Getting Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable

In this week's scripture, The Faith of the Canaanite Woman (or alternately the story of the Syro-Phoenician Woman) from Matthew 15:21-28, everyone in the story is uncomfortable - the woman, the disciples, maybe even Jesus himself.   And it makes many of us uncomfortable to read the story because Jesus appears to first ignore and then insult someone pleading for mercy.  How could it be that our God of love would not only ignore her pleas, but fo on to compare her to a dog?

The woman had to be uncomfortable asking for help.  She was a woman, a gentile, a widow, and a mother.  She was willing to endure rebuke, shame, humiliation out of love for her daughter.  I like to think that love gave her the strength to be as persistent as needed to accomplish the healing of her daughter.

The disciples were clearly uncomfortable.  It isn't clear from the reading whether or not they tried to shoo the woman away.  Based on the way they complain to Jesus and ask him to deal with the woman it seems reasonable to believe they tried and failed to send her on her way.  I think at this point they were probably accustomed to people doing as they asked, and were probably thrown for a loop when she persisted.

And what about Jesus?  Who knows if he was uncomfortable?  Do we need to know?  What is it we can learn from the story, accepting it as it is and not trying to rationalize away what appears to be a callous and uncaring attitude?

I couldn't help wondering if Jesus was teaching the disciples by example.  He knew that they would have an arduous road ahead of them, there would be times when they were too tired to truly see everyone around them, let alone respond to them.  Maybe he was showing them that it would be normal, and OK for that to happen.

Jesus had a clearly articulated commitment to the Jews, and so did the disciples.  Jesus even states that to the woman, maybe to show the disciples that they may become too focused on the task at hand to truly see everyone around them, let alone respond to them.  Maybe he was showing them that this, too would be normal.

But, Jesus was also teaching them that at the end of the day, you have to look outside yourself and really see and hear everyone around you - even those who society deems to be lower than dogs. The woman does not dispute that Jesus' call is the the children of Israel, but she believes that even after he accomplishes his task he will have more than enough left over for her - she hungers for her daughter's healing, and she sees abundance in the scarcity of crumbs.

That is where I was going to end this week, but then I saw a kind of a parallel that I feel I need to share.  The woman was willing to do whatever was needed, be as persistent as required, annoy whoever needed to be annoyed, be shamed, rebuked, humiliated for the love of our daughter.  The degree is different, but I see is a parallel to the path Jesus took, willing to risk and endue whatever in order to achieve our healing.  Maybe being uncomfortable is tamed and conquered with love.

The Messiness of Holy Hospitality

So, if we get over our fear of strangers from last week, then hospitality is easy, right?  I think not. The scripture this week, 1 Kings 17:8-24 chronicles Elijah being sent to a widow, in a land in the midst of a great drought to ask for food and drink. Both have gotten over their fear of strangers, the widow does as Elijah asks and as God promised, the food lasts until the rains come.  And then her son dies, but Elijah protests and God restores her son.

The widow, in a land of scarcity, sees only scarcity.  She is prepared to die along with her son.  Elijah recognizes the scarcity, but trusts in God's abundance.  When the widow is able to open herself up to see that abundance as well, she is able to partake of it. Now, God did not need the widow to feed Elijah, nor did God need Elijah to lead the widow to a new understanding of abundance.  So then why did God use them?  Who knows... and maybe knowing why isn't as important as recognizing how it changed them.

Elijah and the widow enter into relationship with each other, and relationship with God.  They are each at a different point in their journey, they have a unique and distinctly different understandings of their relationship with God, and yet they are each able to incarnate God for the other. And their relationship is a dialogue - there is clearly give and take between them, as well as between each of them and God.

Offering someone food and water, even when you don't have much, isn't too difficult.  Offering someone  a place to stay isn't too difficult.  Offering someone yourself, a relationship, that is difficult.  It's messy and scary.  But it is when we enter into relationships, when we open ourselves up to others that we strengthen our faith in the face of scarcity and drought - whether it is agricultural, physical, economic, or spiritual drought.  We help each other see God's abundance.

There Is Another Way

  Humans are naturally suspicious of strangers. We teach this to our children from an early age.  The Bible, however, teaches a different way. 

It begins as early as the book of Genesis.  In our scripture reading for today, Abraham and Sarah greet three strangers in the desert.  Now, they turn out to be angels in the end, but Abraham and Sarah don't know that.  They simply follow the ancient law of the desert, practiced among the nomadic peoples of the Near East, which required that if a stranger appeared at your tent, you were to welcome them, and share your food, drink and shelter.  As a nomad, Abraham and his family lived in tents, they traveled with their grazing herds in the desert. The few who lived in the harsh deserts of Judea depended upon each other for survival. Visitors were treated very well, for they brought companionship and help for the host. 

Hospitality to strangers is one of the grand themes of the Bible. When the Hebrews wander in the wilderness, God provides them with manna and water, as a gracious host.

 When they finally enter the promised land, hospitality is written into their holy law: "Love the sojourner," says the Book of Deuteronomy, "for you yourselves were once sojourners in the land of Egypt."

The theme continues in the New Testament when Jesus teaches that acts of hospitality are actually the prime indicator of a person's relationship with God: "I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me."  Clearly, willingness to extend hospitality to strangers is fundamental to the Christian way of life.

But what exactly is hospitality?  Hospitality involves the obvious: offering food, drink and shelter to the stranger in need. In the Bible, however, hospitality is a much richer, larger concept.  Hospitality requires the willingness and capacity to create an open, empty space into which strangers can come, and find themselves at home.  In this church, our vision is to ‘create home for sharing God’s love in Christ with our community and our world.”  That is a lot of strangers.

To what lengths are we willing to demonstrates that “there is another way?”  Are we truly prepared to offer the kind of full plate hospitality of Sarah and Abraham?  "Let love be genuine, my brothers and sisters. And do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."

-----Pastor Suzanne

Are You Hungry?

We started a series on hunger this month.  In the opening sermon the pastor asked a pretty good question: Why do we separate spiritual, emotional and physical hunger when Jesus doesn't.  Time and time again in scripture they are all linked.  See Matthew 5:6;  Matthew 15:29-32; Matthew 25:35-36; Luke 4:1-2.   And in Luke 8:49-56 Jesus heals the daughter of Jairus and after she is raised commands them to give her something to eat.
 
Jesus was able to recognize and know exactly what people needed.  Whether it was the 5,000 or the 4,000 or the daughter of Jarius or the woman who touched the hem of His robe.  Whenever possible Jesus changed people's condition. We also have the power to do that, to change people's situation.  The trick is to understand what they need.   Physical hunger manifests in ways we recognize, but what about spiritual and emotional hunger?  What are the 'growling stomachs" for them?

In order to recognize hunger in others, I think first we need to see to our own hunger.  It is difficult to take care of someone else if you yourself are empty.  And it is impossible to recognize spiritual and emotional need in others if you can't name and address it for yourself.  Think of it like the oxygen masks on the airlines when they instruct you, if you are traveling with small children to place your own mask first and then take care of your child.  Take care of the log in my eye so that I can help with the speck in my neighbor's eye.

In order to do that we must honest and open - available and vulnerable not only to others, but to ourselves.  Lately I have been so busy running from fire to fire that I felt empty, tired, frustrated.  In an attempt to not feel any more negativity I shut myself off and started closing down relationships.  That left me feeling isolated, alone, forsaken.  I am willing to bet everyone has felt that way at some point.  Admit it, you know what I mean.

Sunday morning I had not intended to stay for service because of that day's "fire", but I got a short reprieve and so I stayed.  I sat in the last pew so I could slip out if needed, and as I listened to the pastor's words I realized that I had shut myself off to any support I might get there.  I resolved to work on opening up, and as I sat there I received a gift.  Two people, on their way back to their seats after taking communion simply placed a hand on my shoulder.  No words were spoken, no eye contact was made and yet I felt community, support, love and food that took the edge off my spiritual and emotional hunger.  We can feed each other, but we must be honest about our own need and trust each other in much the same way we trust and believe that God will fill our needs if we accept God's invitation.

Finding God's New World

Last week, we talked about “salvation.”  I proposed that we think about salvation as more than just what happens after we die, because the resurrection of Christ initiated an entire process of salvation and restoration; in this place and in this world.  This has been reinforced by the earliest believers who strongly believed that God's ultimate salvation was about God's new world here and now. 

This is also evident in the saving work of Jesus Christ who continued to proclaim that people were "saved" through his healings and his words.  He was not saving them solely for some future hope after they die, but Jesus rescued people from the corruption and decay of the present world so they could already in the present experience a taste of God’s new Kingdom. 

All of this leads us finally, to what does this mean for the mission of the church and the way that we participate in God’s continual acts of salvation and the establishment of the Kingdom of God.  N. T. Wright says it this way: “God’s rule is to be put into practice in the world, resulting in salvation in both the present and the future, a salvation that is both for humans and through saved humans, for the wider world.  This is the solid basis for the mission of the church.”

I am not sure that I am qualified to name specifically what that means for our church, but I want to offer some "signposts" and suggestions.  The first is Justice. In theory, it means that our action reflect our hope in God’s final divine act of restoration and also in the meantime, we continue to respond to the major injustices of the world.   In other words: We have to live consciously between the resurrection of Jesus in the past and the making of God’s new world in the future.

Our ministry practices could possible address the issues of hunger.  We simply do not have enough resources to feed all the peoples of the world.  Maybe we continue to take this seriously by continuing to support our local food pantries.  Maybe we find a program in Mozambique to support like the building of a well in an impoverished area.  Maybe there is a woman at Shalom House who has had limited resources her whole life and we provide a way for her to live an independent life in permanent housing.  Maybe we offer our facilities at the Peterson Annex to help support NAMI so that families devastated by mental illness can have access to a life changing resource.  This is also a justice issue because there is so much prejudice and misunderstanding about mental illness or brain disorders. 

The second signpost is beauty.  Beauty matters almost as much as spirituality and justice.  How do we cultivate beauty while we are poised between our broken and incomplete creation and God’s new creation?  As Christians we acknowledge the reality that we live in a broken world but we must also use art, music, poetry, “beauty” to point to God’s acts of restoration.  We do this through art images in worship and beautiful Choir Cantatas that are celebrated at key times in the liturgical year.

 

Finally, there is Christ's call to discipleship.  This always stands as the center of our mission as a church.  Unfortunately, this endeavor has been tagged as evangelism; and evangelism tends to sends shivers down the spines of most people.  Many still confuse evangelist (one who preaches the gospel) with evangelical (someone who holds certain doctrines in certain particular ways) and hence evangelism (the preaching of the gospel) gets mixed in with evangelicalism.  Thank goodness, God honors all kinds of ways of announcing the good news; but just because some people do it badly, this is not an excuse for us not to do it at all.  Thank goodness, God honors all kinds of ways of announcing the good news.  We are heralds of the story and we must be willing to tell that story, even if it means telling the story in a new way. 

N.T. Wright says it this way: Without the resurrection there is one way of telling the story; with the resurrection there is another way.  Without the resurrection, the story is unfinished and potentially tragic drama.  Without the resurrection, the story of Jesus is a tragedy.  But with the resurrection there is a new way of telling the entire story.  The resurrection isn’t just a surprise happy ending for one person; it is instead the turning point for everything else.  It is the point at which all promises come true at last.