Sermon on Matthew 15:10-28

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

Our Gospel reading today is tough, particularly the second half about Jesus’ encounter with a Canaanite woman.

Jesus doesn’t sound like himself. To my modern sensibilities, Jesus sounds inconsiderate, rude, and even prejudiced.

I miss the Jesus portrayed in the chapter before this: the generous Jesus in the feeding of the 5,000, the encouraging Jesus who invites Peter to walk on water, and the merciful Jesus who heals a bunch of people in Gennesaret.

But what we get in these two stories in chapter 15 is a Jesus who seems to be done with everyone’s nonsense. He lashes out at the grumbling Pharisees and then ignores the woman calling out to him on the road.

Scholars don’t agree on what to make of the story of the Canaanite woman. Plot twist: scholars agree on very little of pretty much anything.

But it’s worth unpacking some ideas, because they influence how we see Jesus here.

The Church early on came to the conclusion that Jesus is fully human and fully divine. Both at the same time – not 50-50 or any other breakdown, but 100-100. The mathematicians in the room can take any complaints up with the early church fathers.

But we don’t necessarily agree on what fully human and fully divine looks like to us.

We can lean more heavily on the divine side. For the nerdy folks among us, that’s called having a “high Christology.”

Someone with a high Christology might read this story and imagine that Jesus knew what the woman was going to say. He knew her heart and knew that if he said, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs,”

she wouldmake the very witty comeback: “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”

And then Jesus would reward her cleverness and faithfulness by granting her request.

It also may be that Jesus was just responding the way a rabbi was expected to. He had his band of disciples and wouldn’t have been expected to talk to a woman, let alone a Canaanite—the age-old enemies of the Israelites.

But he did stop and talk with her. As much as his dialogue sounds demeaning to my ears, it’s not fair for me to impose my modern-day culture on the first century. Jesus could have let his disciples send her away, but he didn’t. He stopped and talked with her the way a rabbi would with a disciple. And she stepped into the role of a disciple and gave a wise response.

Maybe Jesus knew his disciples’ hearts and was using this as a teachable moment to show them some of their own prejudices before rewarding this marginalized mother. Perhaps he was illustrating his own lesson from the previous story that it’s what comes out of a person, like prejudice and lack of mercy, that defile and not eating with unwashed hands.

Whereas, someone who emphasizes Jesus’ humanity (called a “low Christology”), might look at what came before and see Jesus as burned-out.

Jesus at this point hadn’t had any time to grieve the death of John the Baptist. After hearing about John’s violent death, Jesus tried to go into the wilderness by himself, but a crowd of over 5,000 people followed him. After he fed them all, walked on water, healed a bunch of people, and got chewed out by the religious authorities because his disciples didn’t wash their hands, Jesus had had enough.

So, he left town with his disciples, and wouldn’t you know it? This random woman started shouting at him.

Jesus was exhausted, grieving, and didn’t have time or energy to deal with one more thing, however much it might have normally pulled on his heartstrings.

Someone who emphasizes Jesus’ humanity might read Jesus as coming to understand his mission in the world gradually versus someone who emphasizes Jesus’ divinity who might read Jesus as knowing that his mission was to bring about the Reign of God for all people and that he would die on a cross and rise again.

Someone who pictures a more human version of Jesus might read Jesus’ words to his disciples, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” as the way Jesus understood his mission at that point. He was focused on his priority, which was spreading the good news of the Reign of God to God’s chosen people. This woman may have helped him understand that his mission was actually to the whole world.

These are both valid readings of this story, and I’m not going to tell you that one is right and the other is wrong. And if you understand it differently from either of these, you are probably in good company among the scholars who don’t agree on how to read this story. It’s a difficult story, and there are pros and cons to every understanding.

But whether it was Jesus or the disciples or the readers of the Gospel of Matthew who understood Jesus’ mission differently by the end of this story, this is a turning point in Jesus’ ministry. In the Gospel of Matthew (and also the Gospel of Mark, because it has an almost identical version of this story), Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman marks for the reader the point where Jesus’ mission became far greater than it looked like up until this point. Jesus’ ministry was not just for his hometown and surrounding villages, it was for the whole world.However you picture Jesus, at least the reader now understands Jesus’ global mission.

And it will be Jesus’ followers who will carry that mission to the rest of the world. The Gospel of Matthew closes with Jesus’ Great Commission, where Jesus commands his followers to continue his mission in his physical (though certainly not spiritual) absence: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

And then, the book of Acts describes Jesus’ followers bringing the good news into the world around them.

And that mission isn’t over yet.

Jesus entrusted his followers with the continuation of his mission, and that task has been passed down over two millennia and has gotten to us.

But it’s hard not to fall into the burned-out, compassion fatigue that we can read into Jesus’ behavior in these stories.

It’s easy to get snippy when someone grumbles behind your back, the way the religious authorities did to Jesus.

It’s easy to focus hard on one’s own priorities and ignore someone else’s request for help.

It’s easy to let bias and prejudice affect the way we treat others, no matter how well-intentioned we are.

It’s easy to slip into “us versus them” thinking instead of remembering our common humanity.

It’s easy to focus on our sense of propriety about things like handwashing and inadvertently let out uglier behaviors like racism, homophobia, or classism.

But our Gospel reading reminds us that Jesus’ mission, and therefore our mission, is to show God’s love to the whole world.

And our reading from Isaiah reminds us that that has always been God’s mission: “for my house shall be called a house of prayerfor all peoples.”

And that requires a lot more than simply tolerance or blanket statements of “all are welcome.”

It requires solidarity.

It requires people with privilege to stand aside and follow the lead of people with less privilege.

It requires people with resources to share them with people who have fewer.

It requires people to advocate for people with different experiences than they have.

It requires sacrifice. It requires getting your heart broken over stuff you could choose to ignore. It requires changing your mind and your lifestyle and your heart.

Because God’s vision for us is far bigger than we can imagine.

Because no one deserves just the leftover crumbs.

Because every person is a child of God.

God Believes In You!

Pr. Jaz Waring |

Pentecost 11 August 13, 2023

Elijah had enough. After years being God’s chosen prophet, giving towns and kings bad news of God’s judgement, he was done! Elijah was on the run, with a “wanted: dead-or-alive” poster pinned to his back. "May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them.” The words of Queen Jezebel playing like tapes over and over again. The voice of the LORD breaks in, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” What am I doing here? That’s a loaded question. Flash back a few weeks ago, I was at the height of my career! Israel once again got caught up in idolatry and was worshiping Baal. Next thing I knew, I was caught in a battle-of-the-gods competition against the prophets of Baal, and I represented team “God of Israel.” The challenge was to call fire down from the heavens, and light an altar piled with wood and a sacrificed bull (God loves a good BBQ). I was confident God was with me in this, so I wasn’t worried. The prophets of Baal were so tragically funny to watch. They were running around chanting and cutting themselves up in order to summon Baal all day long. It was getting a little ridiculous, and I might have gotten a little cocky. I told them, “Hey! Maybe you should chant a little louder, I don’t think he could hear you.” They didn’t appreciate my input. Then I said, “You know, maybe Baal is stuck in the bathroom, maybe that’s why he’s taking so long!” I’ll admit, that was a little out-of-pocket. I thought this battle could use a little more theatrics. So I placed 12 stones around the bull to represent the tribes of Israel, and dug a trench around the altar. Then I had them dump 3 buckets of water over my altar so that it was completely flooded, just to add insult to injury and raise the stakes a bit. Then came the moment…I said a simple prayer to God, and God delivered. Literally, God delivered a pillar of fire from the heavens! The flames burnt up the water-logged wood on my altar, and the bull offering. The people in the audience were amazed an afraid…and then they were terrified because I immediately after started slaying all 4,500 of Baal’s prophets. It’s problematic, I know! When Queen Jezebel, King Ahab’s wife, heard about this she sent a messenger to me. The messenger said, “May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them.” Fear and dread struck me in the gut like a cold knife. I was paralyzed with anxiety, her words running like a tape in my head over and over again. I can’t breathe! I’m a dead man! I gotta run for my life! So that’s what I did. I ran into the wilderness, sat under a sad solitary tree and asked the LORD to take my life. I was done! Instead God sent angels to feed me and give me water. Just let me die already! “What are you doing here, Elijah?” the LORD said. Elijah shakes his head back into the present moment. He verbalizes the other running tape in his head, his defense to God. “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” God leads him to Mount Horeb, the same mountain Moses met with God. God sends a mighty wind, an earthquake, and fire from heavens…typical controlled elements in which God’s presence had manifested in, but God was not in these elements. Instead, God came to Elijah in the sound of silence, like a whisper. So intimate and so gentle. God is revealed to him like Moses, a sight only these two men have ever experienced. After this incredible moment, God asks Elijah again, “What are you doing here?” Elijah responds the same way he did before, playing the same tape that has been running over and over. Elijah experienced the power and presence of God, and yet he leaves unchanged. How did he become so familiar, so cynical, so weary, so afraid, so numb to the power of God at work in the world and not be changed or transformed by it? I didn’t even know that was possible. Elijah clung to the story running in his tapes instead of entering into the story God was creating in the world. I know I just talked a lot of about Elijah, but this sermon is not actually about him. It’s really easy to focus on Elijah’s lack of faith in his ability to continue God’s call, or how he was paralyzed with fear. What I find more interesting is who God is, and how God is at work in our readings today. Who is this God we are a witness to? First, this is a God who acts, influences, and wants to be in relationship with humanity. God acts in these controlled elements of wind, earthquakes, and fire that is different from nature. This echos the whirlwind speech God gives in the book of Job where God said, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” Yet God is not in these powerful forces in this story. Instead God tries to influence Elijah in intimate and gentle silence. Like a whisper speaking directly to his heart. This is a God who holds galaxies in motion, and limits Their own power in order to be in right relationship with humanity. Secondly, this is a God who is with us. God asks Elijah twice, “What are you doing here?”. This implies that God is also here with him. God was with Elijah in the battle-ofthe-gods and in his highlights, and God was still with him at his lowest point. Even when Elijah called it quits, God was still never left him. God’s promise to Israel, to Elijah, and to us that God will never leave or forsake us continues to this day. Finally, this is a God who is compassionate and willing to help. When Elijah was at the end of his rope and wanted God to end his life, God didn’t give up on him. Instead God sent messengers, or angels in some translations, to give him food and water in the wilderness. When God saw that Elijah was not being receptive or willing to be changed, God didn’t judge or curse him. Instead, God offered a way out for Elijah. God is not going to force us to do anything we don’t want to do, because that is not love. However God will find someone else who is willing to take up the call. How do we respond to this God we are a witness to today? One possibility is we can remain unchanged. Both individually and as the Church, we can be burnt out and at the end of our rope. We can become numb, cynical, weary, afraid, and ambivalent to the power of God at work in our world. You have given everything you got, and now you’re done. Because we serve a gracious and loving God who is not going to force us to do anything we are not willing to do, God will say, “Ok, let’s find you a way out.” However, it will require you to go outside of yourself and bring in others who are willing to carry on the work. Elijah had to anoint new kings and train up his replacement. God doesn’t want us to abdicate our responsibilities, God wants us to delegate and pass on the mantle to an empowered next generation. To some, this sounds like Good News! To others who feel a sting when you hear about God finding someone else, then perhaps you can take on a different possibility. If you’re not willing to give up or pass the mantle off to someone else just yet, then its time to step out in faith and ask for help…like Peter. In our Gospel reading, Jesus calls Peter to walk on water with him. Jesus knows Peter can walk on water, but Peter is not sure! Peter steps out in faith and begins to walk like Jesus. Then great winds were blowing, waves were crashing all around him, and Peter begins to doubt his ability to walk on water and begins to sink. Peter could have given up and drowned. He had a good run, right? No! Instead he cried out, “SAVE ME LORD!” and Jesus reached out and helped him back on the boat. Typically preachers like to emphasize how Jesus was kind of disappointed in Peter, and saying that it was Peters lack of faith in Jesus. However I don’t think that was Jesus’ intention at all. When he said, “Why do you doubt?” I believe he is saying to Peter, “Why didn’t you believe in yourself? I’m right here with you, I called you out because I knew you could do it and be like me.” This is a God who is compassionate and willing to help us! The Good News is, God believes in you, even when you don’t believe in yourself. Church, we are witnesses to a God who acts, influences, and is in relationship with us. This is a God who is with us in our highs and our lows. A God who is compassionate and willing to help, if only we ask for it and allow ourselves to be helped by others. If you’ve had enough and are ready to pass on the mantle to the next generation, may you experience the grace and love of God who will find a way out for you. But do not abdicate your role, empower and come alongside the ones who will carry on the work for you. If you still have fight in you, then for the love of God, ask for help (not just from God). And may all of you change out the tapes in your head that are repeating stories of your fears and failures, and enter into the liberating story God is writing in the world today. God believes in you, beloved, even when you don’t believe in yourself. Amen.

First Lutheran Church

August 6, 2023 - Pentecost 10A

Isaiah 55:1-5 1Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat!  Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. 2Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. 3Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. 4See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. 5See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you.  

Matthew 14:13-21 13Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. 14When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. 15When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” 16Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” 17They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” 18And he said, “Bring them here to me.” 19Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 20And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. 21And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children. 

“Two Very Different Feasts”

Pastor Greg Ronning

The appointed Gospel reading for this Sunday, which you have just heard read, begins with this phrase, “Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself.”  This phrase begs the question that sets up the context for what happens in this “deserted place,” the feeding of the five thousand with two fish and five loaves.   So, we begin this morning by asking, what did Jesus hear?  What “news” sent Jesus into the wilderness in search of a deserted place?  Why did he suddenly need to be alone? 

The preceding verses in the fourteenth chapter of Matthew, verses 1-12, provide the answer to our question.  They tell us the story of King Herod’s birthday party.  The infamous story of how the daughter of Herodias so pleased Herod with her dancing “that he promised on oath to grant her whatever she might ask.”  “Prompted by her mother, she said, ‘Give me the head of John the Baptist here on a platter.’”  Herod had earlier arrested John because he had proclaimed that Herod could not “be” with Herodias because she was his brother’s wife.  And he was keeping him alive in prison because he feared that if he killed the man the people regarded as a prophet, he might have an uprising.  Yet now, in a moment fueled by “decadent overindulgence” - he had no choice.  And so, it was done, on the spot Herod had John the Baptist beheaded, and the severed head was served up to the girl on a “silver platter.”  The disciples of John the Baptist took the body, buried it, and then went to tell Jesus what had happened.  And that’s where today’s gospel reading begins; “Now when Jesus heard ‘this’, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself.”

Jesus is heading out into the wilderness to be with God, to be in a safe place - away from Herod’s reach, to be with God in a place with no distractions, to be in a place of spiritual intensity, to be in a place where he might clearly hear the voice of God as he considers his calling, as he imagines and plans for what might come next.  Jesus probably prayed that same prayer that we have all said at one time or another in our life, “Help!”  Or more likely, “God what do you want me to do?”   

While Jesus is in prayer, suddenly the crowds show up, unbeknownst to him they have followed him out into that deserted place!  I wonder, perhaps the crowd of people was the answer to Jesus’ prayer?  Because when he sees them. he knows what he needs to do, “He had compassion for them and cured their sick.”  And then as the hour grew late, against all odds, with very little resources, he fed them abundantly.  In all this, the mission of Jesus is once again put back into focus.

So it is that in the Fourteenth Chapter of Matthew we have the story of two different meals, two different feasts, two very different celebrations: One rooted in the scarcity of this world, and the other rooted in the abundance of the Kingdom of God. 

Herod’s birthday feast is held in a comfortable and luxurious palace while Jesus and his followers find themselves in a barren and deserted place.

Herod is surrounded by the excesses of wealth and power, in a place where wine flows, where food piles up and over the edges of serving dishes, and the entertainment is perhaps “a little over the top.”  Jesus and his followers are in a place marked by its stark emptiness, a severe lack of resources, and with people who are faced with the essential questions of survival.

I imagine that Herod and his group, accustomed to fine dining, ranged from being healthy to being unhealthy, - unhealthy from having consumed “too much.”  Those who followed Jesus into the deserted place were in need of his compassion and healing, they were most likely suffering from a lack of good food, living around, at, or below subsistence level with inadequate caloric and nutritional intake.  They were ill because they did not have “enough.”

And yet when it comes to “satisfaction,” Herod’s birthday feast, despite all its excess, its overabundance, its wantonness; in the end is just not enough.  Somehow it needs and demands more, and so in its greed, its delusion, its abuse of power, its bloodthirstiness; Herod in a moment of desperation and fear, must serve up the head of the prophet John the Baptist.  On the other hand, in the deserted place, in an act of humility and service, somehow five loaves of bread and two fish, blessed by Jesus, inspire a meal that feeds five thousand, - “besides the woman and children.”   The scriptures tell us, “And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full.”  In the feast that took place in the deserted place it seems that all were satisfied, they did not need more, they even had leftovers!  

So it is that the over-the-top meal in the palace is a meal of scarcity, a meal that leaves everyone very full but very empty, unsatisfied; while the simple meal that happens in the deserted place is a meal of abundance, truly filled to overflowing.  Theologian Warren Carter writes, “Jesus hosts - not a death-bringing meal contextualized by tyranny, - but a life-giving feast embodying the gracious abundance of God.”

So, what does all this have to do with us?  How does the story of a decadent abusive birthday party and the feeding of over five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish, relate to us and the decisions we have to make in our daily life?  What’s the connection?  I give you two connections to consider.

One; choices.  Each and every day we have to make a foundational choice, a choice to live out of fear or to live out of love.  Those who sat, and those who sit, around Herod’s table have been seized by fear.  They overindulge out of fear, they “posture” with one another out of fear, and out of fear they lash out violently at others.  It’s a hierarchal table full of power struggles where you must constantly watch your back.  Yet those of us who gather around the table of our Lord feast upon grace and love, and thus are set free to both, - be and receive blessings, - from and to - each other.  And in that kind of sharing, inspired by unconditional love, there is always room at the table for more.  There is no power struggle only power to share for the good of all, even for those who have not yet found their way to the table.  Every day we must decide which table we will choose to dine from, we must decide whether to live out of fear or to live out of love.  And hear the good news, - each day and especially this day, God, without condition invites us to gather around the table of our Lord.  Because that’s what God does, that’s what God is, God loves.

And a second connection to consider and remember; the Kingdom of God.  In the biblical tradition, the coming and the very presence of God’s kingdom is always depicted as a feast marked by an abundance of food for all.  The appointed Old Testament lesson for today from Isaiah proclaims, “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”  “Come into the Kingdom!”  If you are a seeker, if you are looking for a purpose and a reason that satisfies the heart, if you are tired of the broken agenda, the unending conversation that blabbers on at Herod’s table consuming the soul; remember that God is feeding the poor, present in the least of these, that the kingdom is found, and engaged in using our gifts, our talents, and our resources in those deserted places with people in need of food, medicine, compassion, hope, and love.  If you are seeking God, the kingdom of God, -  seek no further than “those in need.”  There are so many ways you can serve those in need, including our Caring Hands Ministry on Tuesdays and Wednesdays!  When you reach out to serve those in need, you place yourself in the heart of the Kingdom of God!

May God inspire each of us to choose love, and to seek first the kingdom of God.  And may God inspire us as a faith community to find new ways that this place might continue to grow as a place of love for those in need, a holy place rooted firmly in the abundance of the kingdom of God.  Amen.