The 15th Sunday after Pentecost-The Rev. Melanie Lemburg

15th Sunday after Pentecost- Proper 18B

September 5, 2021

        This past week, Mary Margaret was telling me that they were having some trouble at school among the freshmen class.  She said that some members of the class were bullying another freshman based on what she chose to wear to dress down day.  They allegedly wrote nasty things on the girl’s locker, and there was lots of drama churning through the school about this.  Mary Margaret told me how upset some members of the senior class were about all this.  They planned to go talk to the freshmen homerooms about it.  When I inquired why the seniors were upset and getting involved, MM told me, “Because there’s just no need for it.  People shouldn’t treat other people that way, and it is causing upset throughout the whole school.” 

        I ran across a quote years ago that is especially pertinent.  It is a quote attributed to Richard Hooker, who was one of the most influential theologians in the development of the Church of England, our parent church.  This quote says, “I pray that none will be offended if I seek to make the Christian religion an inn where all are received joyously, rather than a cottage where some few friends of the family are to be received.”i  (read it again). 

This quote is quite striking in the contrast between what Hooker is saying, and what is happening in today’s gospel reading between Jesus and the Syrophonecian woman.  Our gospel story is a somewhat confusing and even somewhat embarrassing snapshot of Jesus.  It is a story in which we see his fully human side, and we see that, even in his divinity, he is capable of change, especially when it comes to how he understands his own ministry on earth.

        Let’s look at the story.  Jesus is trying to catch a break.  He’s gone inside a house out in the middle of nowhere to try to recover from the demands of his ministry, and even there, he is pursued.  He’s tired, perhaps a little irritable, and then he has to deal with this impertinent woman who is demanding healing for her daughter and yet who does not even belong to his people, the people to whom he is sent to proclaim the gospel.  And so he calls her a dog and refuses to heal her daughter.  But then something fascinating happens.  The woman doesn’t retaliate with other name-calling or fancy rhetoric or statistics.  She absorbs the insult, and then she reflects the good news of Jesus’s own ministry right back to him.  With a deeply rooted humility, she claims her place of belonging in the heart of God and in the good news of God’s kingdom.

        There is such deep good news in today’s gospel, despite the uncomfortable parts!  Each of us, I believe, longs for belonging.  We were all created to be lonely for God, longing for God, longing to make our home in God.  Often times we run around and try to fill that longing with other things—money, achievements, things, good works.  But ultimately, only God can fulfill our longing for God.  When we spend time with God (in prayer, in worship, in silence), we discover our true belonging in God.  (I believe that this is what Jesus was searching for in the beginning of our gospel story.) When we spend time with God, then God whispers back in our hearts, “You are enough; you belong because I have created you; nothing you can do or not do, be or not be, buy or not buy can change that you belong; but you must put your trust in me and not in yourself—in what you can do or not do, be or not be, buy or not buy.  You are enough and you belong.”

        When we regularly spend time with God and we dwell within that awareness of (and gratitude for) our belonging, then we are free to invite others into that belonging as well.  It becomes our great delight to share that belonging with others.  We recognize that belonging in God is not limited to who we think should belong; we all dwell within the good news of God’s kingdom where all may find belonging and home.

        But when we are out of touch with God, we are also out of touch with our own belonging, and then we are more inclined to try to keep others (especially OTHERS—those who are different than us) from belonging as well.  If you look around in your world at any point and think in your secret heart that there is someone who does not belong to God, then that is a first sign that God is calling you back, to spend more time with God and to get reconnected with your own belonging within God.   

My favorite poet, Mary Oliver, has written a poem that articulates all this beautifully.  It is called

Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
      love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
[Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.]
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.ii
        God loves you just as you are.  You are enough.  You belong to God, and we all belong together.  This week, I invite you to live more fully into your belonging in God, and to look for ways to invite others around you into that belonging.  May we all give our hearts fully to that this morning, this week, and be grateful. And as the body of Christ in this particular place, let us be mindful of Richard Hooker’s words that continue to call us to mission and ministry:

“I pray that none will be offended if I seek to make the Christian religion an inn where all are received joyously, rather than a cottage where some few friends of the family are to be received.” 

         

 

i.  I found this quote in a picture posted on the Facebook page for Calvary Episcopal Church in Memphis, TN. 

ii.from Dream Work by Mary Oliver published by Atlantic Monthly Press © Mary Oliver.