Current Sermons
Archived Sermons
"Do You Hear What I Hear?"
January 15, 2006
An Incomplete Feast
December 25, 2005
The
Third Gift
December 24, 2005
Nothing will be impossible with God
December 18, 2005
Redeeming Holiday Cheer
December 11, 2005
Comfort, comfort my people …
December 4, 2005
Advent begins in the dark…
November 27, 2005
Thanksgiving Day
November 24, 2005
It's All About Respect
November 20, 2005
The world is a better place because ...
November 13, 2005
Holy Baptism and Festal Eucharist
November 6, 2005
Promise and Presence
October 30, 2005
This is Only A Test
October 23, 2005
Made in the Image
of God
October 16, 2005
Finding Our Way
October 9, 2005
Our Lives Are
Based On A True Story
October 2, 2005
It
Is God Working
In You
September 23, 2005
Whatever Happened to our Security?
September 11, 2005
Put on the Armor of Light
September 4, 2005
Giftedness and Identity
August 21, 2005
What about Respect?
August 14, 2005
Dean Lane's Final Sermon
July 31, 2005
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Sermon
What about Respect?
Matthew 15:10-28
August 14, 2005
The Rev. Canon Anne E. Kitch
Cathedral Church of the Nativity
Don’t you have any respect for your elders? Why must you break with tradition? These were the accusations leveled at Jesus that led to the teaching we heard in today’s gospel reading. In this case the trouble was that his disciples had been seen to eat without first washing their hands. “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders?” Jesus is asked. In that time, washing hands was more than the polite thing to do. The holiness code demanded it. What had begun as an issue of cleanliness and public health had become a ritual and a tradition that was established in scripture. The people who complained to Jesus about his disciples not washing their hands were quite serious. Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? It is in reply to this accusation that Jesus calls the crowds around him and says, “Listen and understand. It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” Jesus’ reply is about true respect. Which is more important? To honor the rule about washing your hands or God’s commandment to love one another? Look, says Jesus, if you are really concerned about cleanliness and politeness and being holy, then you should be much more concerned about what comes out of your mouth than what goes into it.
What truly defiles a person are acts that violate relationships with others. Jesus gives a pretty good list: murder, adultery, bearing false witness. Being the most polite person in the room, the most reverent person in church, the most obedient team player does not make you a good person if you are violating the people around you--openly or in secret. In the end, it is all about how we treat one another.
Having finished this teaching, in the next moment we see Jesus having to eat his own words-- so to speak. Having just admonished his disciples to love the heart of the law rather than the letter of the law, Jesus himself is challenged to expand his heart and love for neighbor even further. Jesus is walking along with his disciples when a Canaanite woman calls out to him. As a Canaanite she belonged to a different culture, a different ethnic group, a different faith tradition. This as a time of cultural separation and suspicion: Jews and Canaanite’s didn’t mix. Nevertheless, she calls out to him. Actually, she was shouting. The disciples are clearly uncomfortable. Send her away, they plead, she keeps shouting at us. What is she shouting? She is asking for mercy. She is asking for healing for her daughter. She is a mother who will do anything to find a cure for her child, even if it means chasing down some foreign healer as he walks down the street. She shouts. Jesus ignores her. The disciples tell him to get rid of her. He tells them she is not his problem. She kneels at his feet and implores him. He answers her harshly, “it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs!”
This is shocking to our ears. Could Jesus have really said that? Could he have meant it? What are we to make of it? But perhaps more important, what did the disciples make of it? I hope it was shocking to the disciple’s ears. Now, calling Canaanites “dogs” would not have been a shock. It was a common putdown of the time. But after all that Jesus has just said about what comes out of the mouth, about respecting others, about not violating people or relationships, I have to hope the disciples were somewhat taken aback by how Jesus put off that woman. And the woman? She refuses to be put off. She is not deterred. She knows what she wants. She is persistent. She demands respect and God’s grace and she gets both.
It seems in spite of his clear understanding of his mission and ministry to be about calling in the lost sheep of Israel, Jesus responds to faith wherever found and he finds it in her. Jesus says, “Woman, great is your faith.” And her faith is not just faith that believes, but faith that persists. Her faith that tells her no matter how the world puts her down, God’s grace is still hers and justice is still to be demanded. Instantly her daughter is healed.
What about us? Do we also need the lesson of the disciples? Do we need to be reminded that how we treat one another is more important than following traditions or ritual? In a moment, we are about to engage in a great ritual of the church. We are about to welcome a new one into our midst; Lawson is about to be baptized. All of you here will not only witness it, you will all promise to help. Before we baptize him, his parents and godparents will make important promises on his behalf. And you who do not yet know him will make important promises too. Not only in relationship to him, but also in relationship to yourself--or more accurately, your relationship to God. Because before we baptize a new member into the church of Jesus Christ, we all renew our Baptismal Covenant.
A covenant with God is a formal agreement that is sacred and binding. In the Episcopal Church we express our relationship with God through the Baptismal Covenant. When we as the church renew our Baptismal Covenant with God, we are remembering our baptisms and recalling the agreement that is made in baptism. The final question of the baptismal covenant is, “Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?” There it is, that word respect.
So as we help raise Lawson in the faith, I hope he will learn a lot from this community about what it means to be a follower of Christ. And I hope we will learn a lot from him about what it means to be a follower of Christ. I pray that the faith that is nurtured in Lawson in his home and in his church is not just a faith that believes certain things or a faith that follows certain rules and traditions, but a faith that is about relationship with God and God’s beloved. I hope for him a faith that respects, a faith that persists, a faith that tells him not only is God’s grace poured out on him, but on the world around him as well. I pray for him a faith that demands justice for all. And I pray that for each of us as well.
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