Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Sunday, 14 August 2005
Isaiah 56:1,6-8, Romans 11:13-15,29-32, Matthew 15:21-28
Children's sermon: Like the reasons why we can't open a pickle jar, people make all kinds of excuses about why Jesus can't help them.
Sermon (Pastor Eberhart):
The woman with the possessed daughter was a bold woman. Some people never take a break. Some people die from stress. A 19 year old classical guitarist played a long concert. At the end of it, he played an encore. Then another, until at last he said, "the guitar is tired."
There was a chief executive of a company. He was a hard working, successful worker, always there, except Wednesday after 1:00. He wasn't home, and not at work. People assumed he had a mistress. They hired a private detective to investigate. He reported that the man left the office at 1:00, then stayed at corporate hotel until 7, then went home. People told him to set up an appointment with a therapist. He took the therapist to the hotel. There in the hotel was a set of woodworking equipment. He'd rented the suite, amusing himself by making furniture.
The woman with the demon possessed daughter could have been encroaching on Jesus' private life in a similar fashion. But then there are incidents like the feeding of the five thousand and the calming of the storm. He didn't say "why did you wake me" then. But he didn't give this woman an answer. She was a pushy gentile. Talking to him like that was a social no-no. It was insulting.
A woman at an office once told a coworker "People say that I'm often assertive and agressive. Tell me if I am right now!"
During the wedding of Cana, Jesus' mother tried his patience. But Mary knew he'd help. "Do whatever he tells you," she said.
Was Jesus' treatment of the woman with the possessed daughter racism? Were the Jews the only subject of the other miracles? The lost sheep of Israel? Why didn't the disciples react when Jesus called her kind "dogs"?
Really, Jesus wanted to make it so that there was nothing between this woman and God. Does your faith say that a person needs to be self sufficient to be helped? Do you have to be successful for God to care about you? Do you have to be only a specific denomination to be helped by God? No.
John 3:16, in the original language, contains the phrase `wacomini' or `cosmos' for the phrase `world.' "God so loved the universe that he gave his only son to die for it." Isaiah 56 says foreigners will be brought to God. That means everyone, even green people from Mars or whatever.
The pushy woman who came to Jesus shows us that there's no barrier between any of us and God.