Atom“A Jesus for All – You, Me and the Others”
It’s almost time…many of our young people are headed off this week and next to begin college – some of them for the first time. And those first-timers are excited…and nervous…
Matthew 15:21-28
It’s almost time…many of our young people are headed off this week and next to begin college – some of them for the first time. And those first-timers are excited…and nervous…excited for the new adventures ahead of them, but also nervous. Will this be the right place for me? Will people talk to me? Will they like me? Will there be anybody to help me if I have a problem? We’ve probably all been there at some time or another – been in a new place, among new people, or maybe even among people we’ve seen before but never talked to or socialized with and wondered if we will be accepted. Well, if we have – if you have – consider again this story of Jesus we have before us this morning…of a young woman, a young mother who must have been wondering early on: “Do I really belong here?”
She had heard stories of this Jesus already, even though he wasn’t from her country. Word about a miracle worker tends to get around fast, especially among those who need a miracle. And God knew she did. Her daughter was so sick, had been sick for so long that she was beginning to wonder if she would ever be well again. The seizures that left her little girl paralyzed for long minutes had become more frequent and more intense in recent weeks and the village healers were not giving her much hope. But a neighbor had come just that morning to tell her that the healer from the Jewish region of Galilee had just shown up in the village of Tyre near the Mediterranean Sea. What he was doing up here in her land no one knew, but they did know that he was a great healer in his own land and that some there even believed him to be a descendent of Israel’s greatest king, David, and a messenger sent from God. So she had quickly taken her older children over to her sister’s house and hoisted her youngest daughter onto her back to try to see this Jesus.
The journey down the path to the sea took some time and as she went she became more and more apprehensive. Would she even be able to get close to him? He, after all, was a man and she a woman, and men and women just didn’t speak to one another socially, but even more of a problem was that he was a Jew and she was a Canaanite. Their peoples had been at odds for centuries. She knew the Jewish merchants in Tyre to be very closed to other people – it seemed that they believed their faith in God set them apart in such a way that they didn’t have anything to do with others. Somehow other people just weren’t good enough. So she worried: “Would he even see her, knowing she didn’t belong?”
Drawing near to the village of Tyre, she noticed a group gathered under a shade tree, seeking shelter from the intense noon-day sun. It must be his group…they certainly looked by their dress to be from Galilee. And, as she had feared, they were all men. She thought about turning back, but just then she felt her daughter convulse and stiffen on her back. She gently lowered her to the ground. Then, from where she knelt beside her, she called out as loudly as she dared, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon!” He did not answer. She called again, and again, and again. And then she heard the others with him say loudly enough so she would hear: “Send her away, for she keeps shouting…” And looking at them, he said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” She felt the tears begin to well in her eyes.
What a strange story this is…of a Jesus who is almost rude…of a Jesus who fails to offer help to this woman who comes seeking because she is not his kind. She has great need, but she does not belong, and because she does not belong, he has no time with her. Is this the Jesus we know and love? It would not seem so. It would seem rather that this is a Jesus speaking the prevailing wisdom of his own day and of his own people – a people who believed that they were special and set apart and God’s blessings were only for them, the ones already in – the one’s who were already a part of the family. Others just didn’t belong. They knew it and the made sure the outsiders knew it, too. Now, if these folks wanted to change their ways, clean up their lives, start keeping the Jewish traditions, well…maybe they could find their way in…but that was on them, it wasn’t the concern of those already in.
Except…you see…Jesus lived and taught as if it was their concern. Now, give this woman credit. She was not one to give up easily! When you are in great need, sometimes you step over the lines you’ve been so afraid of before. So, she picked her daughter up in her arms and came right up to Jesus and the group gathered around him and then, with heart pounding, she knelt before him. “Lord,” she cried, “help me.” He said softly, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and offer it to the dogs.” Her heart sank further. It was what she had expected. How often she had heard the Jewish people in the market place refer to her people as dogs, as somehow less than human. But there was something in his voice that made her look up, a tone that said he was just mouthing words that he didn’t really believe. And when she looked up, she saw a twinkle in his eye that made her heart leap just a little. She mustered her courage once again. Dropping her eyes, she said, “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”
I wonder how many people like this woman come to the church looking for help and hope, believing that this Jesus has something for them, but unsure if they will be able to get close enough to receive it, unsure because somehow they don’t belong here. Their sense of themselves is that they are outsiders. They’ve been away from the church too long. Their parents never brought them to Sunday School. They don’t know the first thing about the Bible. They don’t know how church works. They don’t have the right kinds of clothes. They have too many doubts. They have broken hearts or broken families. And somehow they are not sure that Jesus would have them – or that the Church would have them as they are. But they come. Seeking. Hoping. Unsure. But here because of Jesus, and because they hope that Jesus can give them what they need.
If that’s you friend…this story is for you today. In the story, Jesus, as he always does, steps outside of the conventional wisdom of his day, steps beyond what everyone else is doing, and what everyone expects of him and extends a hand of healing to this distraught, fearful, but seeking woman. “Woman, great is your faith. Let it be done as you wish.” And her daughter is healed. And as great as that healing is, I have to believe that the greater healing is for her. Yes, you do belong here. God’s message, God’s Spirit, God healing is for you!
But there is another healing at work here as well. I believe it is the healing that Jesus intends for his followers…for his followers then and for his followers today. And this healing is a healing of the eyes and of the heart. It is a healing of the eyes that we might be able to see the needs of those “outside the family,” that we might understand that what he is giving us is for others, too…that in the very giving is the calling to pass it on. It is a healing of the eyes…so that followers of Jesus might see the need around them. And it is a healing of the heart so that followers of Jesus might not only see, but be able to respond to the need. It is so followers of Jesus might find ways of welcoming those on the outside to come in.
What might this look like? I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again, being a welcoming church is about practicing hospitality when we are in this place. It is about paying attention to those who sit around the edges of our worship gatherings, those who might not look quite like us. It’s one of the jobs of ushers and greeters. To be quite honest, those of us who worship regularly could probably get along without them. We could find our way in and we could probably find our bulletins if we had to. But they are here to pay attention to those who come and look like they’re not quite sure where to go. But it’s not just them. It’s all of us in the pews. It’s about extending the hand of welcome today…and then paying attention next time we see them, whether here, or at the video store.
What does including the outsider look like? It looks like having an elevator in the building for those who can’t climb stairs. It looks like a bus ministry to pick up folks that can’t drive here anymore. It looks like welcoming those whose minds and bodies are put together a little differently than most of us. We call that ministry here “God’s faithful followers.” Outside these walls it looks like supporting the ministries of Lutheran Social Service or Lakes Crisis Center that can offer services on our behalf to those who need help and healing. Welcoming the outsider is realizing that we’re here for each other, but we’re also here for those who might think they don’t fit or who wonder why a bunch of folks from Minnesota would come all the way to the Gulf Coast of Mississippi to or to Puerto Rico to lend a helping hand in Jesus’ name. Jesus went out of his way, 100 miles out of his way, to a region he should not have been in, to a woman he should not have talked to, to show her and his followers that this is what the gospel is all about…being a follower of Jesus is having eyes wide open and hearts wide open to those who are not like us, but who are near and dear to the heart of God. Let’s pray
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