Change! Sermon for the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost (September 8, 2024) (Proper 18, Year B)
Sermon for the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost (September 8, 2024) (Proper 18, Year B) at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Hyde Park, NY. View the scripture readings and the Collect of the Day.
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Transcript (Edited)
This is not the Gospel that I, in my "infinite wisdom," would've selected for our "Welcome Back" Sunday. It's a challenging, disturbing reading.
In case we miss it, we need to kind of break down what's happening here. You remember that Jesus has been very busy. He's doing deeds of power all over the region. He fed 5,000 people with a handful of loaves and fishes. Everywhere he goes, he's casting out demons. He is setting people free. He's healing the sick. He's feeding the poor. And most recently, we heard last Sunday, he has had yet another argument with the religious authorities. And you remember, he says, it's not so much about what comes into you that makes you clean or unclean, right with God or not right with God. It's not so much about what you take in. It's what comes out of you that matters, what comes out of your mouth, what comes out of your heart.
And so it might surprise you, as much as it surprises and distresses me, that something comes out of Jesus' mouth that I would prefer was not attested to in the Gospels.
He's tired from the work he's been doing, and Mark tells us he goes way out of his way, way out into the country, into a land of Gentiles... so away from his own people, the people who he understands himself to be called to serve. And I imagine that he thinks to himself, "Now I can finally get a little peace." In Mark's Gospel, Jesus is often going away seeking to get a little peace.
So, he goes away for a while. And so here he is kind of far away from the center of things, having dinner and what should happen, but a woman comes in, in the middle of his dinner, and kneels before him and says, can you help my daughter? She has a spirit possessing her. Can you heal her, too?
And Jesus looks at her. Mark tells us she's a Gentile. She's of Syrophonecian origin. This is important. She's not who Jesus understands to be his people, God's people. And he looks right at her and he says, I'm not going to take the children's food and give it to the dogs.
He tells this woman, a stranger, I'm not going to help you. I'm here to help God's children, not the dogs of the world.
Now, she's kneeling before him. If Jesus said to me what he said to that woman, I can think of a few things that I would do. Right?
Honestly, I might cry.
Or I might get up and walk out the door. People have done that because of things that happen to them in church. Get up, walk out the door, don't come back.
This woman looks him right in the eye and she says, yes, that may be so. But even—and in the original, it's not "even the dogs," it's "even the little doggies," even the little doggies under the table eat the crumbs.
Jesus says to her, you are right. For that, your daughter will be healed.
Jesus doesn't see her as a child of God. He sees her as a dog less than human, but she knows her worth. She knows the worth of her little child. And she has the courage to say to him: I too claim the healing, not just for one people, but for all people. I claim the love of God, not just for the in-crowd, but for all the strangers and all the people on the outside.
And what happens to Jesus?
Do I wish that he had apologized? I do. And I will always struggle with this story because there will always be things that I wish were happening and that don't.
But Jesus changes.
Now I know I was taught... Remember the hymn? "Oh thou who changest not."
But remember that we're supposed to follow the example of Jesus because he lived as we live. In fact, we can only follow the example of Jesus because he lived as we lived. And so when Jesus sees that he is wrong, he changes.
And in his change, we see an example for us to follow. We're going to walk the way of love when we find out that we're wrong. As St. James says, if we are making a distinction between one of God's children and another, if we're saying God loves this one and not this one, if we're saying this one is deserving, but not this one—Change!
Jesus changed so much that one of his great teachings that all of us remember from Sunday School... what are we supposed to do if someone strikes us on the cheek? We turn the other one also.
What did that woman do when Jesus struck her on the cheek with his words? We don't feed the dogs. Even the dogs eat the crumbs, God. Okay?
Every person in this room and every person outside this room is worthy of God's love. There is plenty, plenty enough and more than enough. Sometimes it means we have to change so we can show the world that that's true. Jesus changed! And he died, and then he rose again, so he could show the world that it's true.
And the very next thing he does when he gets up from that table, when he's presented with a man who needs healing, he holds the man and he looks to heaven and he sighs. It's the big sigh we make when we know we're different. Something's different about us. And he says, Be opened.
Be open. Be open to the love of God. Be open to the change that God is calling you into. Be open to see God's love in places where you thought it couldn't be, or dwelling in the hearts of people who didn't seem to deserve it.
It's one of the hardest teachings of our faith. But be open. Be open in this election season. Be open in the midst of war and trial. There's a prayer in our prayer book, the Prayer of St. Francis, that says, God, make me an instrument of your peace. And there's a version of the prayer that has a slight tweak which says, God, make me a channel of your peace.
We're called to be people who receive and know the love of God and let it flow through us and out into the world again. So my prayer for all of us in the room, and for myself, is that we ask God for the power to be open, to have open eyes and ears, to see the face of God everywhere we're going. To have open minds and open hearts to hear, to see, to know what God is calling us to do and how God is calling us to change.
And that we remember: for God there's no distinction between worthy and unworthy. There's no distinction between children. Everyone eats at this table. So we bring that truth everywhere we go. Amen.