Just recently, I read a story about a man who suddenly remembered a friend of his who was in the hospital. He hadn’t seen the man in a while, and yet, he felt compelled to go and visit his friend. When he got to the hospital, he asked for his friend by name, and was…
Sometimes the most interesting thing I find about a particular Bible passage is what the Lectionary leaves out. Take today, for instance. In the Gospel, the last words come from Jesus, who has been having a conversation with Pilate. Pilate has been questioning him, and asking him about his kingship, because the leaders of the…
In October of 1893, the Chicago Evening Post first ran an article that contained the fictional character of an Irish Bartender named Mr. Dooley. This article, written by the journalist Finley Peter Dunne, used Mr. Dooley’s character to make satirical comments about the social and political issues of the day, and continued for years as…
I used to know someone who, when she saw things in the news that scared her, or if she ran across something frustrating or difficult, or when she confronted people she thought lacked common decency, then she would exclaim, “Oh Lord! Come and take us home, Jesus!” And sometimes, for added dramatic affect, she would…
Just recently I was watching a movie, and one of the main characters was running through the city, but stopped long enough to put a few dollars into a cup that a scruffy looking man was holding. “Hey! What’re you doing!” the man yelled. “That was my coffee!” “Sorry!,” the main character yelled back, “I…
Psychology tells us that we are hard-wired to think that beautiful people are smarter than those that don’t fit into society’s norms of beauty. And that we think that tall people are more capable of leading, just by virtue of their size. And that people who smile are more trustworthy than those who frown or who keep an expressionless face.
And while psychology tells us that this is our initial, hard-wired reaction, it is good that we are thinking and rational creatures, because each of us has experienced a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a salesman with a winning smile who is intending to sell you a lemon. Our hard-wired brains lie to us initially, but it is our thoughts and our understanding that helps us to see beyond the outer facade.
Just the other day, I went shopping at IKEA, and in the self-serve area, I managed to grab a shopping cart that had one of those wheels that seemed to have a mind of its own. Every time I hit a little seam in the concrete, the cart would dramatically swerve off in the direction of the rut. It ended up being more of a workout than a shopping experience.
Now, I suppose that I could have kicked that wheel repeatedly until it fell off, since it was causing my cart to stumble, but in the end, I just kept pulling the cart back into alignment. It was more work, but I was able to keep the cart in one piece that way.
There’s a story about an old man giving advice to a younger man about the battle of good and evil within him. I’m sure you’ve seen it either on social media, or had someone tell it to you at some point in your life. The story is about two wolves, and the one that wins the battle, the story says, is the one that a person feeds the most. I’d like you to take the general idea of this story, but instead of two wolves doing battle for your soul, I want you to think of two children. Because within each of us are two children that are battling for our souls.
The Gospel goes out of the way to make sure that we know that the person who came to talk to Jesus is a woman, a Gentile, and not only any Gentile, but a Syrophoenician. This is a woman of standing, in what Jesus and his disciples could call “enemy territory.”
Over the years, we have all probably used some slurs when speaking of others. But also, over the years, we have matured, and we have come to understand others better, and more importantly, we understand ourselves and our own insecurities and fears better, so that we no longer use these slurs.
Which makes Jesus using this term “dog” to describe not only the Syrophoenician woman, but all her countryfolk sound like fingernails on a chalkboard to us when we hear it. And it demands that we figure out an answer to what is happening.
As I was preparing for the service today, I thought, “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a sermon that was the equivalent of Teddy Bears skipping through alpine meadows picking wildflowers and making bouquets to give to people?”
“I wonder what the Gospel for this week says…”
Hypocrites! You honor me with your lips, but your hearts are far from me!