In the side yard of the house in which I grew up was a large apple tree. Too old to produce much fruit, it’s main purpose in life was to serve as a fortress for neighborhood boys. Some days as many as 6 or 7 kids sat on or hung from its branches. We tried to figure a way to build a Tree House, but our engineering skills were lacking. Some of our friends had similar apple trees and HAD built tree houses. But what’s this? Crude signs announced, “No Gurls Alowed”. Biblical explorations for this coming weekend address our private and public sins of exclusion–so relevant after the ugly event in Charlottesville.
The Hebrew Scripture lifts up Isaiah 56:1,6-8: Yahweh brings even the “foreigners” to the Holy Mountain, will accept their offerings and sacrifices as well, “for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” God actively GATHERS the outcasts! No conversion, no spiritual surgery is required; everyone is sheltered under a salvation-promise to those who “maintain justice, and do what is right”. Wendel W. Meyer offers that “a just and righteous response [to God’s gracious welcome] demands that we look deeply into the inner workings of our minds and hearts to identify and dismantle those internal mechanisms that cause us to demean and dismiss others”. (FEEDING on the WORD, A 3:343)
St. Paul wonders aloud how his birth-people, the Hebrews, are going to fit into God’s scheme, since they have reservations about Jesus being Messiah. (Romans 11:1-2, 29-32) He comes to the happy conclusion that “the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable”, and that it’s impossible to fall from Grace! (Most of us are glad to hear it, although some still cling to a hope of retribution.) Martha C. Highsmith shares a few bon mots: “In the scandal of grace, we receive God’s good gifts in spite of ourselves….the people’s rejection of God does not lead to God’s rejection of the people….Nothing we do can convince God to let go of us.” (ibid., p351ff)
Matthew’s Gospel (15:21-28) is the puzzling story of Jesus and the Canaanite woman: she wanted her daughter’s demon to go away, but Jesus was reluctant to minister to a non-Jewish person. After conversation, though, he does what she requests despite her “foreign” status. Many sermons have been constructed to psyche-out Jesus/the situation/a teaching moment. But the bottom line is that God through Christ heals and hears all people, in whatever circumstance. (This was probably shocking to Matthew’s traditionally Jewish audience!)
Caution!! If you really buy into this, welcoming the outcast and the alien and the immigrant WILL change your life, no doubt about it! There may well be a mosque built down the street. The pink-haired kid next door probably will play hip-hop music. Loudly. The widow down the block will crowd the street with the vehicles of her hourly gentlemen callers. AND some gurls could clamber up to your apple-tree hideaway…
God Bless Us, Every One Horace Brown King
My thoughts about prescribed lessons for the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this spot on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com
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