Proper 21 B

Proper 21 B

Transcribed from a sermon

Given on September 30, 2012

By Rev Valerie Ann Hart

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

Arroyo Grande, CA

Esther 7:1-6, 9-10: 9:20-22

The book of Esther is not scripture that we run into very often. In fact, in the Prayerbook Lectionary it is not included at all, so some of you could have been coming to church for years and never have heard it. But the Revised Common Lectionary includes this one passage from Esther. If you do the daily office, which is the lectionary for each day and is what is in the Day by Day, you may have been reading Esther. We just finished Esther. But many of you may never have encountered this book. 

It is not real popular for one reason, and that is that it never mentions the word God. It is the only book in the Bible that never uses the word God. They don’t even pray in this book. Now they do have a time when they fast, but there is no prayer. Yet when you read the book there is a sense of the presence of something more because it so often it says, “It just happened that.” It just happened that something good happened, and that would be the action of God. It is what we might today call synchronicity. 

So because some of you might not be familiar with Esther, and I actually love the book very much, (it is wonderful to have a whole book of scripture about a woman and named after a woman) I will tell the story. Esther is a very interesting story. It takes place in Persia during what would have been called the Diaspora. It is when the Jews were conquered by the Persians and resettled throughout the Middle East in different cities and towns. 

One thing to note about the book of Esther is that it exaggerates everything, including the size of the Persian Empire. It says that it went all the way from India to Egypt, and it never actually was that big. Exaggeration is just part of the book of Esther.

It starts with the king in his palace who is having a great banquet. It is a banquet that has gone, not just for days, but for weeks and weeks. He has been having a huge banquet, and everybody is having a good time. One evening the king’s wine is flowing greatly, and he says, “I want all of you to get a chance to see my beautiful wife, my beautiful queen.” So he tells one of his people, “Go get my queen and bring her in. Tell her to come to me.” But she says, “No.” She doesn’t come. Now one of the things about the book of Esther is that the king never decides anything on his own. He is always asking for advice. So to his group around him, his group of advisors, he says, “What do you think I ought to do?” And they respond, “Well you’ve got to do something. The queen didn’t come when the king told her to. If that gets out and the women of the empire find out, no husband is ever going to get his wife to do anything.” (You can see why I like this book.) The advice to the king is that he has to get rid of the queen. So that queen is eliminated - she is sent away. She is gone in order to make an example for the women of the empire. 

But after a while the king starts to kind of miss having a queen. Then he says, “I really want to have a queen, what should I do?” And his advisors say, “What you should do is you should have your people go all around the empire and bring all the most beautiful virgins here. We will take care of them and make them beautiful and then you can decide which one will be your queen.” He likes that idea. So they go out and they get all the most beautiful virgins and they bring them to the palace. Well one of the virgins that they bring to the palace is Esther. Esther is an unlikely hero. She is an orphan, and she is a Jewish person. She is a Jewish orphan who is being raised by her uncle Mordecai. Her uncle tells her, “Don’t tell anybody at the palace who your people are.” Clearly there was a lot of prejudice against the Jewish people, even back then. 

So they then spent two years on beauty treatments. One year of beauty treatments for their skin, another year of beauty treatments for something else. All these virgins are prepared. Now Esther is really smart, she makes friends with the chief Eunuch. The Eunuchs are the ones who take care of the potential concubines. She does everything that the chief Eunuch tells her to do. Finally, after the two years are up, each evening one of the virgins is taken in to spend the night with the king. After they spend the night with the king they go to the other part of the palace where the concubines are. When it is Esther’s turn, she pleases the king. The king likes her a lot and decides to make her the queen. So now this Jewish orphan girl is the queen of all Persia. 

Meanwhile, (the plot is more complex) Haman has become the chief counselor to the king. He is a very arrogant fool. That’s the only way to describe him. Well actually that is a nice way to describe him. If you read Esther for yourself you can figure out how you would like to describe him. But now that he is the chief counselor to the king he feels that everyone should bow down to him. He goes out of the palace, and Mordecai (remember Mordecai) Esther’s uncle is out there and he refuses to stand up and bow to Haman as he goes by. Even though everything is going great for Haman, he is the chief counselor, he is angry. He is so frustrated because Mordecai is not giving him the respect he deserves that he goes home and he asks his friends what he should do about this? He says that he can’t sleep at night because of the Mordecai. They say, “Well what you should do is you should build a gallows 50 cubits high.” Now that is huge - much taller than this church.  So he does it to get ready to use the gallows on Mordecai. 

But that is not enough, he is still irritated by Mordecai because Mordecai is not giving him the respect he is due. Since Mordecai is Jewish he decides that it is all those Jewish people that are the problem. He has to get rid of all of them. And so he goes to the king and he says, “There is this group of people that are disrespectful to you and we need to get rid of them.” Like I said the king does whatever the people around him tell him to do so he says, “Okay, do whatever you want.” So Haman goes home and throws lots to decide what day the Jews will be destroyed. The date that is chosen is almost a year later. Then he sends out under the king’s seal, all over the empire, that in every town and every city, everyone should gather together and kill every Jew and plunder whatever they own. When Mordecai hears this he is very upset, obviously, and he goes in front of the palace in sackcloth and ashes. When Esther hears about Mordecai being out there in sackcloth and ashes she sends one of the Eunuchs out to find out what is going on. Of course as queen she can’t interact with people outside the palace. The Eunuch comes back and tells her the story of what has happened and says that Mordecai said the she has to do something. And she goes back to Mordecai asking, “What can I do? There is a law here that if anyone enters the king’s presence without having been summoned they will be killed unless the king picks up the golden staff and aims it at them and acknowledges them. And the king hasn’t asked me to come to see him for over a month. If I go to him I risk my life.” And Mordecai’s answer is, “Perhaps you have been given royal dignity for just such a time as this.” For just such a time as this. 

So she has all her maids fast for three days and tells Mordecai to tell all the Jewish people to fast for three days. When the fasting time is over, she dresses herself in her most beautiful gown and she goes to the king’s presence, risking her life. A very courageous woman. She is also very smart. When she gets there the king acknowledges her and says, “What do you want Esther?” And Esther says, “I want you to come to a banquet. I am giving a banquet for you, and bring Haman with you.” Haman is thrilled. He is so excited. Now not only is he the chief counselor, but the queen has invited just him to come with the king. But then there is Mordecai out there who still doesn’t get up and acknowledge him. 

So they have the first banquet, and at the end of it the kings says, “And what is it that you want from me?” and she says “I want you and Haman to come to a banquet again tomorrow night.” So there is a second banquet. Everything is all so extreme, everything is exaggerated. But you see Esther is smart. She is getting the king feeling really good. And they come back, and after the second banquet the king asks, “Okay Esther, what is it that you want?” Well she says, “I want you to stop and give me my life because someone is going to kill me and all of my people.” “Who would do such a thing?” says the king. Esther responds, “Well this person sitting right next to you at dinner.” It is the one who has been feeling so good about himself. Of course he ends up on the gallows he made for Mordecai. 

It is great switch. It “just happened” that there were the gallows there. It “just happened” that there were the right people in the right place at the right time. So the tragedy for the Jewish people is averted. 

This book is part of Jewish scripture partly because it is read every year at the holiday called Purim. It is a holiday of feasting and giving food to one another within the Jewish tradition. Purim comes from the word Pur, which is the name for the lots that were thrown as to what day the Jewish people were to be annihilated. That is the basis for the holiday of Purim. 

But to me Esther is really important. It is that line of Mordecai’s that perhaps you are exactly where you are for just such a time as this. I think that might be true for all of us. That where we are, who we are, the experiences we’ve had in our lives, the position we are in, the people we know may not be an accident. We may be exactly where we are for just such a time as this. That God can use us where we are right now - with all our gifts and weaknesses and all our history and our pains and our hurts and our strengths. Right now, perhaps God is calling you to something that only you can do. Where you are right now in your life. And so we have to listen as Esther listened to Mordecai and listened to her heart. We need to listen to what God is calling us to do or be right now. Then we have to have the courage to respond and the wisdom to do it wisely, aware of the politics, aware of the situation, using every gift that God has given us, Because perhaps, even though we may not know it, we may be where we are and who we are for just a time as this. And being called to make a huge difference in the world.

Proper 20 B

The kingdom of Heaven is not a zero-sum game.

Proper 20 B

Transcribed from a Sermon

Given on September 23, 2012

By Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

At St Barnabas Episcopal Church

It sure I wasn’t the only little girl that dreamed about being Miss America when I was growing up. I guess today little girls might dream about winning American Idol. The boys dreamed about being the best baseball player, or the best football player or the best whatever. It seems we all have this fantasy of being the best at something. 

In our culture a lot of energy goes into determining who is the best. This summer we saw the Olympics. The Olympics is a huge industry where for four years people train and work and struggle so that they can be named the best in the world. They get to have that short little time where they are labeled "The Best". 

We all know that feeling of wanting to be the greatest. We can understand the disciples in the scripture today. Our society is so focused on determining who is the best that some of the most popular TV shows are the quote “reality shows”where week-by-week, losers are sent off. They may be kicked off the island or no longer dancing with the other stars. Now if you are a star, doesn't that mean you are a success at something, that you are one of the greatest? Yet you have these people that already have some great ability learning to dance and working really really hard to be the best dancer on Dancing with the Stars. It is all about being that number one - about being the greatest. It doesn't seem to be enough to just do our personal best, we want to be the greatest. 

We want our children to do well. We want it to be like it is in Lake Wobegone where all the children are above average. We are constantly measuring ourselves against other people. And that is what the disciples were doing. 

But sometimes, trying to be first, trying to be the fastest, trying to be the best, trying to get attention can backfire. My brother had an interesting experience when he went to Vietnam. A large group of soldiers took a big airplane over to Nam. When they got off the airplane there was a bus and everyone was loaded on the bus and taken to the base. Now this brother of mine was never one to be overly enthusiastic about anything so when they got to the base he sat as people were pushing and shoving trying to be the first ones off the bus. You've seen that in airplanes, how people are hurrying to try and get off the airplane. With not much effect. So soldiers were pushing and shoving to get off while standing outside the bus was a lieutenant. The first half of the people who came off the bus were all put over to one side. While the ones who got off later were put in another group. Now the ones who got off first were the ones who were sent to the front lines because they figured that those were the ones who were going to be enthusiastic soldiers. The ones who took their time went to the base, so my brother spent his time in Nam working in an office. 

We all know about that drive to be the best, to be acknowledged. That drive to be best, to be first, comes from seeing the world as what is called a zero-sum game. In game theory, a zero-sum game is where there is a certain amount, and the more that I get the less you get. And the more you get, the less I get. It is like a pie. There is one pie and the bigger your piece the smaller my piece. It is a game where you either win or lose. There is no such thing as both people winning, or both people losing. I win you lose, you wind I lose. Therefore I have to fight. It is seeing the world as not enough and therefore I have to struggle - to get the love from my parents or the respect from my colleagues or the pay raise from my boss.  I have to be the best, to stand out because if they get it, I don't. That's a zero-sum game. And that is how most of us spend most of our lives.

But the Kingdom of Heaven that Christ proclaims isn't a zero-sum game. It is what is brilliantly called a non-zero-sum game. A non-zero-sum game is one in which the total amount available can be increased. In other words how much I get is not lessened by how much you get. It would be like when you have the pie instead of saying if you get a big piece I don't get as much you say “Hey, let's bake pies together so we can have more pies.”Most economic interactions are non-zero-sum games. If I am getting more than enough milk from my cow with more milk than my family can drink, and your apple tree is over abundant, I'll trade you some of my milk for your apples and we both win! We both have a healthier diet. That's a non-zero-sum game. That's what most exchanges are because you wouldn't trade for something if it wasn't going to help you, even though people sometimes negotiate as if buying a car or buying a house was a zero-sum game and try to win the negotiation process. But the truth is that if you didn't want that house and think that you would be better off by getting that house and the person selling it didn’t want the money for selling it, you wouldn't be there to negotiate anyway. No matter what, you are both going to win. 

God’s world, the Kingdom of Heaven that Christ proclaims, is a non-zero-sum game. When there are five loaves of bread, if you get two that doesn't mean that anybody else is going to get less because there is more than enough to feed five thousand people. In the kingdom world, in the world of God, there is abundance and there is abundance on this earth. I was just reading an article that said that studies have shown that all around the world approximately forty percent of the food that is raised for human consumption never reaches a human being, but gets thrown away. Forty percent. Some times that because there is a problem of storage or shipping. In the United States it is more likely to be because we buy too much and restaurants buy too much. We end up throwing some away. In developing countries it has to do with not having the shipping or not having storage facilities. It is sometimes difficult to get the food from where it is raised to the people who need to consume it. 

We live as if this world were a zero-sum game, but if we work together we have more than enough. In a hunting/gathering society the hunters go out as a team because it is hard to hunt large animals by yourself. Then when an animal is killed, it is more than one person can eat, so it is brought back to the whole tribe and everybody shares. It doesn't matter who is the one that kills the animal in fact everybody is cheering everybody else on. Because when one does well we all do well. 

It doesn't have to be a zero-sum game. Imagine two men, two families who have houses on the same block and they both have very large lawns They start to get into a competition of who is going to have a better lawn mower. The first one gets a riding mower and the other one has to buy a better riding mower. Then the first one has to buy even better riding mower and pretty soon they have these two fantastic riding mowers that cost so much that they are both in debt. And they ride them for a couple of hours a week. Now the other option they had would be to say, “Hey, let's put our money together and we can buy one mower that we both can use and we can get the top of the line without going into debt.”

The way we see the world - is it an issue of being the best or doing what is the best? Is it seeing life as a zero-sum game where the more you get the less I have or do we see it as a non-zero-sum game where the more you have the more we all have together? Where the more we work together the more we thrive. 

You see the problem with wanting to be the greatest is that it is completely unchristian. Remember, Jesus told us we are to love one another. We are to love our neighbors as ourselves not compete with them. So, if I am busy trying to get what's best for me, if I’m trying to get on top, I'm not being loving to the ones I consider less than I am. Every time someone says I am the greatest they are saying that others are less, and that's not loving, that's not compassion. 

We find that for those who have ever won an award for being the best, the ones who won a contest, who have gotten the gold medal, that satisfaction doesn't last for very long. But the satisfaction that comes when we help another person - when we help someone else to thrive and to grow and to be a better human being - that is a satisfaction that stays with us and feeds us. 

Proper 19 B

Proper 19 B

Mark 8:27-38

Psalm 19

Transcribed from a sermon given

September 16, 2012

Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight oh our Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen

Now you know where I got that statement I make before each sermon, from the psalm that we read today. In fact the Prayer Book is quite full of direct quotes from scripture, we just don’t always put down chapter and verse. 

I want to talk to you today about the Gospel reading and the questions that Jesus asks. Because these are the most important questions any person wrestles with. The first question is, “Who do people say that I am?” “Who do people say that I am?” Any thoughts? Who do people say that Jesus is? Lucille, any thoughts? Who do people say that Jesus is? 

“The savior.” “The son of God.” 

Anyone over on this side?

“A really good man.” “Our Lord.” “A perfect example.” “The good shepherd.” “The messiah.” “A healer.” “A great teacher.” “Son of man.”

We’ve got lots of words for him. Later we will be saying the Nicene Creed which is the ancient statement of faith that says such things as “God from God.” Some of those words we’re pretty familiar with. You can probably tell me what a teacher is, because we know teachers. Or a good man, we know about good men. But what does “Savior” mean? What does it mean to say that Jesus is the savior? Saving whom? From what? 

Or the Messiah. Now that’s the “correct” answer that Peter gave. But the Messiah? What does the word messiah mean? For the Jewish people of Jesus’ time the Messiah was going to be a warrior king like David, who was going to come and get the Jewish people to once again have control of their land, that would fight Rome so that once again they would be free and a great nation. That’s not what Jesus turned out to be. He was a very different kind of messiah. A different kind of savior. 

One of the problems with trying to say who Jesus is, when we listen to all the different ways he has been described, is that most of the time it is kind of complex. It is not easy language. We’ve heard a lot about who Jesus is. If you went to Sunday School as a child you heard one thing. In the secular world you might hear something else. Here in church we hear other things. So we have lots of answers to, “Who do people say that I am?” 

But all of those comments, all the theology, all the books written about who Jesus is, all the creeds - all of that doesn’t really matter. It is the second question that really matters. That’s when Jesus looks at his disciples and says, “Who do you say that I am?” How do you know who Jesus is? What do you say? Not quoting someone else, not based on what someone else says that Jesus is, but who is Jesus to you? Right now, today, this morning. 

I find that when we are on a spiritual journey our understanding of who Jesus is changes over time. Sometimes from day to day. It changes as we study scripture. It changes as we are in discussions with others. It changes as we read meaningful books. 

“Who do you say that Jesus is?” is the most important question. It makes all the difference in the world. And only you can answer that question. Some might answer that to you Jesus is a great teacher. That is accepted pretty much around the world. There is almost no one who doesn’t say that he had some wonderful teachings and that he showed a great deal of wisdom. That is one way to approach Jesus. It is not quite consistent, though, with what he said. C. S. Lewis wrote that if you say that Jesus was just a great teacher then you have to assume that he was either a liar or insane because he said that he was much more than that. It is hard to take the wisdom and teachings that we find in the Gospels and separate it from what he said about himself. But often the first way we get to know Jesus is as a great teacher. And that is important.

What about when we say that Jesus is my savior or my Lord. Well savior is a tricky word. What does savior mean? How has he saved you? Think about your own personal life. What have you been saved from? What have you been saved for? Or when we say he is my Lord, we don’t have lords these days. We live in a time and place where we have senators and presidents, but we don’t have lords. So there isn’t a real existential sense of what it means to serve under someone else. 

So maybe you might want to think about what other language would describe your relationship with Jesus. As I have sat with this Gospel reading for the last week, preparing this sermon, it has affected how I describe my relationship with Jesus, and I’m going to share that with you. It is personal; it is where I am today having studied that scripture. Where I am this morning, it may change, but it is what’s true for me right now. 

I would say that who Jesus is to me is that he is my friend. He is my friend who loves me no matter what. He is my friend who values me and holds me precious because he helped to create me. I am of incredible worth to this friend; and he accepts me for who I am. Loves me for who I am. And loves me enough to not let me stay who I am but encourages me to become more than I think I can be. He is my friend who is always there, whenever I need him. He always cares. 

And he is my friend that gave his life for me. And no love is as great as offering your life for another. We don’t have a lot of experiences of what it means for someone to give their life for us. People who have been in war or people like police or firefighters know what it is like to have companions that go into dangerous and difficult situations together. And they know that these companions will offer their lives to protect each other, risk their lives to protect each other. It is said that when soldiers go into battle once the battle gets intense they are not concerned with their country, they are not concerned with any grand statements of principle, they fight because of their comrades, the ones they are fighting with. And they want to protect them, and they will risk their lives in order to protect their friends, and they would be willing to die for one another.

Christ died for me. He is my friend that was willing to die for me, and in this passage he asks for me to be willing to do the same. To pick up my cross and follow him. To be his friend the way he is a friend to me. That might mean giving my life, although being in the United States it is unlikely I will give up my physical life for being a Christian. Although there are other parts of the world where that is not so sure. But it does mean transforming my life. It means giving up my self-centeredness. It means giving up my sense of ego control. It means changing my priorities, and it affects every decision that I make every day of my life. There is a prayer in the prayer book that I often say in the evenings. It is called a prayer of self dedication. It is on page 832 in the red prayer book. It is prayer number 61. I invite you, if you like, to pray along with me. 

Almighty and eternal God, so draw our hearts to thee, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills, that we may be wholly thine, utterly dedicated unto thee and then use us we pray thee as thou will, and always to thy glory and the welfare of thy people through our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Who do you say that Jesus is?

Proper 18 B

God loves everyone, no exceptions.

Proper 18 B

Sermon Given September 9, 2012

By Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

Mark 7:24-37

James 2:1-17

I would like you to imagine something in your mind. I would like you to imagine that there is an Amish pastor who discovered that he had a gift for healing. All the Amish people would come in their buggies and he would preach, and if he laid hands on people, they experienced healing. So among the Amish he became rather well known. One of the people said we have other Amish people who live in Harrisburg Pennsylvania. We should go to them so you can teach them and heal them. So they made arrangements to do that. They rented a hall in Harrisburg and went there by buggy. When they got there and they invited all the Amish people they knew to come for an evening lecture. 

A reporter found out about it so there was a little article in the newspaper. Not a big article, but a little article, about this famous healer who was coming. The evening for the big talk comes and all the people are gathered. They have walked there or taken buggies, some of the ones who are a little progressive may have taken a bus. The women all wore bonnets and long dresses with sleeves that came down to their wrists. The men wore their suits. They were ready to listen. 

Just as the Amish pastor began to speak they heard a roar outside the hall. It was the sound of a motorcycle pulling up. That got everybody’s attention. They all looked at the door as it opened and in walked a woman with short shorts, boots and long black hair was falling in beautiful curls around her shoulders carrying her motorcycle helmet. She had on a top that was sleeveless and low cut so that all of the tattoos would show. She also had lots of piercings, her nose, her mouth her ears, you name it. She was chewing gum as she walked up to the pastor and said, “Hey, you’re the guy, right? My daughter has been sick and I have taken her to every doctor and nobody can help her, but I think that you can. Please help me.” Now you can imagine how quiet the hall was at that moment and you can imagine what might be going through the pastor’s mind. 

He looked at her and said “I’m not going to give the children’s food to swine like you.” Pretty insulting. How would you feel if you were that woman? Would you want to crawl away after being insulted like that? 

But instead she didn’t. She just looked at him and said, “That God of yours has got more than enough love and more than enough healing for everybody.” 

So the pastor thought, “Hmmm.  How can I deny that?” So the woman’s daughter received a healing that day.

Now this is kind of what it was like for Jesus in this little story of the Gospel today. Except it was probably more extreme in the Gospel. You see Jesus was in Tyre.Tyre was a city on the coast of the Mediterranean in what is now Lebanon. It was one of the biggest ports of that time. Very rich, very worldly, very Greek. Why Jesus went to Tyre is not quite clear. All we know he had gone into a gentile city. We can guess that he had gone to talk to the Jews who lived there. He is staying at what was undoubtedly a Jewish home and this woman walked in, and remember that the we all think we now what the women of Bible wore because we have seen the movies. They would wear long skirts. They would have something over their heads to cover their hair. They would be very modest, dressed very modestly, and probably even walked very modestly. Women had no political or economic power in the Jewish state of that time. So that was what was expected in the behavior of women. 

When this Syrophoenician woman walked in she would have been Greek. She would have been dressed like the Greeks, and Greek women wore sleeveless togas. You have seen pictures of that, beautifully hanging sleeveless dresses. They often wore Jewelry, so this woman probably had a gold band around her head to hold her hair that was long and free flowing. She certainly would not have a shawl over her head. She probably wore jewelry on her arms. Also, she was raised as a Greek woman in a rich town, so she probably had some money. She certainly had a lot of courage or “chutzpah” as they might say. She probably was educated, given the answer she gave to Jesus.

She would not have walked in with body language that said “Oh I’m just a woman.” She would have walked in like a Greek woman with her shoulders back and her head held high, knowing that she was equal to anybody. She probably had taken her daughter to all the different temples of the Gods and Goddesses that she worshiped. She had probably sacrificed to Hera, taken her to Aphrodite gone to whatever doctors there might be available. 

There is no indication in this Bible story that she had any relationship with the God of Jesus. None. It never says that she does. But somehow, somewhere she heard that Jesus had the power to heal. 

She cared about her daughter, and her love for her daughter drove her to go to beg Jesus to heal her child. 

And what does she get for that? “You don’t give the bread of the children to the dogs.” Jesus called her a dog. He called all of her people “dogs”.  To call someone a dog in the Middle East, even today, is a great insult. Back then it was the worst insult you could say about somebody. Much worse than us calling people swine. This is as insulting as you could be. And he didn’t just insult her, he insult all of her people. 

But she had a lot of courage. She didn’t slink away as I might in that kind of a situation. She looked at him and she said, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” She didn’t argue with him about his evaluation of her as a dog. What she said was your God has more than enough. If your God is really what you say your God is there is more than enough love, there is more than enough healing, not just for the people of Israel, but for everyone. 

Jesus ha to acknowledged that she was right, and her daughter was healed.

Now there is a real question of what was going on in Jesus during this particular time. No one can know for sure whether he really at that point in his ministry was just there for the Jewish people, that he believed, like a lot of his followers, that the Messiah was to come for the Jewish people and the Jewish people alone. 

If that was so, this woman reminded him, opened his heart and mind to realize that the Messiah was for all people. 

The other explanation is that he was doing this for his disciples, because in the Matthew version of this story it says that the disciples came to him to ask him to quiet this woman down and get rid of her. So, he might have been using it as a teaching opportunity, knowing that some of his followers were critical that he was going to anyone anywhere outside of Israel. We don’t know. 

How you interpret this will depend upon what you think of Jesus. Whether he fully knew everything all the time or whether he was able to learn from a woman. 

What we do know is the response. We do know from that moment on his ministry was to everyone. When he left there the reading states that he went to the Decapolis. The Decapolis was made up of ten gentle cities (deca meaning ten).  North of the Sea of Galilee. Very few Jews lived there,  yet he went into that area.

The next thing we hear is him healing a person deaf and dumb who was probably not Jewish. He was probably gentile. 

This issue, this question of who did Christ come for who is the Messiah for, who is included, was there from the very beginning of the church. When we read acts and we read the letters we see That the question of who can be a Christian is very important. Was Jesus’ Way just for people who were Jewish, or could non Jewish people become Christian? Did the men have to become circumcised? Did the people who wanted to be Christian have to follow all the rules that the Jewish people followed? 

It was an importabt debate in the early church. Who is in? Who can receive this great love and grace and mercy that Christ brought to earth? Are there any restrictions? 

What we read in the letter of James today is that he is very disappointed, very upset, that there are some Christian congregations where when a rich person walks through the door the people get all excited and give them the best seats. Imagine coming in through the door of that church. Someone who is very wealthy and famous and well known is greeted and brought up to the front pew but people who are poor were ignored or told to sit in the back or sit on the floor. 

James makes it very clear that that is not what it means to be a Christian. He makes it very clear that if you have faith in the Christ that loves you. If you have faith in that mercy that you have received, if you have faith and you say you believe in Christ you should demonstrate it by how you treat other people. 

That is what he means by faith without works is nothing. It is not that we earn our way to heaven, but if you really believe, if you really have faith, and believe what Christ has offered us, you don’t make distinctions between people. You love your neighbor as yourself. You welcome everyone. Or as a bumper sticker that is up on my refrigerator says “God loves everyone, no exceptions.” 

If we truly have faith in the one who loves us and forgives us, and shows us mercy, we should show that faith by making no distinctions. Amen