All Saints' Millington
  • Home
  • Who we are
    • Who we are
    • Clergy & Staff
    • What's an Episcopalian?
    • Becoming a Member
    • 100 Years And Counting
    • Spiritual Connections
  • Worship
    • Baptisms
    • Weddings
    • Funerals
  • Music & Choirs
  • Outreach
  • Giving
  • Calendar

Not Time Yet

9/10/2012

0 Comments

 
From there Jesus set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice. Mark 7:24

Over the past two months many of us have taken time for vacation – a week or two, a couple of days here or there. Maybe your vacation was weekend trips to the beach or campground or gathering with family for a reunion.

Maybe just having a slower or more relaxed schedule for the summer was refreshing and restorative for you – giving you time to spend with friends, go fishing, work in your garden, sit on the deck on warm evenings and enjoy the beauty of the night.

We who live in New Jersey know enough to savor good weather, and enjoy it while we have it, tuck the warmth and the sunshine of the summer away so that we can be cheered by its remembrance in the cold rains of November or the ice storms of February.

So we’ve been away, but now we’re back – to work, to school, to a regular schedule (I hear some parents cheering about that), and back to the full program-year here at Church.

Sometimes in churches you hear: We’ll, you may go on vacation, but God never does. That’s true, God doesn’t take a vacation; God doesn’t need to.

But during Jesus’ life and ministry amongst us there were often times when Jesus needed a break, a nap, a time apart, a little holiday. And we hear right at the start of this morning’s Gospel about Jesus going away to the region of Tyre; it’s a city on the coast of the Mediterranean, about thirty miles north of Capernaum, were Jesus based his ministry.

We don’t know why Jesus went to Tyre; Mark tells us “He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there.” Maybe he was taking a break, having a seaside retreat, a little vacation. “Yet he could not escape notice” the Gospel says.

Word got out that Jesus was there, and a very desperate woman with a sick daughter came to see him and prostrated herself before him. She was a Syrophonecian, a Gentile, someone outside the scope of accepted Jewish social relations – and she had a child who was possessed by an unclean spirit.

That is every parent’s nightmare – that a son or daughter will be taken seriously ill, suffer a traumatic injury, wander away emotionally or spiritually and take up with the wrong crowd, seeming to leave a stranger in their place. When these things occur, they very much seem like an unclean spirit.

No wonder the woman was so insistent that Jesus heal her daughter – any one of us would do the same.

But Jesus says something very strange to her: He said, "Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." To call someone a dog in the ancient Near East was an insult. This is not at all what we would expect Jesus to say, at least not if we think of Jesus as being endlessly available to all people at all times; his words bring us up short – what was he thinking?!

Listen to the rest of the conversation: But she answered him, "Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." Then he said to her, "For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter."

In the Old Testament – starting all the way back with Abraham – it was understood that God had chosen a people for himself (the Jews) who were to be blessed by God so that they in turn would be a blessing to the world on God’s behalf. And then, in the fullness of time, God would expand that blessing and that relationship to all people, to the Gentiles – that is, the great majority of us sitting here this morning.

Jesus’ mission and ministry, his teaching and healing and proclamation and mighty acts, were all about announcing the arrival of God’s Kingdom – first to the Jews, and then to the Gentiles.

So Jesus was saying to this Syrophonecian woman, that it wasn’t time yet for the Gentiles to be brought into the fullness of God’s Kingdom.

Well, she was desperate; you would be, too. She didn’t argue Jesus’ point – if the Jews were considered the children in Jesus’ figure of speech, and God’s blessing was the bread, then even the dogs could share in the abundance, the crumbs that fell from the table, the scraps, the leftovers – and that would be enough.

Somehow, this Syrophonecian mother was able to glimpse the power and the overwhelming goodness and generosity of God, and trust that even a scrap of that power would be enough to heal her daughter. And she was right - and Jesus knew she was right.

On the way to fulfilling his mission, announcing and inaugurating the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven, there would be extra, overflow, leftovers that fall from the table, like the twelve baskets of leftover pieces of bread at the Feeding of the 5000.

It may not have been fully time for the Gentiles to be brought into the blessing of God’s Kingdom – that would happen after the Resurrection – but it was getting pretty close, just like being able to smell the sea air before you actually arrive at the beach, and the Gentile woman knew that there would be enough to heal her daughter.

Now there are many more things we might like to say about this passage, to puzzle over, to ponder about – and I hope you will do so.

I hope you will take the lectionary insert home with you, tuck it in your pocket, stick it in your purse, post it on your refrigerator – and read it over during the week. Daydream over it, pray over it, meditate on it and be open to whatever the Holy Spirit might reveal to you about the meaning and importance of this passage for your own life, your own faith, for your work, your neighbors. No one of us can ever have the whole story or the last word when we are talking about Scripture and the way God speaks to us through it.

But for now, for this morning, it is enough to know that the power and the grace   and the love of God is abundant and overflowing – is there for all of us…maybe not in the ways we might wish or expect, but it is there, no matter what.

And God longs to give us the good gifts of grace and wholeness and joy and hope. And we, in turn, can share those gifts with others, can offer the abundance of kindness and generosity and faith and courage and steadfastness with those who need it most.

Listen for who might be the Syrophonecian woman in your life, in your world, asking for help, for healing, for blessing, and offer what you have.

Take what God offers, take what you need, and then pass it along to someone else who needs it also, knowing that God is at work in whatever you share.

Let us pray.

God of your goodness,
give me yourself,
for you are enough for me…
and if I ask for anything les
I shall ever be in want,
for only in you have I all.  Amen.  
                        ~ adapted from a prayer of Dame Julian of Norwich, 14th century

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 9, 2012



0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Sermons & Reflections

    Sermons and reflections from clergy and lay leadership at
    All Saints' Episcopal Church, Millington, NJ.

    Archives

    October 2021
    July 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    May 2020
    September 2019
    July 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    April 2014
    February 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    April 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011

    Categories

    All
    12 Steps
    Aa
    Advent
    Arizona Shooting
    Art
    Ascension
    Authority
    Baptism
    Bread
    Church History
    Common Good
    Community
    Community Of Faith
    Commuting
    Death
    Demons
    Desert
    Diakonia
    Discipleship
    Distractions
    Doubt
    Easter
    Easter Eve
    Episcopalian
    Episcopal Vocation
    Eternal Life
    Evangelism
    Fans
    Ferguson
    Foot Washing
    Humility
    Independence Day
    Invitation
    Jesus Finds Us
    Justice
    Kingdom Of God
    Lazarus
    Lent
    Liberty
    Lordship
    Love
    Mark's Gospel
    Mark's Gospel
    Marriage
    Mary Magdalene
    Maundy Thursday
    Mercy
    Money
    Oppression
    Ordination
    Outreach
    Palm Sunday
    Parenting
    Patriotism
    Peace
    Prayer
    Questions
    Racism
    Reflection
    Religion
    Resurrection
    Samaritan Woman
    Seeds
    Selfsufficiency103ee8a392
    Sermons
    Service
    Spirituality
    Stewardship
    Surprise
    The Binding Of Isaac
    Trust
    Truth Telling
    Truthtelling00f726273f
    Violence
    Vocation
    Worry
    Worship

    RSS Feed

All Saints' Episcopal Church

 15 Basking Ridge Road, Millington NJ 07946    phone: (908) 647-0067    email: allstsmill@hotmail.com