Sunday, August 20, 2017

Homily for Proper 15 Matthew 15:10-28

What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. There are what defile a person.”
Sometimes the synergy between the appointed lections and current events is breathtaking.
It’s been quite a week in the news, as the events of Charlotteville, more than dreadful enough in themselves, have produced wave after wave of horrible responses….
A clergy eye-witness wrote powerfully of her experience last Saturday as she knelt with many others praying for peace.
As more Neo-Nazis passed the clergy line, they verbally abused us one by one over the course of a few hours. One man screamed that Jesus hates us. Another screamed that we hate the white race and are contributing to white genocide….”
Out of the heart come evil intentions indeed.
And that’s before we even think about Friday’s events in Spain….
Lord, have mercy.

It’s hard, very hard, to understand where such hatred has its roots, tempting to just rejoice that we DONT understand – but then that runs the risk of relapsing into self-righteousness…
And, of course, we’re falling into the “them and us” trap immediately. And that is something today’s gospel reminds us is not good news at all.
It’s maybe comforting that Jesus himself seems to need to be taught this.
The beginning of the passage sees him turning away from the natural heart-land of the observant Jew, speaking against those purity laws that have been part of a nation’s identity for centuries...Then he heads into foreign territory, breaking more barriers – and when he arrives, finds himself challenged once again, jolted into a fresh recognition of common humanity by that woman who simply won’t take “No” for an answer.

But, dear Lord, that’s hard for me this week.
I want to put an unscaleable barrier between myself and the far-right, whose harsh words are reinforced by frightening actions.
I want to keep all my friends and family safely away from “people like them”.
But that’s not the Jesus way.

The one who healed the Canaanite's daughter, and who also opened the eyes of the man born blind can deliver anyone --there are no barriers for Jesus, not even those I’ve erected inside my own head and my own heart.
Time, then, to revisit our own Coventry litany, with its two word refrain that resists the urge to divide humanity into “them” and “us”.
ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God….
We know that when we hear the news
We know that when we look hard into ourselves.
The hatred that divides nation from nation, race from race, class from class, Father forgive”.
Amen, amen, amen.



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