21 Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. ²² Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon." ²³ But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, "Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us." ²⁴ He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." ²⁵ But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." ²⁶ He answered, "It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs." ²⁷ She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table." ²⁸ Then Jesus answered her, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed instantly.

Two of the amazing things about this great country of ours that I have come to experience are the diversity of the geography and variety of people contained within those various localities. Even though I have not moved around a lot in this short life of mine, I have moved around enough to know that such an understanding is absolutely true.

As many of you know, I started out by growing up in the Lehigh Valley, around Allentown, Pennsylvania and the churches that I was raised in were greatly intertwined with the Pennsylvania Dutch culture that permeates that area of the country. People, for the most part, are very laid back, stay to themselves and really do not show a whole lot of emotion. They believed that if they did show any emotion, that it would show to the world that they were weak and not able to deal with the situations of their lives. They were a good, hard-working God-fearing people. This was the way they were raised and this was the way that they lived.

I then had the opportunity to move up to the Hudson Valley here in New York. This area was a lot more diverse in terms of cultures and heritage. It also moved a heck of a lot faster then down in the farming country where I was raised. People always seemed to be in a rush and trying to get where they needed to go as fast as they possibly could. The church life reflected this sort of fast moving mentality in the way that the people related to one another and how they related to God. They were a lot more open to showing their emotions and simply coming out and saying what was on their mind rather then holding on to it so as to show that they were "strong."

When I moved out to Michigan, I encountered an environment that was a lot more evangelical then I had ever felt and I had to adjust in some big time ways. The pace really slowed down and at times it felt like the only world that existed was that small area in Western Michigan. It felt like most folks had never been outside those comfortable confines that they had been in their entire lives. These were folks who held on to their tradition and heritage very strongly and it could be seen in the ways that they worshiped on Sunday mornings; always very controlled and as the Reformed Church in America puts it, right and in order.

In complete contrast to this were New Brunswick, New Jersey and Churchville, Pennsylvania. These towns, although quite different, were both melting pots where cultures from all over the world, with all of their different languages and understandings of God, have come and try to live together. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

However, something that is true in all of these cultural settings, is that as different as they are from one another, they still have, at their core, the common tie of a unifying gospel message. They have all approached the Word in different ways and yet, it is the same God who is worshiped. As different as they are, they are still members of the same church universal, the same body of Christ.

The folks that Jesus is talking to in the first half of the scripture this morning are, for lack of better terminology, members of what was becoming the first Christian church. Even though they are only described as "the crowd", what they did resemble was what the church does today. They followed Jesus, they listened to his teachings, and then tried to live those teachings out in their own lives. While this sounds very much like the greater church that is found in America, there was one, incredibly large difference: most of this group was Jewish, and had no real desire to be anything but Jewish. They had been brought up following the law of the Torah and all the customs contained therein. One of the big laws that regulated their daily lives were the kosher food laws. This was the way that they lived their lives and how they thought God wanted all people to eat if they were to be followers of the one true God.

With this sort of foundation it place, it would be safe to assume that Jesus and his followers were creating a new sect of Judaism. Jesus was Jewish, his closest disciples were all Jewish and a large majority of the folks who followed him were Jewish. From the outside looking in, it seems very logical for these people to think that any new revelation of God will fall into the parameters of the Jewish religion that already existed. This is why these verses, even though we may not understand their context initially, are so revolutionary.

Jesus is saying that it doesn’t matter what food you eat. The kosher laws are no longer needed. Jesus is not creating a new form of Judaism. No, he is creating something completely different. Jesus is creating something that excludes no one. It doesn’t matter how you eat and it doesn’t matter where you live. What really matters is what you have in your heart, how you feel, think and what you say about other people, as well as yourself. Jesus is saying that your holiness does not depend on some particular custom that you may or may not follow. Instead, it is your very being that causes you to be clean or unclean. This is something completely different and Jesus is opening the door for all people, no matter how clean or unclean the conventional wisdom of the day may say that they are. In Jesus’ declaration, a door has been opened for all people so that they might enter it and this door leads us to the eternal table of fellowship with all of the different members of the one body of Christ.

At this point, you may be saying to yourself, "I like what the guy up front is saying; but how does that jive with the second half of the scripture where Jesus seems to say that the woman is not worthy of redemption? I’m not sure about what is being said, or even why its being said." If you have gone there, you are right on point, because it does seem to stand in stark contrast to what we have been talking about throughout these ramblings, that we are all united in the oneness of Jesus Christ. So what exactly happened there?

Well, a Canaanite woman, an individual that the Jewish society considered less than a dog, seeks Jesus out in, apparently, a very vocal way. The reason we believe this to be true is because of how the disciples say, "Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us." His response of, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" reflects both the author’s particular bent on the Gospel story (in that he wants to show that Jesus message was initially intended for the people of Israel but eventually rejected) but also the reality of the situation, because lets be honest, in Matthew, who is Jesus going and ministering to? The Jews.

However, the woman does not heed to the reality and forges on, strong in her faith that this man can help her daughter. She knells before Jesus, saying, "Lord, help me." Now his answer, "It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs", while it does reflect the societal belief is incredibly harsh. However, this harshness (especially in the eyes of Jewish readers) makes what is about to happen all the more stunning.

This woman, this person of flesh and bone has just been called a dog by the individual who she must feel is her last hope; and yet, she does not back down. She makes one last desperate and yet faith filled lunge at the relief that she needs. She says to Jesus, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table."

In that instance of faith put into action, the whole mood of the scene shifts. No longer do ethnic and cultural divides separate these two people. No longer is there a master and a subordinate, for now they have become one in faith. Jesus answers her, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish."

This step by Jesus to serve those who are the culturally rejected shows us that it does not matter who you are, or who society considers you to be, because when your motives are pure and when your heart is right with God, then the door that Jesus has opened, the door that leads to eternal fellowship in the body of Christ, will be open to you.

An activity that I have participated in, and have previously mentioned from this pulpit, is something called the midnight run. To serve as a reminder, what this entailed was that a group of between 12 to 15 people head down into Manhattan, right around midnight, with as much donated clothing and prepared hot food and drink as possible and distribute it to any and all of the homeless people that they might be able to find at designated locations that have a reputation for having large groups of homeless folks. The homeless know the stops on the route and many of them were waiting for us when we arrived.

One such stop was right in front of one of the great cathedral-like churches that Manhattan possesses. However, it didn’t look like any church that I had ever seen. Here’s why: the priests had worked out a deal with the city that as long as the homeless were on the steps of the church, and were cleaned up when morning rolled around, then they would not be bothered. Needless to say, there where a whole lot of people sleeping under a makeshift cardboard town. Our job was to knock on their ‘doors’ and see if we could help them out at all. Some of the homeless just slept; others were quick with the response that they were fine. Thankfully though, there were quite a few folks who ventured out into the cool air to have a bite to eat, see if they could find some warmer clothes, and even talk with us.

It was during one of these conversation that one gentleman began talking about the love of Jesus and how if it weren’t for God, he wouldn’t be alive. Several residents of the cardboard town nodded in agreement as he continued. "Everything that I do, I do because Jesus loves me. I give to the church; I try and be nice to my neighbors; I thank all those who are willing to help me. It may not be much, but I think God wants me to live this way. This is who God wants me to be."

These people are the rejects and the forgotten of our society. These are the people who are treated more like dogs then human beings who were created in the image of God, and yet, for many of them, they had ventured through that door that Jesus had opened and when the day of judgment comes, they will be on God’s side in the heavenly kingdom. It didn’t matter how they tried to live, or the way that they looked, or the way that they spoke. No, it was the genuine expression of love and thanks that they showed, that is what God looks at. It is the actions of the heart that help to determine if you are part of

the body of Christ.

My daughter is going to be heading off to college four days from now. Needless to say, this is a somewhat scary prospect and I don’t just mean that in regards to how Mandy is feeling. But as she is heading off, I have invariably started to remember back to when I was taking very those eerily similar shaky steps into the land of almost adulthood. Over the past few days, especially as I’ve thought about this passage, I began to remember a chapel service that was held on campus, just prior to the end of the first semester. The students were standing up as they felt led to ask for prayer requests.

One such student stood up and began to talk about how her time at Hope had built her up in her faith and how excited she was about that. All good stuff.

However, as she quickly continued, she then talked about how she was worried that when she headed back home that she might not be able to stay true to the faith that she was trying to live out. I heard that, and as the time I thought to myself, "it’s in you! The love of God is in you! Let it shine. If you do, in spite of all that the world may throw at you, a way will be provided." That is my prayer for my daughter, and all the ‘kids’ who are heading off to college: that they realize that they have been accepted and loved by the creator of the universe; now they need to allow that love to shine. If they do, then no matter how difficult the path may appear that is before them, they will find a way through because as they allow that light to shine, others, others who believe, will come alongside and bolster them up. Shine the love of God and no matter where you will go, the strength of God will be with you. You are a member of the Body of Christ: show it to the world through how you shine.

It doesn’t matter what part of the world (or country) you come from, what color you are, what language you speak, how you worship, where you worship, what you wear, how physically clean you are, the sins that you have committed in the past or how much power, money and influence you may have, because it is the love and sincerity that you have in your heart and how that comes out in the thoughts you have, the words you say, and the deeds you do that ultimately makes you clean or unclean in the sight of God. No matter how different we may be, we are all welcome guests at the table of eternal fellowship; we are one in the body of Christ.

O mighty God, we are a world of diverse people and yet, through Your son, we have the opportunity to enter into the one body of Christ Jesus. Through Your Holy Spirit, open our hearts so that we might be able to see the way that You would have us talk, think and act. Give us the courage to grow beyond the biases that all of us have in one form or another and allow us to see that in Your son the differences melt away because of the unity that is achieved. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.