"A House of Prayer for All Peoples"

The Rev. Robert P. Travis

Pentecost 15A RCL

Sunday Sermon – 8 and 10:30am Service, Church of the Ascension, Knoxville TN

8/14/2011

Scripture Text: Isaiah 56:1,6-8, Psalm 67, Romans 11:1-2a,29-32, Matthew 15:(10-20),21-28

Sermon Text:

When I was in New York City for college,

I attended the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

It was the closest Episcopal Church to where I lived,

little more than 2 blocks from me.

I'm sure I've told some of you this story,

but it came back to me in a strong way when I read the passage from Isaiah today,

because that church liked to proclaim itself,

“a house of prayer for all peoples.”

What they meant by that, and what the Lord meant,

in Isaiah are very different things.

I found that they were trying to welcome people of diverse cultural backgrounds and even different religions.

But my experience as a young college student

had been different.

I called their office the week I arrived at college,

to volunteer as an acolyte, since at that point,

I had been serving as an acolyte at my home

Episcopal Church for 9 years,

I figured I was pretty good at it,

and that it might be a good way

to get involved in the congregation.

They didn't call me back.

I tried a few more times, undaunted.

I finally got someone on the phone who told me,

in a very arrogant sort of way

that they were not interested

in having me serve,

because really only adults do that at the Cathedral.

Of course I was insulted,

for even though I was just 18 years old,

I felt rather like an adult, being in college and all.

I quickly found out, after going there for a few Sundays,

that this church, a great Cathedral,

on the perimeter of a great university,

did not have any outreach

or ministries to the college next door,

and no one under 40 served in their worship.

Very few college students attended that church,

most Sundays, besides myself

I counted one or two others.

To me, it was not a welcoming house of prayer

for Christian college students.

Yet that same church, I learned from my workstudy boss,

who was a practitioner of the Wiccan religion,

a witch if you will,

welcomed witches to have ceremonies and perform pagan, wiccan marriages in the church,

all in the name of being

“a house of prayer for all peoples.”

Back then I felt they were missing something,

Now that I look again at the Isaiah passage

they seemed to love,

I realize that they were missing something,

like the whole first part of the sentence.

That sentence indeed talks about welcoming foreigners,

but not so that they can worship some other God.

It describes “the foreigners

who join themselves to the LORD,

to minister to Him,

to love the name of the LORD,

and to be his servants. . .

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.”

Of course we want to make the house of the Lord,

a house of prayer for all peoples,

but let us not be misguided into thinking that He

wants us all to worship someone else besides Himself.

The people of Israel, to whom Isaiah was prophesying

were not in danger of being overly welcoming,

but in being too exclusive,

but that came from experience, and a fear,

that when they mixed with other cultures,

and other religions,

they themselves lost sight

of the one true God who chose them.

But in holding to the tradition,

and keeping themselves safe from foreign influence

they lost sight of what the original intention

behind their chosen-ness was,

that God was going to make them a light to the world,

and reach the people of the world through them.

They missed the heart of the commandment,

in overly concerning themselves

with keeping the surface pure.

That's the situation that Jesus and his disciples found,

hundreds of years later when the Pharisees

were so careful about holding fast

to a rigid practice of rules

based on the Old Testament Law.

They lost sight of the love of God, and one another,

that the Law was meant to foster.

So Jesus says something that makes perfect sense to us,

but really challenged their way of thinking,

that “it is not what goes into the mouth

that defiles a person,

but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.”

Of course the Pharisees were offended when Jesus

said that, and that's what his disciples reported to him,

because they were laying all the importance

on the outward practice of the religion,

with all its dietary and purity laws,

but losing sight of what came from their hearts,

and the spirit with which they taught others

to follow them.

But Jesus was a part of that same exclusive people,

he was born and raised a member of the tribe of Judah.

And his understanding of himself, was as the messiah,

Who would redeem the lost sheep of Israel.

And so what seem like two separate stories,

In our Gospel this morning,

are tied together with the way Jesus talks to

the Canaanite woman.

Now remember, the Canaanites were the people

Who were in the promised land

before God brought the Israelites out of Egypt

and gave it to them,

they were the very source of the problem with foreigners

and pagan Gods that the whole Old Testament describes.

The Canaanites were the ones who worshipped Baal,

the Golden Calf, or Ashtaroth,

or Molech, or any number of other Gods.

Generally the Jews thought of all the gentiles as dogs,

much like the Greeks called anyone

who was not Greek a barbarian.

The Jewish religion had developed to the point,

that it was part of their chosen-ness as God's people,

to think that the Canaanites especially,

were not equal to them.

But notice how this Canaanites woman

the one who approaches Jesus

In the gentile region of Tyre and Sidon is different,

right from the start,

and how she is similar to the foreigners

who Isaiah describes.

She comes out saying,

“Have mercy on me Lord, Son of David...”

Isaiah talks about foreigners

“who join themselves to the LORD,

to love the name of the LORD.”

She is calling Jesus Lord, recognizing who he is

as the Son of David who is the Lord God.

Jesus doesn't respond to her,

which was very normal for his culture,

but He tells his disciples

that he was “sent only to the lost sheep

of the house of Israel.”

So when she persists, he explains,

in a way that seems derogatory to us,

but was so common as to be expected from a Jewish man,

“It is not fair to take the children's food,

and throw it to the dogs.”

We know that he knew the scriptures, and certainly

that he was familiar with Isaiah, for he quoted it before.

So I think this encounter opened his human eyes

a little more to what it meant to be divine.

Undaunted by his refusal,

she says “yes, Lord,”

again, there she calls him Lord.

“yet even the dogs eat the crumbs

that fall from their master's table.”

She acknowledges her place outside the chosen people,

and acknowledges him as master not just of the Jews,

but of the dogs, the foreigners too.

I have to believe that at this point Jesus was reminded

of the prophecy of Isaiah,

that spoke of God broadening his blessing

to those who worshipped him outside of Israel.

And so Jesus show us how to be redeemed when our mouths seem to defile us,

for his mouth might have defiled him there,

had he continued to refuse her.

I know if I had been in his place,

and this person had challenged me,

I probably would have gotten upset, and dug my heels in,

but Jesus recognized her humility,

and her faith in him,

as the Son of God, and praised that faith,

and healed her daughter.

Some might look at this passage and say,

How could Jesus have talked to her like that?

But I believe, and was strengthened in this by

a comment made in the Women's Bible Study this week

that Jesus recognized in that moment,

in himself the same problem that he was just criticizing

in the religion of the Pharisees.

The problem was that just because they were chosen

and set apart, did not mean that the Jews were

the exclusive interest of God,

He wanted them to reach all people.

To be a light to the world, from out of their special place.

Jesus knew he was called to gather the outcasts of Israel,

but the second half of that sentence in Isaiah,

says the Lord will gather others to them,

besides those already gathered.

So in his humanness, Jesus was able to learn, grow,

and recognize the scope of what it meant to be divine.

We too are always challenged to learn and grow,

and recognize what it means to becoming like God,

as children of God.

And like the Jews we are called to reach out and be a light

To those around us who do not experience the special

Status we enjoy as children of the One True God.

We cannot remain smug in our practice

Of our beautiful religion,

Pretending that this is all that matters to God.

We are called to connect with others

who call God their Lord,

or even those who are exploring that,

but aren’t sure what it really means.

We must allow ourselves to be challenged by others,

even when they are different from us,

younger than we think acceptable,

or older than we are comfortable with.

Maybe the ones who will open our eyes,

are from a different kind of upbringing,

or have a different way of life.

However they do it,

however they push us out of our comfortable preconceptions,

they are important to us,

and we cannot grow without them.

One way to find such people,

And grow in your knowledge of how

God is growing you as a disciple of Jesus,

Is through The Koinonia Groups

that we are getting started, here at Ascension.

They are a potential way to meet people like this,

to connect deeply with people

we might not otherwise know meet,

so that we can grow together as disciples of the Lord.

There are other ways to do that here at Ascension too,

but all require that we become involved.

We cannot allow our religion to be a surface expression,

but to experience God's blessing in our lives,

we must go deeper and allow our hearts to be changed.

When everyone, regardless of background,

age, experience, or other difference

is open to that change,

and worships the one true Lord,

then His house will truly be called

“a house of prayer for all peoples.”