book of Deuteronomy God
supported the complete destruction of the Canaanite people because of the evil
they had committed. God had a clear preference
for the people of Israel which seemed to end in the destruction of their
enemies. This is the background of the
story for today. The Canaanites were a
hated people who were supposed to be annihilated by the people of Israel with
God’s full support. But here was a
Canaanite woman seeking the blessing of Jesus Christ, God in the flesh and the
fulfillment of the Old Testament prophesy.
She was smart and she took his
argument and she spun it on its head.
She did not argue whether or not she was a dog, she just pointed out
that everyone was deserving of blessing and even a scrap was enough. There was plenty to go around. I am not sure it matters whether or not Jesus
changes his mind. What matters are the
minds of the people who were present and those of us who read this story now. I believe that this smart and brave woman
served as an instrument to model a new understanding of God and God’s
love. Remember what story we had only a
couple of weeks ago? It was the feeding
of the 5000. Matthew made it a point to say that there was so much food that
there were leftovers. Jesus had already showed
that God’s love was abundant and was meant to be shared with the masses. This interaction with the Canaanite woman
continued this lesson for not only the disciples but all of those who hear the
story, all of us.
In this story, Jesus displayed a
certain tension in how we understand God.
He was still the God who had chosen the people of Israel, who loved
those people and was loyal to those people.
He fulfilled the prophesies. But
he was also the God who would minister to the masses, the poor, the sick, the
sinful. There was no one who was not
worthy of God’s love. Jesus showed that
he could do both. The problem was that
not everyone could accept that. It was a
huge change in the way they thought and acted.
Here at St. John’s, we carry a similar
tension. We have a 400 year old history,
but we also want a future. If we truly
want to welcome people and be that church that shows the abundance of God’s
love, then we have to live into that. I
have a feeling I know how someone could go 10 years without feeling
welcome. Let’s say this person shows up
one Sunday. You introduce yourself and get his or her name and then you
promptly forget it. Next Sunday you are
embarrassed because you forgot it and so you never ask again. Ten years later and you still don’t know that
person’s name. We would not want to
offend the person by asking their name.
As Episcopalians, the 11th commandment is “Do not offend!”
When we do not welcome people, it is
usually not an intentional thing. We are
not purposefully shutting people out.
But that doesn’t make it ok. We
have to be intentional about how we welcome people into the church because not everyone
is going to give it 10 or 15 years. I
have 2 challenges. Find someone you do
not know. It might be because they are
new or maybe they go to a different service, or maybe they sit in another part
of the church. Talk to them. Here is the other side of the challenge. If you are on the receiving end and you have
met that person already, don’t tell them that!
Forgive them for forgetting and move on because I can guarantee there is
someone you have forgotten. Welcoming,
real welcoming is risky. Faith will
always have risk. That Canaanite woman
took a major risk and kept at it even when she was rejected. Take the risk. If even one person feels a welcome they have
never experienced, I think it is worth it.
[1] I
am not sure who said it because it was a podcast and there were 4 people
talking. The podcast can be found here: http://www.workingpreacher.org/brainwave.aspx?podcast_id=530
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