Bethlehem Lutheran Church

Sermon series: Heaven on Earth

0814111015.mp3

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Dear sisters and brothers in Christ, grace and peace to you from Jesus Christ who loves us and frees us from our sin.  Amen.

All right.  So let’s get down to brass tacks.  No stories or personal anecdotes as a means into our conversation, not this morning, we’re diving right in.  Because today, we’ve got this politically incorrect, insensitive and just plain old grumpy Jesus in our gospel reading from Matthew.  

I mean wow, this poor woman is seeking Jesus to get a little healing for her daughter, healing is something that Jesus has become pretty well known for in the region, and he first ignores her then calls her a dog.  So much for Jesus as tender shepherd.

For many of us this picture of Jesus is really troubling.  Week in and week out you hear us proclaim and promise that Jesus is all about love.  We declare to you that Jesus’ life was given for you, and for all people.  But then we hear Jesus’ words from Matthew’s gospel, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

I hear these words and my fears are confirmed, Jesus’ love is for some, but not for me.  I hear, I’m not good enough, worthy enough.  Jesus’ mission and ministry isn’t for me, it’s for others.  Others who live better, fuller, richer, more God-focused lives.  

Jesus’ love is for the people who know God better, who pray more regularly, who know the bible inside and out.  Jesus was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  Jesus is for those people, not me.  I don’t know about you, but that’s the place that grumpy Jesus takes me.

But then there’s this woman.  A woman who doesn’t belong.  She’s a gentile, a non-Jewish woman, who doesn’t belong in the midst of a group of Jewish men.  She doesn’t belong in the presence of Jesus, with the cloud of her uncleanness, her unjewishness surrounding her.  

She doesn’t belong there, and the disciples let her know that, Jesus lets her know that.  She doesn’t belong, and yet she refuses to leave.  She cries out, “Lord have mercy.”  She unrelentingly calls out, Lord help me.”  She seeks only the crumbs, the scraps, the mixed with dust and debris on the floor.  Doggedly she waits, for anything Jesus might throw her way.

It’s all she can do.  Beg.  For Mercy.  

There’s no pretense of having any other options, possibilities or plans.  Her future, the health of her daughter is tied up in this man called Jesus, who heals people.  So she begs for mercy, from the one who is completely other.  She begs for mercy from the person she has no business speaking to.

And Jesus says, “Woman, great is your faith.”

In Junior High I was invited to a hayride at my friends church.  It was a fun evening of games, prizes, and general shenanigans and tomfoolery.  And I’m pretty sure my junior high self is now dying of embarrassment because I just said shenanigans and tomfoolery in public, in front of so many people.  

So, as the evening came to a close the various adults, staff and parent chaperones gathered us together in small groups.  Some initial introductions were made, and we went around the circle sharing a little bit about ourselves, and where we went to school.  Then one leader asked us individually, “Have you accepted Jesus into your heart as your personal Lord and Savior.”

I was raised Lutheran.  I was like a deer in the headlights.  Luckily I was on the opposite side of the circle so I had time to come up with my answer.  By the time it was my turn I answered with a strength and gusto that would have made my Lutheran pastor proud.  I said, “Uh, at baptism I guess.”

The adult leader looked at me hopefully, “oh when were you baptized?” “When I was a baby,” I said.

“Oh” he said, “that doesn’t count.”

At the time I didn’t have language to challenge this leaders theology.  I didn’t have the words to offer a different view of how God works in baptism.  I wasn’t able to claim the sufficiency of God’s grace and the gift of faith to me in baptism.  All I heard was you don’t belong here, unless you believe, think and act like we say you need to, you don’t belong here.

Sometimes the church acts like Jesus.  Not the Jesus God that calls us to be, but this seemingly grumpy, insensitive, and offensive Jesus we encounter today in our Gospel text.  Too often, the church joins the disciples in saying, “Send her away for she keeps shouting at us,” though these words might never leave our mouthes.  Too often the church is the place, more than any other, that makes people feel unwelcome, like they don’t belong.

But that’s not who we are supposed to be.  

Yesterday, John Nunes, who is the President of Lutheran World Relief, shared a quote from CFW Walther on Twitter.  Walther was the first president in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, and much loved churchman.  The quote was, “Faith is nothing else, than begging for mercy.”

We, like the Canaanite woman stand before God with nothing.  We kneel  before God as broken people.  We fall to the floor to beg for God’s love, forgiveness, and mercy.  

And God rejoices.  Not because God needs or wants us to beg and to grovel.  No God rejoices as we take of the posture of this Canaanite woman because God is first and foremost a God of mercy.  God wants nothing more than to known and experienced as the one who is merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.

God’s deep desire to be known in this way is the reason for the cross.  God became the very enfleshment of mercy in Jesus, pouring himself out for the  life of this world.  See in Jesus, God even experiences and endures God forsakenness, God experience the absence of God’s love and mercy, so that not even death can separate you from God.

This is why the Canaanite woman’s faith is great, in the face of harsh words and treatment, she demands that God be merciful.  Confronted with a Jesus that runs contrary to the once she’s heard about, she begs for Jesus to be who he says is.  In the face of God forsakenness, this woman trusts that hope, healing, and life are coming.  Because that’s who God is, she knows that and God rejoices in that.

Like the Canaanite woman, we don’t belong here.  We don’t deserve the grace, the life, the hope that God extends to each of us.  But that’s what makes us the church.

See to be the church, the church that the Spirit calls us to be, we must embrace our true identity, people in need of God’s love and mercy.  We must stand empty handed, in need of mercy and love so that having received God’s mercy we become the embodiment of that mercy, the embodiment of God’s unmerited grace, for the world.

To that end, we’re gonna do some investigation, in the interest of self-discovery.  I’m going to pose a few questions.  And I want you to answer them.  Right now.  You can write them on your STAR card, and place them in the offering plates/basket, when it comes around later in the service.  Or and this might be dangerous water for some of you but pull out your phones and e-mail me.  bcieslik(at)bethlehem-church.org

Ready?  I’m going to give you all the questions and you respond to those that resonate with you.

Do you feel welcome in this church?  Why or Why not?

What has made your feel either welcome or unwelcome?

What do you love/like about being here, what gets in your way?

Be honest.  Tell the truth.

I'll give you a few minutes to respond.

Thank you for your honest responses both those given here today and ones that will surely emerge in the days to come.  These are important questions for us to tend to.  For by God's grace they can help us to be the church, that is, children of God in need of the mercy of God.  Amen.

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