Haven't I told you a million times not to feed the dog?

This is a sermon that was preached on Sunday, August 20, 2017 at United Presbyterian Church in Sterling, KS based on Matthew 15:10-28, Isaiah 56:1-8.  Read scriptures here.

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Outsiders and Insiders. Which one are you?

It depends, maybe, on the criteria.

We’re having a special lunch today after church, but we don’t have enough for everybody, so we’re only inviting the people sitting on the north side of the sanctuary.  All of you sitting over here can come, but all of you sitting over here aren’t invited. Those of you who aren’t invited, if you want, can come by tomorrow to see if we had any leftovers.  If we do, we’ll give you the scraps.

Now, are you an insider or an outsider?  Is my criteria too loose?  All that made the difference was where you sat in church this morning. 

In the story we read from Matthew 15 today, the Pharisees consider themselves the insiders, and the Canaanite woman is the outsider.

The Jewish leaders come to question Jesus about why his disciples aren’t washing their hands before they eat.  We need to remember that this wasn’t about germs.  They didn’t know that germs existed.  The Pharisees weren’t talking about physical cleanliness, they were talking about religious purity and following the established rules and traditions.  They believed that If they touched their food with unclean hands, then they would make themselves spiritually unclean.  Jesus points out to them that they have let their rules and traditions take precedence over the word of God.  They’re missing the point.  In further explaining this to the disciples, he says, “It’s not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” (v11)  What we say reflects what’s in our hearts.

Jesus’s words make sense to me.  Apparently they also made a lot of sense to our son Tristan.  Our rule at dinner time was that the kids had to wash their hands before sitting down at the table.  As five-year-olds often do, our son would skip this step.  We would have to ask, “Did you wash your hands?”  Frequently the answer was “no” and we would send him off to wash them.  But one evening, instead of saying, “no,” he said, “But mom, it’s not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth.”  Our chins hit the floor.  We applauded his command of scripture and then sent him off to wash his hands anyway.

Are you part of the in-crowd?  Or outside the circle?

The people of Israel were God’s chosen people – the in-crowd.  The Pharisees felt it was their job to maintain the purity and integrity of the nation of Israel.  But they got so caught up in drawing lines and making sure that no one crossed them that they missed the point.  They lost sight of God’s mercy and grace.

Mercy is what the Canaanite woman comes to Jesus for.  She’s an outsider because she’s on the other side of a very old family feud.  Way back in Genesis, Noah had three sons:  Shem, Ham and Japheth.  After the flood, Noah planted a vineyard and made wine, and one day he got drunk on his wine and passed out in his tent naked.  Ham found his father naked and went and told his brothers about it.  The brothers Shem and Japheth went and covered up Noah so he wouldn’t be naked anymore. When Noah woke up and heard about what happened, he was mad at Ham for leaving him naked and telling about it.  So he cursed Ham and his descendants.[1] 

The nation of Israel is descended from Shem, and that’s why they’re called Shemites or Semites.  Shem is the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather of Abraham, who is called the Father of Israel. The nation of Canaan is descended from Ham’s son Canaan, and that’s why they’re called Canaanites.  Descendants of Shem – insiders, descendants of Canaan – outsiders, all because of a very, very, very old family feud.

The Canaanite woman isn’t complaining about being an outsider.  She knows where the lines are drawn, and she probably wouldn’t even try to cross them, but she is desperate to get help for her daughter who is tormented by a demon.  So she comes to Jesus.  She could have come saying, “I’m as good as the next person.  You should help me because I deserve this.”  But she doesn’t.  She doesn’t challenge the idea that the Israelites are the children and the Canaanites are the dogs.  She simply points out that the dogs can at least have the crumbs.  The leftovers. Jesus commends her for her faith, and heals her daughter.

We could sum up these scenes from Matthew 15 with two words:  

Mercy & Humility

Mercy is what Jesus points out that the Pharisees lack.

Mercy is what the Canaanite woman asks for.

Mercy is what Jesus came to offer.

Humility is what it would take for the Pharisees to change their rules.

Humility is what the woman showed in approaching Jesus.

Humility is what Jesus demonstrated for us on the cross.

Mercy is what God freely offers us, and what we are to offer to others.

Humility is what it takes for us to admit that we are all in need of God’s mercy.

Are we insiders or outsiders?

It depends on the criteria.  We have so many different criteria.

Whether or not we have tattoos or piercing.  In some circles, not having those makes you an outsider.

Whether or not we have funky colors in our hair, or have a particular haircut.

Whether we have a college degree, or a post-graduate degree.

Whether we attend a particular school, or speak a certain way, or come from a certain family.

Whether we are a particular gender, or behave in certain ways.

Whether we attended church today. 

Whether we attended a particular kind of church today.

Where do we draw lines?  Which side of those lines are we on?

We all draw lines in some way.  Even when we don’t mean to, we form groups and make categories.  We say things we don’t even realize we’re saying.  We apply what may seem to be harmless labels that draw boundaries.

Those old people.  Those young people. 

Those southerners.  Those northerners. 

Those people from California. 

Those rich people. Those poor people.

Are you sitting at the table or waiting for the leftovers and crumbs?

We’ve probably all been in either situation at different times and places.  Whenever we’re the ones at the table, it’s our job to make room for those who aren’t.

A group of people were standing around talking after church about general topics – the worship service, the weather, things like that.  Then two of the people start talking to each other about where they’re going for lunch.  The other people in the group weren’t invited to that lunch.  They’re suddenly no longer part of the conversation.  Inadvertently a line has been drawn.  Insiders and outsiders.  Nobody intended to shut anyone out, but it’s happened. We all do it.  We all need to work on not doing it.

There are no boundaries to God’s love.  Proverbs 2:22 says, “Rich and poor have this in common: The LORD is the Maker of them all.”  All are included.  All who seek to know God are welcome. Isaiah, in the section we read today from chapter 56, talks about this.  Foreigners and eunuchs were traditionally shunned, but Isaiah 56:5 says that “they shall not be cut off…these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer…for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”

From the beginning, the call was to bless all people. 

• In Genesis, Abraham was promised that through him all the nations of the earth would be blessed. 
• In Deuteronomy and Leviticus, Israel was told to welcome foreigners because they were once foreigners in Egypt.

But we keep finding ways to shut each other out.  It’s human nature.

• It was happening all the way back in the story of Noah. 
• It was happening during the time of Isaiah.
• It was happening in Jesus’ time. 

It was happening some more when Paul writes his letter to the Romans.  The book of Romans is Paul’s argument for inclusion of both Jewish and Gentile Christians in their fellowships.  By Paul’s time, the gentile Christians were shutting out the Jews, and were claiming to be superior because the Jews had rejected the gospel.  The Jewish Christians claimed superiority because they came first and were circumcised.  Paul makes the point that neither was superior.  All were equally sinful in the eyes of God and equally in need of salvation through faith in Jesus. (Rom. 3)

Let me tell you a story you may have heard before from Dr. Suess about the

Sneetches.  There are two kinds – those who have stars on their bellies and those who have none.

Those stars weren’t so big.  They were really so small

You might think such a thing wouldn’t matter at all.

But, because they had stars, all the Star-Belly Sneetches

Would brag, “We’re the best kind of Sneetch on the beaches.”

With their snoots in the air, they would sniff and they’d snort

“We’ll have nothing to do with the Plain-Belly sort!”

So, of course, those without stars felt bad and left out, and wished they had stars.  Then one day Sylvester McMonkey McBean comes along with a machine, and says

                “You want stars like a Star-Belly Sneetch?

                My friends, you can have them for three dollars each!”

But then everyone has stars, and those who had been declaring themselves superior are upset.  Sylvester McMonkey McBean fixes this for them, too.  His machine takes the stars OFF their bellies.

Then, with snoots in the air, they paraded about

And they opened their beaks and they let out a shout,

“We know who is who!  Now there isn’t a doubt.

The best kind of Sneetches are Sneetches without!”

Then things went crazy and the Sneetches were changing their stars every few minutes, and no one knew who was who, and then when they had spent all their money, the man with the machine packed up and went.

And he laughed as he drove in his car up the beach,

“They never will learn, No. You can’t teach a Sneetch!”

But McBean was quite wrong, I’m quite happy to say

That the Sneetches got really quite smart on that day,

The day they decided that Sneetches are Sneetches

And no kind of Sneetch is the best on the beaches.

That day, all the Sneetches forgot about stars

And whether they had one, or not, upon thars.[2]

Sneetches are Sneetches and people are people.  We’re all guilty of drawing lines and shutting people out at different times and in different ways, even if we don’t realize it. 

That special lunch I said we were having after church?  We aren’t really.  But Jesus has prepared a special banquet for us all.  It’s a feast of love and forgiveness.  A heavenly banquet. Everyone is invited.  

It doesn’t matter how old you are or where you were born or what family you’re from or what credentials you have, or where you sat today.

All that’s required is faith…

…Faith in the one who though he was God didn’t consider equality with God as something to cling to, but instead emptied himself…becoming human… taking the form of a slave, and humbled himself…being obedience even to the point of death on a cross. (Phil. 2:6-8)

Therefore God also highly exalted him
    and gave him the name
    that is above every name,
 so that at the name of Jesus
    every knee should bend,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
 and every tongue should confess
    that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

(Phillippians 2:9-11)

God sent his Son because He loves us all.  Let us be thankful that we know Jesus, and share his love with everyone we meet, so they can know the joy of knowing him, too.

Everyone is welcome!

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[1] Genesis 9:18-28

[2] Dr. Suess, The Sneetches and Other Stories (Random House, 1953)


P.S. Sometimes energy and resources can only go so far, so there have to be guidelines and boundaries.  Being the one behind the counter was challenging and very often heart-wrenching. At the food bank in Galveston, we had to follow guidelines.  When people came asking for food, the first question was always, “Do you live in this county?  If not, I’m sorry but we can’t help you."  On the one hand that is a reasonable requirement.  There are food banks in every county.  It makes the most sense that people would go to the one closest to them....but what if we were the closest?  And what if they had no transportation? The next step was to see something that showed their address – a driver’s license, a utility bill.  Again, this seems reasonable.  But sometimes this was the insurmountable challenge.  What if they were homeless? What if they had lost their ID?  Getting a new ID costs money, and if you have to get copies of a birth certificate, social security card, and/or marriage license, even more money.  In Texas, if you’ve been in jail, you come out of jail with no ID because you don’t get it back.  So often we made exceptions to the rule.  The first time, you still get food, even without ID.  I was so thankful for this exception.