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Directionally Challenged
Sunday Worship Sermon
AUGUST 17, 2008 - “Then Jesus answered her, ‘Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done to you as you wish.’
And her daughter was healed instantly.” Matthew 15:28
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus has travelled outside of Jewish territory into Tyre and Sidon, towns that have a bad reputation. A local woman comes to Jesus asking him to heal her daughter. She came up to him and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tortured by a demon” (Matthew 15:22). But Jesus ignores her. His disciples come to Jesus and urge him to send her away – she is annoying them. Jesus then explains to the woman that healing a Canaanite like her daughter is beyond the scope of his ministry.
A few days ago, we had a representative from Verizon installing phone service. Part of the service we needed to get our phones to work was outside the scope of his work order. We understood what he was saying but we persisted; we wanted phone service so we worked with the serviceman to help him make that happen. He gave us good service. The Canaanite woman in today’s lesson was not satisfied with being told by Jesus that healing non-Jews was outside of the scope of his ministry. Her daughter was very ill, she was a mother, and she wanted her daughter healed.
Some Bible scholars say Jesus’ response to the woman’s request may have been meant to motivate her to have a bolder faith. If that is the case, it worked, for the woman became more persistent in her request for her daughter to be healed. She witnessed to Jesus and all present that God’s love extends to all people, not just a select group. Upon hearing her witness, Jesus claimed her faith to be great and immediately healed her daughter.
The Psalm we read today begins, “To you, O Lord, I call; my rock, do not refuse to hear me.” When written, Psalms captured the full range of emotions of the Jewish people in their relationship with God. But Psalms also captures the full range of emotions of all people of faith living everywhere in every time. And this Canaanite woman, using the words of the Psalms, showed that she and her people, and all people, are included in the plea to Jesus: “Have mercy on me, Lord.”
Who are the people in our lives crying out, “Have mercy on me Lord?” And what is our response to them? The disciples were bothered by this Canaanite woman and wanted Jesus to send her away complaining, “she keeps shouting at us.” Who would we rather just send away?
On the Thursday after 9/11, I began a weekend spiritual retreat with about 50 or so other men. To be honest, I was reluctant to go; not just because of 9/11 but because I really didn’t like the idea of spending a weekend with 50 strangers and I couldn’t imagine I’d experience much that was new. The first night we were asked to introduce ourselves and then we sang some praise songs. I saw one man put his arm on the shoulder of another; it turned me off and I thought “I’m going to stay clear of him.” The next morning we were separated into small groups; we would be staying in these same small groups for the remainder of the weekend. You probably know where I’m going with this. Yes, the person who I wanted to ignore was a member of my small group – I would be spending the remainder of the weekend close by him. By the end of the weekend, I had come to understand this person to be a fine man - a man who was very stressed about his son who was in jail, and a man who was crying out on behalf of his son, “Have mercy on me, Lord.” This was a man Jesus loved and a man who I had wanted to ignore. And to think, I didn’t want to go on the retreat because I was so sure there wouldn’t be much new to learn. God had other plans for me: that weekend I experienced God’s love in a new and powerful way.
Many times we learn the most about ourselves from people that make us feel uncomfortable, don’t we? Psychologists remind us to search ourselves when we are turned off by another’s personality, asking ourselves the question “What is it in my personality that causes me to react so negatively to this person?” Sometimes the answer to that question, if we’re willing to face it, helps us grow into a better person ourselves.
Sometimes people that need our help the most are in the least position to ask for it. Pride can get in the way of a person that’s been very self-sufficient all his life. And sometimes people can just get forgotten. Take the elderly person that helped build a church and has now moved into a nursing home in a neighboring town. If we aren’t intentional in providing ongoing contact, that person can be forgotten about.
And children sometimes get forgotten. There is a story about a man and his daughter. One evening, she wanted to play a board game with him, but he told her he was too busy. Trying to go back to his work, he began to feel guilty, so much so that he couldn’t concentrate. So he went into the room where his daughter was and played the game with her. We’ve all been there.
People that are ill or facing a crisis can get forgotten. My sister was once misdiagnosed. Doctors were treating her for the flu, but she really had a bad infection. Becoming delirious, she could no longer make decisions for herself. She is a nurse, and her friends in the medical profession came to visit her in the hospital. Recognizing the danger she was in, they made decisions for her that saved her life. Sometimes people that need help the most are in the least position to ask for it. A wise man observed, “At any given time, we are viewed as Christ to some other person” – and at that moment they are hoping that we are the person who will bring God’s love into their lives.
Sometimes we experience God very directly, don’t we? God, who is bigger than time and space, breaks into history and comes directly into our lives. Maybe that happened in the story of the Canaanite woman. Maybe God broke into life to make the statement, “All are included in the circle of God’s love – exclude no one, even the ones who are most annoying.” Today’s lesson reminds us that all people are precious to God. We are called to be Christ to all people, and in the process we will become more and more the person Christ created us to be.
Ever fight asking for directions? Now I’m told guys typically struggle with this: admitting that they don’t know the way. Once, in London, Donna and I, the last two passengers on the double-decker bus, rode the bus beyond the final stop on the line and the whole way into the station where they parked the buses before I would admit we were going the wrong way. Sometimes people are directionally challenged.
Perhaps Jesus ended up being directionally challenged in his dealing with the Canaanite woman. She challenged the fact that he was limiting his ministry – reaching out only in the direction of the Israelites to minister and heal. Through this foreigner, this annoying, loud, demanding woman God broke through the lives of people to say, “All are included, all are welcome, all will be healed, and none will be left out.” In that moment, God made it clear that God invites all people of the world from all points of the compass. The hymn In Christ There Is No East or West begins, “In Christ there is no East or West, In Him no South or North; but one great fellowship of love Throughout the whole wide earth.” To gain a foothold, Jesus’ ministry began with his own people but by the end of three brief years Jesus had extended his ministry to reach out to all people, especially the ones that are sometimes hardest for us to love. God’s love extends in all directions to all people everywhere: North, South, East, and West. In our daily ministries, you and I are called to follow Jesus’ example and do the same. Amen.
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