Homily
by The Rev. Marcia McRae
St.
John’s Episcopal Church, Bainbridge, GA, 17 Aug. 2014, Proper 15
Year A RCL: Genesis 45:1-15; Psalm 133; Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32; Matthew 15:21-28
Ecce, quam bonum!
“Oh,
how good & pleasant it is,
when brethren live together in unity!”
The
Book of Common Prayer uses
the Latin I just quoted like a title for today's Psalm (p.
787 ).
This Psalm always takes me to the holy mountain where
I went to seminary at The University of the South in Sewanee, TN.
It takes me to the view from the Dining Hall of the green lawn &
lush garden the chef planted to provide us fresh veggies. Birds,
bunnies, deer & insects enjoy the garden too.
Just beyond the
garden sits one of the school's old stone buildings. Above the front
door it proclaims in big letters: Ecce
quam bonum
to remind students & faculty how good it is when we live in
unity.
Our
Psalm obviously speaks to our lesson from Genesis when Joseph &
his brothers, who
sold him into slavery,
finally live in unity. Perhaps less obvious is how it speaks to
Paul's writing in Romans & Jesus' actions in today's Gospel.
In
Romans Paul struggles with the tension between God's sovereignty &
our human responsibility:1
God's calling Israel as a chosen people, human freedom to live in the
unity of God's love, to accept or reject God's love.
How expansive
God's love is!
Through Jesus' dying for us, God's love reaches out to
all humans – even us Gentiles.
We Gentiles are
the dogs Jesus refers to in the Gospel.
Notice:
Jesus says plainly “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house
of Israel.” Only after his work on the Cross & his Resurrection
does Jesus send the disciples to every nation. This man is focused on
the work he has to do among his people – not the neighborhood dogs.
The
disciples want Jesus to say something to that yapping dog of a woman
that will send her away. I hear anger in their words, not compassion.
Notice: Jesus responds differently.
How
do you respond to a yapping dog?
OUTSIDE your house, not in it?
It's easy to
chase the lizard out with a broom, stomp on or squirt insecticide on
the spider & roach.
It takes time to hum & be peaceful with
them so you can catch them &
return them outside where they can
do the work God created them to do that helps the earth.
return them outside where they can
do the work God created them to do that helps the earth.
The
1st
reaction to stomp or chase brings out the creatures' natural
defenses. The 2nd
transforms the dynamic. It shifts the perspective & the outcome.
The 1st
offers more death in the world. The 2nd
offers more life.
Jesus didn't come to offer us less death.
Jesus didn't come to offer us less death.
Jesus
came for us to have more life.
Jesus
demonstrates how to have more life by shifting perspectives &
expected outcomes. Among the ways Jesus does this is through
compassion. He applies the 3 types of compassion: tender, fierce &
mischievous.2
Which type he uses depends on the situation.
We
are most familiar with tender compassion, such as when a child falls
& skins the knees. You remember Jesus blessing & healing
children.
It
can sound unsettling to hear compassion can be fierce! Think about
how fierce Jesus is when he tells Peter: “Get behind me, Satan” &
when he remains silent before Pilate. Fierce is tough love.3
It can be calm & emotionless.4
Fierce
compassion has grown beyond anger at injustice, & has become
single-minded work to transform life into justice.
We
see Jesus use mischievous compassion in the story of the woman caught
in adultery. Mischievous, playful compassion, switches things up to
change our usual thinking & elicit a new understanding, a new
perspective. Jesus doodles in the sand, then suggests: the person
without sin in the group should throw the first stone.
He
shifts the mob's perspective from following the letter of the law to
following the heart of God's love, God's compassion.
Jesus
uses mischievous, playful compassion in today's encounter with the
woman who wants her daughter healed. The problem is, she is an
outsider, not a member of the house of Israel.
So
Jesus makes a simple statement: “I was sent only to the lost sheep
of the house of Israel.” This gives her an opportunity to speak so
he can gain her perspective & see as she sees.
She
asks simply: “Lord, help me.” Her body language speaks respect as
she kneels down to ask.
Jesus
makes a straightforward statement about the work he has to do &
its importance. Life is short & he does not have too much time to
take food from the mouths of hungry sheep & throw it to dogs.
I
wonder if the woman suddenly sees herself in new ways with this
playful word picture. I wonder if she sees her life more clearly in a
new light – the Light of Christ – so that she responds about
being worthy to share the crumbs.
I
wonder what the disciples learn from this encounter & how they
react to the grace that comes instantly when her daughter is healed
because of the mother's faith.
The
disciples want to get this dog – this lizard, this roach, this
spider of a woman – out of the house of Israel & away from
them. Jesus playfully speaks peace so that she can return to where
she belongs to do the work God has created her to do on this earth.
God
has created you – us – Beloved Brothers & Sisters, to tend
this earth & to tend lost sheep where we are. God has created
this Body of Christ – this happening
place where we live God's love
– to work so that all manner of thing shall be well. God calls us
to see the needs of God's hungry children here, to offer God's
healing grace, & to speak peace to trembling dogs who are lost &
hungry for God's love.
Bibliography
Barclay,
William. Letter to Romans: The Daily
Study Bible.
Edinburgh: The Saint Andrew Press. 1971.
Harper’s
Bible Commentary. General Ed.: James. L.
Mays. San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers. 1988.
Holy
Bible. New Revised Standard Version. New
York: Oxford University Press. 1989.
Jewish
Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation.
New York: Oxford University Press. 2004.
The
New American Bible for Catholics.
South Bend: Greenlawn Press. 1986.
New
Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha.
Eds.: Herbert G. May, Bruce M. Metzger. New York: Oxford University
Press, Incorporated, 1977.
Voyles,
Robert J. Restoring
Hope: Appreciative Strategies to Resolve Grief and Resentment.
Hillsboro, OR: The Appreciative Way. 2010. www.appreciativeway.com.
Voyles,
Robert J. “The Three Faces of Compassion”. Forgiveness
Forum: Teach Your Congrgation How to Forgive.
www.appreciativeway.com.
2014.
2
Note: Voyles,
Robert J. lists the 3 types, quoting Psychlogist Stephen Gilligan on
p. 55 of “The Three Faces of Compassion”. Forgiveness
Forum: Teach Your Congrgation How to Forgive.
3
Ibid. Voyles. P. 56.
4
Ibid. Voyles. P. 56.
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