The Church of St.
Paul and Incarnation, Jersey City NJ
August 16, 2020
Year A, Proper 15:
The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 45: 1-15
Psalm 133
Romans 11:1-02a,
29-32
Matthew 15:21-28
Far From Home, A Greater Mission
For
the past few weeks we’ve been hearing the story of Israel’s founding family,
the story of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel, and a host
of other relatives and supporting characters.
It’s
quite a story – a story with plenty of betrayal and deceit and cruelty – and
yet God chose this often dysfunctional family as the seeds of God’s people.
As
I said last week, there is hope for us all.
In
last week’s episode, we heard part of the story of Jacob and his twelve sons –
and how eleven of his sons were jealous of Jacob’s obviously favorite son,
Joseph.
Joseph
the favorite - Joseph the dreamer – Joseph, who was given a fancy robe by his
father – Joseph, who drove his brothers crazy.
Now,
in other families this might mean that the others would just gossip or complain
about Joseph - or maybe try to undermine him in ways small or large - or maybe
simply give him the cold shoulder – or maybe even cut off communication
completely.
These
kinds of family feuds happen all the time, right?
But
Jacob’s sons take things way beyond all of that, plotting to kill their
brother. But, at the last minute they settle on just selling him into slavery –
and letting poor heartbroken Jacob think that his favorite son was dead.
Meanwhile,
Joseph’s first mission was to survive although he was cut off from everyone and
everything he knew – Joseph’s first mission was to somehow stay alive as a
slave in Egypt.
His
life in Egypt has lots of twists and turns, including years spent in prison,
but ultimately it’s his ability to interpret dreams that saves him – only
Joseph was able to interpret Pharoah’s dream – only Joseph realized that
Pharoah’s dream meant seven years of abundance followed by seven years of
famine.
Thanks to Joseph,
the Egyptians were able to prepare for the lean years - and Joseph rises to a
position of great influence and power.
Now, the famine
didn’t just hit Egypt, it touched everybody in the region, including Joseph’s
family back home. Hungry and desperate, Joseph’s half-brothers go to Egypt to
get help. When they meet a high-ranking Egyptian official, they certainly don’t
expect - and they don’t recognize - the brother they had sold into slavery
years earlier - but he recognizes them. It’s a long story but at first Joseph
messes with them a little, accuses them of being spies, sends them back to
Canaan with orders to bring back Benjamin (who was Joseph’s full brother).
And that’s where
we pick up in today’s lesson.
Joseph is no
longer able to contain himself, and he emotionally reveals his identity to his
brothers.
Now, let’s stop
right there. Because if I’m one of those brothers, I’m thinking, oh man, we are
really in for it now, this is going to be payback time – the brother we sold
into slavery now seems to be running Egypt and he can do whatever he wants to
us.
But, that’s not
what happens. Not at all.
Instead of
exacting revenge, Joseph offers hospitality to the family that wronged him.
And, not only
that, he offers the most charitable explanation for what happened to him – that
it was actually the hand of God that sold him into slavery so that Joseph would
be ready and able to save his dysfunctional family, so they could live and
prosper in a new land during a time of famine.
Joseph’s first mission
had been to stay alive. But, far from home, God called him to an even greater
mission: to forgive those who might seem to be unforgivable.
Far from home, a
greater mission.
Like Joseph and
his brothers, in today’s gospel lesson Jesus is also far from home.
We’re told that
he’s either in or near Tyre and Sidon, which were gentile towns in what is
Lebanon today.
Maybe because he
was in an unfamiliar land, in this story we find Jesus acting in what certainly
seems a decidedly un-Jesus-like way.
We’re told that a
Canaanite woman - and, by the way, the Canaanites and the Jews had a long and
not very good history – a Canaanite woman approaches Jesus and his disciples
and shouts, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by
a demon.”
The disciples are
cold to her plea, annoyed by all the yelling.
The disciples are
one thing but at first Jesus ignores her and then he dismisses her –
dismisses this mother desperately begging for her daughter to be healed –
dismisses this woman who has at least some idea who he is and the wonders he is
able is to work.
But, after he
first turns her away, this woman – this mother who like most mothers would do
anything for her child – this persistent and courageous woman kneels before him
and asks again with heartbreaking words:
“Lord, help me.”
Apparently up to
now Jesus has seen his mission as solely to the Jews. And so again he turns
away this woman with words that sure sound harsh, sound like an insult:
“It is not fair to
take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
And then this
desperate, persistent, fearless woman replies with one of the all-time great
comebacks:
“Yes, Lord, yet
even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”
And, at that
moment, it seems to me that something shifts in Jesus, something opens up in
Jesus. Jesus recognizes and applauds this woman’s faith and heals her daughter
of her possession.
Now, not everyone
agrees with me on this, but I am convinced that in this extraordinary story we
have a rare glimpse of Jesus learning. Just as earlier in his life the Son of
God had learned how to walk and talk, had learned the stories of God’s people,
had learned a craft so he could make his way in the world, had learned that he
was God’s beloved Son, now Jesus had learned that he was called to an even
greater mission.
Yes, Jesus is
first of all a blessing for Israel, but it turns out there’s plenty of blessing
to go around, way more than just crumbs.
Far from home, God
called the Son of God to an even greater mission: to love not just his own
people, but also the Canaanite woman and her daughter, to love all of us.
Far from home, a
greater mission.
This past Friday
was the feast day of one of my heroes, Jonathan Myrick Daniels.
I’ve spoken about
him before and the devotion to him continues to grow so at least some of you know
that he was an Episcopal seminarian (someone preparing to be a priest) who was martyred
during the Civil Rights Movement .
Jonathan Daniels
was a white man born in 1939 in New Hampshire. For college he attended the
Virginia Military Institute – where in fact he was class valedictorian.
A few years after
graduating from VMI, he felt the persistent tug of a call to ordained ministry
and entered seminary.
Now, just like
today, VMI was not exactly known for producing radicals.
And, reading some
of Daniels’ writings it’s clear that he was exceptionally bright and deeply serious,
and had a traditional piety from the days when the Episcopal Church was more
conservative than it is now.
I’m sure that he
thought – and probably everybody around him thought – that his mission was to
be a faithful parish priest.
But, in 1965,
while he was in seminary, Jonathan Daniels heard the call of Dr. King to join
in the march for voting rights from Selma to Montgomery – the same march where
John Lewis was beaten within an inch of his life.
Like most other
Northerners who participated in the march, Jonathan Daniels expected this to be
just a weekend of purpose and excitement but something stirred in his heart and
he decided to extend his stay in Alabama, where he worked to desegregate the
local Episcopal church, tutored children, and registered newly enfranchised
Black voters.
On August 20, 1965,
after having spent six days in jail with some other protesters, Daniels and a
few others, including a young Black woman named Ruby Sales, just 17 years old,
went to a store to buy a cold drink.
Standing at the
door of the store, blocking the way, was a white man holding a shotgun, which
he pointed at Ruby Sales.
Jonathan Daniels
pushed her away and took the shot, and was killed instantly - dead at 26 years
old.
Jonathan Daniels
heard God’s call to be more than a pious priest. Far from home, God called
Jonathan to a greater mission, to give away his life in loving service.
Far from home, a
greater mission.
For the past five
months or so, many of us have been pretty much stuck close to home.
Unlike Joseph,
Jesus, and Jonathan, we have not been doing very much traveling.
And yet, in
another sense, we are also far from home – far from our usual way of living,
far from many of the people we love the most, far from our church that most of
you only get to see here on Facebook.
And, when we’re
far from home there are so many unknowns.
We don’t know how
or when the virus will finally be brought under control.
We don’t know when
life will return to something like normal.
We don’t know when
we will once again gather together in this sacred space.
And, we don’t know
what our church will be like on the other side of all this – having gotten used
to attending church on the couch and maybe even in pajamas it may be hard to
get everybody back together.
Now, I’m terrible
at predicting the future but I suspect that we will discover that God is
calling us to be more than what we have been – to give more of our energy to
the community out there rather than just taking care of the community that
meets in this room.
I suspect that in
this time when we are far from home - just like Joseph, Jesus, and Jonathan, we
are being called to a greater mission:
To forgive those
who seem unforgivable.
To love those who
the world teaches are not our own.
And, to give away
our lives caring for the poor and the oppressed.
It’s a greater
mission for us – but it’s been God’s mission all along.
Amen.
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