"A God Who Never Gives Up On Us." A Sermon on Luke 15 on the Fourth Sunday in Lent.

 

 

Rembrandt, "Return of the Prodigal Son"

"A God Who Never Gives Up On Us"

Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

Writing in The Christian Century, Justo Gonzalez tells about a story that made him giggle when he was a boy, about a man who went to the movies. When he saw the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer roaring lion at the beginning, he decided that he’d already seen that movie and walked out of the theater. “Silly as the story may be,” Gonzalez says, “I now take it as a warning—because many of us do something similar when we hear scripture that we already know well.”

“There was a man who had two sons,” we hear in today’s Gospel lesson. We immediately recognize this as the beginning of the prodigal son, so there’s a temptation to decide that we don’t have to pay much attention, because we think we already know the story and its meaning. But when we really listen to it, scripture can surprise us. This is word of God.  When we read it afresh, God speaks to us and our circumstances, and helps us to hear a new word.[1]

The story we know as the “Parable of the Prodigal Son” is one of three parables Jesus tells in Luke 15. The thing the three stories have in common is the theme of being lost. The shepherd loses a sheep, a woman loses a coin, and the father loses a son.

The introduction provides the context of the stories. They’re a response to how the Pharisees and scribes have been grumbling and criticizing Jesus, saying, “This man welcomes sinners and even eats with them!”  The parable is responding to the Pharisees and scribes—not primarily to those whom they consider sinners or outcasts.

            Jesus doesn't argue with them.  He just tells them a series of stories, about a shepherd who leaves ninety-nine sheep to fend for themselves while he went out after one stray...  about a woman who turns her house upside down in order to find one lost coin...  and about a compassionate father who deals graciously with his two sons. 

Now, I want to remind us that the Pharisees and scribes were deeply religious people. They were very concerned with obeying God and all the religious laws of Judaism. From their perspective, it was those other people—the tax collectors and sinners—who were lost. They were unlikely to identify themselves with the lost sheep or the lost son. They were more likely to identify with the ninety-nine sheep or the obedient elder son. So, they probably would have been shocked to hear in the story that the shepherd leaves the ninety-nine sheep to go searching for the one lost sheep…or to see the elder son missing the feast celebrating his brother’s return. These parables would have challenged their understanding that they were the faithful, obedient ones.

            All three stories address the Pharisees' concern that Jesus is condoning sin by keeping company with people they judge to be unacceptable.   All three parables reply that God is too busy rejoicing over found sheep, found coins, and lost children   to worry about what they did while they were lost. 

            Jesus declares: “I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance…. I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

            I was reminded this week of Rembrandt’s painting, “The Return of the Prodigal Son,”[2] and I spent some time meditating on that image.  I also re-read parts of Henri Nouwen’s book with the same title.[3] 

            Nouwen tells about his first encounter with the painting when he saw a poster in a friend’s office, and was deeply moved by it.  He said it made him want to cry and laugh at the same time. 

            Several years later, friends invited him to go with them on a trip to what was then the Soviet Union, and they made arrangements for him to spend a few hours at the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg with the painting that been on his heart and mind for several years.

            The painting is hung in the natural light of a nearby window.  In the hours Nouwen studied it, the light kept changing, and at every change of the light, he would see a different aspect revealed.  I think Nouwen’s discovery in this painting points us to the amazing gift this parable is to us. No matter how often we hear it, there is always a new angle or perspective, a new revelation. 

            I think it would good for us to listen to the parable of the two sons, to meditate on it a few more times this Lent, and to try moving back and forth between seeing ourselves as the lost son who is welcomed home with open arms… and the obedient elder brother who apparently thinks he is more deserving. Lent is a good time to ponder both the grace of the God who seeks us and refuses to give up on us and welcomes us home and also the temptation that religious people face, when we think that we are better or more faithful than those other people.

            Luke the Evangelist tells the story so simply and in such a matter-of-fact way that it’s difficult to comprehend that what happens is un-heard of.  Biblical scholar Kenneth Bailey says that the way the son leaves amounts to wishing his father dead.  Bailey writes:[4]

            “For over fifteen years I have been asking people of all walks of life from Morocco to India and from Turkey to the Sudan about the implications of a son’s request for his inheritance while the father is still living. The answer has always been emphatically the same…the conversation runs as follows:

            “’Has anyone ever made such a request in your village?’ 

            ‘Never!’ 

            ‘Could anyone ever make such a request?’ 

            ‘Impossible!’ 

            ‘If anyone ever did, what would happen?’ 

           ‘His father would beat him, of course!’ 

            ‘Why?’ 

            ‘The request means—he wants his father to die.’”

            Scholars tell us that the younger of two brothers would have expected to inherit a third of the father’s property when he died.  Kenneth Bailey explains that the son asks not only for the division of the inheritance, but also for the right to dispose of his part.  Even after dividing the property and signing over his possessions to his son, normally the father still would have the right to live off the proceeds…as long as he is alive. But this son lets his father know that he can’t wait for him to die, and demands his money, which would have meant his father would have needed to sell off a third of the family estate.

            The son’s leaving is a rejection of his home and the values of his family and community.  He leaves everything to go to a “distant country.”  He squanders his property in self-indulgent, immoral living.  Then there was a severe famine, and he began to be in need.  He was so desperate that he—this Jewish boy—hired himself out to take care of pigs. 

            In time, the younger son hits bottom.  Out in the pigsty, he finally comes to his senses.  “Here I am starving,” he said to himself, “when back at home my father’s hired hands have more than enough to eat.”

            As he trudges along the dusty road toward home, he rehearses what he'll say to his father:  "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.  I am no longer worthy to be called your son.  So, treat me like one of your hired hands."

            Meanwhile, back at home, the father has been scanning the horizon, longing to see his son and welcome him home.   When he sees his beloved lost son trudging home, the father is filled with compassion.   He does a very un-dignified thing.  He hikes up his robes and runs to meet him. 

            When he reaches his son, he throws his arms around him and kisses him, before the son has a chance to say anything.  The son starts to apologize:  "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.  I am no longer worthy to be called your son."

            Before he can say any more, the father says to his servants, "Hurry-- bring out a robe-- the best one-- and put it on him.  Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet." 

            In doing this, he shows that he's welcoming his son back as a son, rather than as a servant.   The son must have been speechless with astonishment.

            But the father isn't through yet.  "Kill the fatted calf," he orders. "We're going to have a feast and celebrate, for this son of mine was dead and is alive again.  He was lost-- and now he's found!" 

            The household bursts into activity, and soon a joyous feast is underway. 

            The younger son never dreamed that his father loved him so deeply.  There were no "I told you so's."  This son's life was far more precious to the father than being right, or putting his son in his place.  The younger son finally saw deep into his father's heart that day--   and what he saw was pure love.                       

            When the elder son gets back from work, he’s surprised to hear music and dancing.  "What's going on?"  he asks one of the servants. 

            The servant tells him, "Your brother has come home, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound."

            The elder brother refuses to go in to the party.  Luke doesn't tell us why, but my hunch is that he wasn't angry because his younger brother came back.  Maybe he wasn't even angry because his father forgave him.  But the party-- that was another matter.

            Let the sinners come home, by all means.  But what about facing the consequences of your actions?  Where's the moral instruction in that kind of welcome? What kind of a world would this be, if we all made a practice of having a party for sinners, while the dutiful, obedient folk are still working in the fields?

            His father comes out and begins to plead with him.  "Your brother has come home, son.  He was lost and now he is found.  Come in to the party and celebrate with us!"

            Do you hear how he answers his father?   "Listen!"  he says.  "For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command!  I've done my duty and followed all your rules.  Yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends.  But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!"

            God help him, the elder son.  God help all of us who understand his hurt and resentment that run so deep that we cut ourselves off from the very ones whose love and acceptance we so desperately need.

            "This son of yours,” the elder brother says, excluding himself from the family in those words.   This son of yours, who is no kin to me.  The older son believes his father has chosen the younger brother over him.

            The father knows that he has lost this son to a life of self-righteousness and resentment that takes him so far away from his father that he might as well be away in a far country.

            The elder son wants his father to love him as he thinks he deserves to be loved-- because he has stayed home and done the right thing-- the dutiful thing.  He wants his father to love him for all of that. 

His father does love him, but not for any of that-- any more than he loves the younger brother for what he has done.  He doesn't love either of his sons according to what they deserve.  He just loves them.

But the dutiful older brother can't comprehend a love that transcends right and wrong... a love that throws homecoming parties for sinners and expects the hard-working righteous people to rejoice.

            He can't stand it, and so he stands outside.  Outside his father's house and his father's love-- refusing his invitation to come inside to the party.

                But his father turns out to be a prodigal, too-- at least as far as his love is concerned.  He never seems to tire of giving it away.  "Son," he says, “you are always with me.  All that is mine is yours."

            "It was necessary that we celebrate and be glad," the loving father says to his older son, “for this your brother"-- not just my son, but your brother--” was dead, and is alive.  He was lost and is found."

            In other words, the father is saying, “I’m welcoming my son back because it makes me happy to do it.  I love him as I love you—not because of what either of you deserves…but because you are my children.  I’m thrilled and relieved to have him back home.  The only thing that could make me happier right now would be to have you with me too…to have the whole family at the table together.”

            I don’t think Jesus is telling us that we shouldn’t take sin seriously.  Our Reformed faith teaches us that we are all sinners.  But I believe Jesus is showing us that we need to take GRACE seriously.

            It is by God’s grace that we are all beloved children of God.  It is by grace that each one of us receives not the love we deserve—but the love God wants to give us.  Whether we see ourselves more like the older brother or the younger brother, we can rejoice because God loves us all abundantly, out of God’s grace.

            The parable doesn't tell us how it all turned out.  The story ends with the elder brother standing outside the house in the yard with his father, listening to the party going on inside.

            Jesus leaves it that way, I think, because it's up to each of us to finish the story.  It's up to you and to me to decide.  Will we stand outside the celebration of love and grace?  Or will our yearning for love win us over?

            We're invited to go inside and join the party.  Like the loving father in the story, God refuses to give us the love we deserve...  but persists in giving us the love we need… and rejoices over the return of every lost child.

            Thanks be to God for God’s amazing grace!

            Amen!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

March 31, 2019

                 

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[1] Justo L. Gonzalez, “What if we are the Pharisees?” in The Christian Century, February 26, 2019. https://www.christiancentury.org/article/living-word/march-31-lent-4c-luke-151-3-11b-32

[2] Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, 1606-1669.  “Return of the Prodigal Son,” and oil painting likely completed within two years of the artist’s death in 1669.  The original is in the Hermitage, Museum in Saint Petersburg.

[3] Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming.  Doubleday, 1992.

[4] Kenneth E. Bailey, quoted in Nouwen, Location 449 in Kindle Edition.

"God of Second Chances." A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on Luke 13:1-9

"God of Second Chances"

Luke 1:1-9

            When the headlines are grim, when things go terribly wrong, we try to make sense of things.  Eventually, pretty much anyone who thinks about God eventually asks: “Why do bad things happen to good people?” They wonder if God causes calamity. Or if tragedy—either on a large scale or small—is a punishment for sin?
            I think we may ask these kinds of questions because tragedy or disasters—whether caused by nature, like the devastation we’re seeing in parts of our nation’s Midwest or in southern Africa, or caused by humans, like the terrorist attack at the mosques in New Zealand—confront us with chaos and violence and challenge our sense of order or stability.
            We try to make sense out of what happens. We struggle to figure out where God is in the midst of it. We think: there must be a reason.
            “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?
            “Or:  Those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem?”

            Jesus points to two calamities that may have been subjects of recent conversation around the local watering hole-- one an instance of state-sanctioned terror, and one a random accident. Both saw people snuffed out with little warning and for no clearly apparent reason. Both kinds of events remind us to how precarious our existence is.

            Do bad things happen because people are bad?  The victims of the severe storms, tornadoes and flooding in the United States…or the flooding from the cyclone in southern Africa—have they been suffering because they’re worse sinners than people who haven’t been affected by disasters? The victims of the latest terrorist attack in New Zealand—did they do something to deserve to be shot?

            When bad things happen, we may long for a cause-and-effect scenario, so we can explain away suffering as a way of distancing ourselves from it.  We might even wish sometimes that God would give people we think are evil or wrong the punishment we think they deserve.  The problem with that is that isn’t the way God works. 

            As Jill Duffield once pointed out, “The problem with making our relationship with God a transactional one, rather than a covenantal one—is that, at some point, the math just won’t add up.  We will be persecuted by Pilate for no reason other than Pilate chooses to persecute us.  Or the tower will fall on us because we were at the wrong place at the wrong time.  We might seek a reason, some logical explanation, some underlying purpose and it simply will not be there.  Then what?  Are we bad people?  God forsaken?”[1]

            Kate Bowler is a professor at Duke who has researched and written about the “prosperity gospel” for some time. She’s been wrestling with how a prosperity gospel theology that claims the righteous are blessed impacts her understanding of being diagnosed with stage IV cancer at age 35.  In a piece in the New York Times a few years ago, she wrote:[2]

            “Put simply, the prosperity gospel is the belief that God grants health and wealth to those with the right kind of faith… and that “tragedies are simply tests of character.”

            Kate wrote, “It is the reason a neighbor knocked on our door to tell my husband that everything happens for a reason.

            “I’d love to hear it,” my husband said.

            “Pardon?” she said, startled.

            “’I’d love to hear the reason my wife is dying,’ he said, in that sweet and sour way he has.”

            As Kate writes, “My neighbor wasn’t trying to sell him a spiritual guarantee.  But there was a reason she wanted to fill that silence around why some people die young and others grow old and fussy about their lawns.  She wanted some kind of order behind this chaos.  Because the opposite of “# blessed” is leaving a husband and a toddler behind, and people can’t quite let themselves say it: ‘Wow. That’s awful.’  There has to be a reason, because without one we are left as helpless and possibly as unlucky as everyone else.”

            Kate thinks the “prosperity gospel” people may wonder: is she a worse sinner?  Did she smoke?  Did she eat poorly?  Not exercise enough?  Bad genes?  We hope for an answer that will explain why she has cancer—an answer that will help us feel safe from getting it.

           

            I think questions about who sinned or who is the worst sinner are irrelevant here. In today’s gospel lesson, Jesus gets pulled into a worried conversation about the latest news cycle.  Jesus implies that the victims did nothing wrong, nothing that caused their demise.

            It's such a tempting equation.  But Jesus won't go there.  He denies that there is a simple connection between what happens to people and the punishment of God.

            Does this mean that God never punishes us for our sins?   Not necessarily.  But there are natural consequences for things we do. If we build houses on flood plains, we’ll be flooded out at some point.   If we insist on fighting wars, people will suffer and die.  If we drink heavily, if we smoke, if we have poor eating habits, there will be health consequences. If we pollute the environment, there will be all kinds of negative consequences.   

            But Jesus doesn’t get into all of that.  He simply denies that there’s a simple connection between what happens to people and the punishment of God.   

            What Jesus does say in today’s gospel lesson is, “Unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.”  The issue is not why the tornado hit that particular town or why the hurricane did so much damage.  God didn’t single out these people for punishment.  The issue is whether or not you and I will repent.

            For the entire previous chapter in Luke, Jesus has been calling for repentance—for lives turned around to embrace God’s mercy and gift of new life.   But people think he is talking about someone else—the Galileans Pilate had slaughtered as they worshiped, or the eighteen killed in Siloam when that tower fell on them.

            Like most of us, they try to deflect Jesus’ challenging words about repentance or avoid responsibility by comparing themselves and saying, “We’re not bad as they are." But Jesus will have none of it and makes the point that this is not about comparing ourselves with others.

            Unless you repent--you will all perish.  Unless you repent.

            Jesus follows this cheery thought with a story about an un-productive fig tree that gets one more chance.  The parable clarifies Jesus’ motivations for previously exhorting people to “repent.”

 “Give it another year.  Cultivate the soil some more, and add some more manure, and give it another chance to bear fruit.”

            A lot of people hear “repentance” and think of behavior and guilt, as if Jesus’ primary goal was to reform personal morality.  But I think this is a misunderstanding.

            To repent is not so much a matter of giving up certain habits or practices… or about being sorry—turning toward God’s way.  The Greek word that we translate as repentance—metanoia—means “to turn.”  

            When we repent, we see things differently, and we come to new understandings of what God makes possible…  about how God wants us to live… and about what the world is like when God’s will is done.
            When Jesus says, “Unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did,” he isn’t saying that repenting will extend our lives or offer some kind of miraculous shield against super-storms or disease or catastrophe.  Rather, our repentance will lead to bearing fruit.  If we turn toward God’s ways and see things as God wants us to see them, we will live further into God’s intentions for us.
            When Jesus calls us to repent, he’s inviting us to discover God as the source of our sustenance… belonging… meaning… and hope in this difficult life-- and into the future.  Repentance is the change that occurs within us when God meets us and re-shapes the way we see everything.

             

            As a gardener and someone who grew up in farm country, I love the parable of the fig tree-- especially the image of manure being spread over the roots of our lives, to help us grow into who we are created and called to be.   God is willing to give us another chance… and can use anything and everything in our lives to help us grow, rooted and grounded in Christ, to produce good fruit.

            So, I wonder:  What does it take to turn us around?  How much manure does it take to bend our imaginations to trust in God and to live hopeful, faithful lives?

            I believe God uses various kinds of spiritual disciplines to cultivate and fertilize our souls.  This cultivation can break up the hard soil that forms around our hearts.  Then, with the help of the good Gardener, we will bear sweet juicy fruit-- the fruits of the Spirit.

            The good news in the story we heard today is that we worship a God who doesn't want to give up on us.  In Jesus, God calls us to live transformed lives. If we will turn to the God who created us and loves us, we will have life and we will have it abundantly.

            Thanks be to God!  Amen!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

March 24, 2019

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[1] Jill Duffield, “3^rd Sunday of Lent-February 28, 2016”, posted at The Presbyterian Outlook at www.pres-outlook.org

[2] Kate Bowler, “Death, the Prosperity Gospel and Me,” http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/opinion/sunday/death-the-prosperity-gospel-and-me.html?_r=0

"Holy Healing". A sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on Mark 7:24-37

          Jesus is exhausted and he tries to have some time to himself.   But then a desperate mother comes to Jesus, seeking healing for her sick daughter, literally throwing herself down at Jesus’ feet.  She risks her dignity…and risks being shamed—to enter a home where she isn’t wanted, to throw herself down in front of Jesus, who didn’t want to see her.

            And how does Jesus respond?  Not in the way we might have hoped.  This woman is literally begging for help for her daughter, and Jesus says, “Let the children be fed first, for it isn’t fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

            If Jesus' words trouble you, you're in good company.  Biblical scholars have struggled with this saying for centuries, but especially, I think, the past few decades.

            In the parallel story in Matthew, Jesus doesn't even answer the woman.   When the disciples urge Jesus to send her away, Jesus says, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." 

`           It sounds like Jesus is dismissing and insulting this woman.  Mark uses the diminuitive form of the Greek word for “dog,” so we might want to soften the effect and think Jesus was talking about feeding cute little puppies.  But that wouldn’t really be an accurate translation. This story is troubling for a number of reasons. 

             It seems that Mark wants to be sure we know who this woman is.  He tells us, “the woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by descent.”  In other words, she’s NOT JEWISH.

            Contrast how Jesus responds to this un-named Gentile woman with the named male, Jewish leader earlier in Mark.  Jesus went with Jairus and healed his daughter.  No problem. 

            But now Jesus is in Tyre, which is Gentile territory, when he says “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” 

            I think Mark wants to make sure what a big deal it is when Jesus ultimately performs the miraculous healing. 

            So what do we do with this story? 

            Some scholars believe that Jesus had a long-range evangelistic plan to go to the Jews first...  and then later to the Gentiles.  In their thinking,  Jesus isn't so much saying no--    as he is saying, "First things first.  One thing at a time."

            But the language Jesus used!    "Dogs?"   From what I've read, it's a racist, derogatory term commonly used at the time by some Jews who wanted to put down gentiles.  A lot of people in that culture in Jesus' time thought this Gentile woman has no business being in the company of any Jew--  much less the Messiah. 

            But Jesus has been challenging a lot of the traditional religious beliefs and breaking through a lot of the barriers that separated people.

            Some scholars believe Jesus was giving voice to the traditional beliefs of the time as a test of the woman's faith.  Some believe he was voicing those narrow beliefs to let her make the point that needed to be made.

            Other scholars believe that this desperate, emboldened woman changed Jesus' mind about his mission and who he was called to save.

            I lean toward that understanding myself, as I remember the context.   In Mark’s narrative, this story is sandwiched in between the feeding of the five thousand and the feeding of the four thousand.    Is the bread of life that Jesus offers intended only for the children of Israel?  Or is there enough for everyone? 

            I know there are people who are troubled by the idea that Jesus would change his mind… as well as people who are troubled by the language Jesus used in this story.  Maybe we have to keep chewing on this bread for now.  Like Jacob at the River Jabbok—we need to keep wrestling with it  until we receive a blessing. 

            In any case, this woman doesn't back down.  I love the way one of my colleagues puts it:  "Dog indeed!  She keeps right on nipping at Jesus' heels." ^[1]   The woman dares to take his metaphor and turn it back on him.  Even on these terms, there still should be something from him--  some scrap of grace--  for someone like her,  someone who comes to him in faith.   The woman seems to trust in the abundance Jesus keeps teaching about.  She seems to be challenging him to judge her by what's in her heart. 

            Where the religious establishment and their traditions could only see an outsider--  Jesus sees the woman's heart of faith,  and her persistence, and he heals her child.   From this point on, Jesus continues to expand the circle of God's mercy to include those others consider outsiders.  He welcomes all who put their faith in him.  So, when you look at the big-picture story, it looks like Jesus changes his mind and his plan.

            That's good news for us.     We are all welcome.   We are all included in the circle of God’s mercy.   When Jesus opened himself up to mission to the whole world, it meant his church would be open to the world.  In response, as followers of Jesus, we are called to be open to those whom some people see as outsiders, outcasts, and sinners.  We are called to open ourselves to the whole world in mission.          

            I don’t want to ignore the other story we heard in today’s gospel lesson.  At first glance, they might not seem to have a lot to do with each other--  except that they’re both healing stories.  And I believe that is significant.

            Healing is one of the major themes in the New Testament.  One of my colleagues counted all the healing stories and found that there are forty-one healing stories, told in seventy-two different versions in the four gospels.  These healing stories take up twenty percent of the gospel material.[2]  I agree with Susan Andrews when she says that these healing stories tell us something very important about the nature of God.  God continues to be the creator of our lives—shaping us, mending us, healing us into wholeness.

            When people asked Jesus what the greatest commandment is, he said that the most important commandment is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, and all our soul, all our mind and all our strength… and to love our neighbor as ourselves.    As we grow into a more loving, trusting relationship with God, we become healthier in our hearts and souls and minds and strength.  All of those dimensions of who we are become more integrated…and we become more whole, as we grow into the life God desires for us. 

           

            In the gospel stories we’ve been hearing over a few weeks, we’ve heard Jesus challenging legalistic interpretions of God’s law and proclaiming that purity is not defined by law—but by the love in one's heart and the hospitality and compassion we live in our lives.

            The story about the Syrophoenician woman is a turning point in the gospel, as Jesus redefines who is acceptable in God’s eyes.  The healing turns out to include stories about social healing:  …strangers are welcomed and outsiders become part of the family of God. 

                       

            So what does all this mean for us today?      

            The Syrophoenician woman and the friends of the deaf and mute man refused to believe that God’s mercy and healing are limited to insiders and people like us.  They believed that Jesus could immediately meet their need.  They embodied a faith that trusts in God’s goodness and abundance—a faith that pushes past legalism and exclusivity. 

            When we allow our ears and our hearts to be open to the images of people leaving everything they have, everything they know, desperately seeking safety and freedom for their families—refugees seeking refuge—the Syrophoenician woman can teach us that, in God’s abundant economy, there is enough for everybody.  There is enough, if we reach out and share.

            My friends, this is GOOD NEWS!  So, like the people in the gospel story, may we be astounded and say, “He has done everything well!

            As followers of Jesus, may we embody God’s abundant compassion, so that people will look at us and be astounded with us and say, “They do everything well!

            So be it!   Amen!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

September 6, 2015

           

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^[1]I am grateful to Heidi Husted for this imagery,  in "Living by the Word" in Christian Century (Aug. 16-23), p. 829.

[2] I am indebted to Susan Andrews for this insight, as well as the sermon title, in  “Holy Healing,” at www.sermonmall.com