Sermon: "Good News For All"

The Rev. Maureen R. Frescott

Congregational Church of Amherst, UCC

August 20, 2017 – Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 15:10-28

“Good News For All”

I don’t know about you, but I’m in need of some Good News today.

Not some Good News that helps us to forget everything that’s going on in the world.

But rather some Good News that helps us make sense of it.

And helps us to heal from it

And gives us hope that the “bad news” does not define us,

or stand as an example of the irredeemable brokenness of our human nature.

I’m in need of some Good News that shows us that perhaps the “bad news” we encounter is better labeled as “disturbing news” or “challenging news” because our response to the news should point us in the direction where God intends for us to go, and give us a sense of who God created us to be.

And because we’re human, neither is easy for us to face or accomplish.

Let’s begin our quest for Good News with a story.

In December 1938, a 29-year-old London stockbroker named Nicholas Winton picked up a newspaper and read about rising anti-Semitism in Europe.

Jewish businesses were being vandalized and forced to shut down, synagogues were burned, and thousands of Jewish immigrants had been rounded up and deported.  150,000 refugees were forced to seek shelter in makeshift camps and were facing a harsh winter with no help in sight.

As Hitler’s Nazi party began to take hold in Europe, their goal was to make life so unpleasant for Jews that they would choose to emigrate.

But few countries were willing to accept an influx of Jewish refugees.

Many countries, including the United States, tightened their immigration policies. In the summer of 1938, 32 countries met in France to address the growing refugee crisis. But virtually all refused to take in more Jews.

When the violence against Jews escalated in late 1938, Britain relented and opened its borders to the most vulnerable refugees - the children.

That winter, Nicholas Winton had planned on taking a two-week skiing vacation in Czechoslovakia, but just before he left, he received a letter from a friend who was working for the British government in Prague.

It contained an invitation:         

“I have a most interesting assignment and I need your help.

Don't bother bringing your skis.”

Winton joined his friend and used those two weeks of his vacation to set up a makeshift immigration center in his hotel room in Prague.

There he met with Jewish families who were desperate to get their children out of harms way.

Winton worked with Britain’s strict immigration requirement that every refugee child have a foster family to take them in on the other end.

He placed ads in newspapers asking for volunteers, and in some cases cajoled complete strangers into taking a child into their home.

Since the British government had already begun to evacuate British children from inner cities in the event of war, the British public was fortuitously familiar with the idea of opening their homes to those in need.

Nicholas Winton and his small staff of volunteers worked together to save 669 children.

Often going against their own moral code and breaking the law, to forge documents and bribe government officials.

Navigating a mountain of paperwork, and working as fast as they could, Winton and his colleagues loaded the children onto seven passenger trains and sent along escorts to make sure they made it safely through Germany and out of Nazi territory.

Winton’s greatest regret – On September 1^st 1939, an eighth train containing 250 more children was loaded and waiting to depart occupied territory when Hitler invaded Poland and war in Europe was declared.  

The train never left the station.

For over 50 years, Winton rarely spoke about what he had done for those 669 children.

He thought it was simply part of his calling as a human being to step in where help was needed.

Then in 1988, Winton’s wife found a scrapbook in their attic that contained the names of every child her husband helped, along with their parent’s names and the names and addresses of the families who took them in.

With the help of a friend, she was able locate 80 of those now adult children and asked them if they’d like to meet the man responsible for their escape.

Some of you may have seen the touching BBC video, where unbeknownst to Winton, he was seated in an auditorium surrounded by the children he had saved from almost certain death.

When they stood up and identified themselves, Winston broke into tears, as if he finally recognized the impact of what he had done. 

Nicholas Winton passed away in 2015, at the age of 106.

In an interview done just before he died, he said he lived by this motto:

“If something is not impossible, there must be some way of doing it.”

I like to think that that the Canaanite woman had the same motto in mind when she approached Jesus on that long ago day in the city of Sidon.

Jesus and his disciples were about 100 miles north of their usual stomping ground in Galilee. They were in pagan territory, and they likely sensed that they were the minority in this neck of the woods.

Then this strange woman approached and began shouting at them.

Seemingly not caring that her gender, her social standing, and her religious affiliation should have held her back and kept her from speaking to these foreign, Jewish men.

But her child was ill. And she was desperate for help.

First, the disciples ignored her, and seemed uncomfortable with her outburst.

Her cry for help fell on deaf ears, as they urged Jesus to send her away.

Even Jesus himself seemed indifferent to her pleas.

Then she fell on her knees and again pleaded for help.

And surprisingly, Jesus rebuked her.

He told her he had come to save the children of Israel and it was not fair to take their food and throw it to the dogs.

Let’s pause right there and note that calling a woman a dog in first century Palestine meant pretty much the same thing as it does today.

It was not meant to be a compliment.

Jesus was likely comparing her to the wild dogs that roamed the foreign and “God-less” lands of the region of Tyre and Sidon.

These dogs were believed to be wicked and dangerous, much like the people who resided there.

In effect, when Jesus called the Canaanite woman a “dog” he was using an ethnic slur.  A slur that was commonly used on the Galilee side to refer to people north of the border.

But why would Jesus do this?

Why would this man of God, who preached compassion and grace, and who had just told the Pharisees that what comes out of our mouths should reflect what is in our hearts – Why would he say such a hurtful thing to someone who was clearly already in distress?

Perhaps because he had heard it said before, by people with deep-seated fears and by people of faith who really should have known better.

And he knew his disciples were thinking it, even if they weren’t saying it out loud.

As we know, Jesus was a cunning teacher, who knew how to take a figure of speech, a social expectation, or a racial slur, and turn it on its head -

by using it to get people’s attention and then shocking them further by offering a NEW way to interpret old, ingrained ideas and beliefs.

It’s tempting to say that Jesus’ initial dismissive reaction to the woman’s request came from the part of him that was fully-human.

But how likely is it that this astute teacher truly believed that this pagan woman was not as worthy of his time as the people of his own nation? 

This man who spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well – a woman who had been married five times - and quenched her thirst with living water.

This man who healed the hemorrhaging woman who pushed through the crowd in her unclean state just to touch his cloak, and with one glance he said her faith had made her well.

This man who saved the woman accused of adultery who was about to have rocks heaved at her head…by telling her accusers,

“You who is without sin, cast the first stone.”

Is it more likely that Jesus recognized the resourcefulness and faith of this Canaanite woman and saw her intrusion as yet another opportunity to turn people’s expectations and prejudices on their heads?

I imagine a wry smile appearing on Jesus’ face, as he used a phrase this pagan woman had likely heard in public squares, in whispered comments, and out of the mouths of the religious and the righteous over and over again...

“It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

And perhaps recognizing the teasing sarcasm in Jesus’ voice, the woman replied with a pointed retort of her own.

“Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

In other words, even those born outside the lineage of Abraham value and cherish what has been offered to the children of God...even when it has been tossed aside, because it was thought to be insignificant or worth-less.

Jesus response to this woman’s bold assertion that she too was worthy of the love of God, likely reflected what was in his heart all along:  He told her,

“Woman, your faith is great! Your daughter is healed as you wish.”

The Good News of this story is that the unconditional love and grace of God is meant not just for some people, but for all people – all who were willing to receive it.

And the Good News for us today is that we are capable of rising above our prejudices and our fears, and opening our hearts to those who are different from us - those who have a different story to tell than we do.

  

Each of us carries the same dis-order in our hearts that caused the disciples to disregard this woman who was clearly in need of help and clearly in pain.

She shouted at them and they ignored her.

She fell on her knees before them and they looked away.

Her story was not their story and because they had not experienced her life or her pain, they dismissed it. It didn’t matter what story she had to tell.

They dismissed her shouts and her cries telling themselves she was probably overreacting, or looking for attention, or likely brought her pain on herself because of something she did, or said.

How often have we said these same things ourselves when we encounter someone who has a different experience and different story to tell than we do?

How often do we ignorantly or arrogantly claim that the story another is telling is not true, because it is not true for us?

If we’re not black, or Muslim, or transgender, or female, or Jewish, or disabled, or living with a mental illness – we have no idea what it’s like to move in the world as a person who is.

We have no idea what it’s like to be followed in a store or pulled over by the police 36 times in one year because of the color of our skin.
And that's not an exaggeration.

We have no idea what it’s like to have slurs and threats hurled at us on the street because we look Middle Eastern, or wear a headscarf, or use the name “Allah” when we pray to God.

We have no idea what it’s like to be thrown out of a public bathroom because we don’t fit gender norms or thrown out of our home or our church because it’s believed we’ve shamed our families and violated God’s law. 

If we’re seeking to escape the “bad news” of white supremacy demonstrations, or vandalized synagogues, or yet another terrorist attack, then the Gospel is not the place to look. 

But if we’re looking for healing and hope, and if we’re looking to truly challenge and change our hearts – the Gospel – the Good News is exactly where we’ll find what we need.

We may look into the angry and hate-filled eyes of a Nazi sympathizer, or an Islamic terrorist, or an overtly racist politician and say that’s not us.

But like most human beings – including the disciples, the men who followed Jesus in the flesh – we too carry fear and ignorance in our hearts.

And we allow ourselves to become complacent, or to look the other way, or to say "that’s not my problem to worry about" when someone else’s pain is spilled at our feet. 

But the Good News is we’re not stuck there.

Because the Good News is found all around us.

It’s found in Nicholas Winton, who risked it all to save so many, because he believed that if something is not impossible, there must be some way of doing it.

It’s found in the tens of thousands of people who marched in Barcelona, Spain, in the wake of Thursday’s horrific terrorist attack, chanting, “We are not afraid!” and “Our strength is their weakness.”

It’s found in my clergy colleagues across all faith traditions who organized prayer services and showed up in force in Charlottesville last week and in Boston yesterday to call out the evils of racism, and march on the side of love.

The world may appear at times to be drowning under the weight of bad news, but in reality it’s groaning with the growing pains of the Good News. 

This is hard, hard stuff that Jesus is asking us to do.

To love.

To listen.
To learn.
To lean into and become the people God created us to be.   
      

Thanks be to God and Amen.