What can we say August 20? 12th after Pentecost

    Genesis 45:1-15. Who would relinquish the chance to preach on the OT here? I have not found a way to improve upon what I wrote on Genesis 45, which I regard as the theological high water mark in all of Scripture, not just the Old Testament, the last time the lectionary favored us with this riveting, emotional drama. So I refer you there… where I ponder this story with illustrations from Rivendell (Lord of the Rings!), Good Will Hunting, J.D. Vance, and Andrew Lloyd Webber! I neglected there to touch on Psalm 133: Genesis 45 illustrates how we flail and brothers don’t love or dwell in unity; and the exceedingly high cost ad the labor of reconciliation required for unity.

   Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32. I was floored recently when I reviewed a video featuring Tim Keller – whom I've admired, but now he's gone – saying he had high hopes for Christianity abroad, and some for evangelicals here, but he’d pretty much given up on mainline Protestantism in America. So very human, such giving up. Paul hasn’t given up, even on the Jews who’ve not just been a different version of Christianity from the one he’d prefer; they’ve flat out rejected Christ! It’s not Paul’s hope, of course. It’s what he knows about God.

   “God has not rejected his people he foreknew.” There it is. God made Israel, called them, destined them – so they cannot be lost. God’s claim on Israel is (after the lectionary skips right over 25 crucial verses!) “irrevocable.” Romans 9-11 is a rich text rife with possibilities for an in-class Bible study – but to preach it? It’s so complex, there’s so much ambiguity (and not just in the commentaries!).

   Matthew 15:21-28. Oh my, that peculiar episode where the woman won’t take No for an answer, upbraiding Jesus himself. She asks for mercy – for her daughter, of course, but then any parent who’s watched a child suffer needs mercy too. What to do with this blunt repartee? Floyd Filson, in his 1960 commentary on Matthew, suggested that he winked at her when he spoke these words, implying insider status for this one. Or was it a clever ploy on Jesus’ part to evoke deeper faith in her, or those watching?

   Jesus did come to Israel – not for them alone but so they might be spurred on to their mission to be the light to the world. Morna Hooker, noting how Jesus confined his attention to the Jews, suggested that “the Gentile woman requests a cure outside the context of Jesus’ call to Israel; she seems to be asking for a cure which is detached from the in-breaking of God’s kingdom, merely taking advantage of the opportunity provided by the presence of a miracle worker. This is perhaps the reason for Jesus’ stern answer; his healings are part of something greater and cannot be torn out of that context.”

   Joel Marcus is mindful of the history of bad blood between Tyrians and Galileans – and how the farm produce of Galilee so often wound up in Tyre, while the peasants in Galilee went hungry. So Jesus’ words make a bit of compassionate sense. Or should we suggest, as many have, that Jesus had a growing moment, a learning experience, a maturation in himself? Mistakenly, he turned her away – and her persistence cracked open a bit of hardness in Jesus’ Jewishness to leave space for a desperate Gentile? Depending on the height of your view of Jesus’ humanity, this may or may not work.

   Luke tells us "Jesus grew in wisdom" (chapter 2) - so I'm okay with Jesus growing in his openness to Gentiles. It's her faith that moves him - and so WHY are we appalled he's so slow to come around when we can be very content with ourselves when confronted with the deep faith of an immigrant, a gay person, a black person, and yet we're reticent to view them as one with us??

   Martin Luther examined this text and thought of the ways Christians are to persist in trusting God, even when God seems to turn his back on them. They must learn to see the ‘yes’ hidden in his ‘no.’  Much wisdom here – although the preacher dare not resort to trifling ideas such as those articulated in Garth Brooks’s crooning “Unanswered Prayers.”

   The woman’s persistence has recently been likened to the persistence of women right insisting on their place in the church. “Nevertheless, She Persisted” became a popular slogan, t-shirt and hashtag this year. Persistence of all kinds is a biblical thing, falsifying the absurd notion of God’s will being associated with “the door was open.” Many open doors we most surely should not walk through. And many closed and bolted doors should be knocked down.

   I am fond of Sheila Nelson-McJilton’s probing sermon, “Crumbs” – cited in Leonora Tubbs Tisdale’s great book, Prophetic Preaching. “Crumbs. That’s all they are looking for. Crumbs. Not the whole life. Not even a slice. Just crumbs. You and I want the whole loaf…” – and then she speaks of our wealth, access, all the poor lack. But then she presses further: “Crumbs. They want more than crumbs because deep in their souls, they know they deserve more. And yet they often do not know who to ask or how to ask…”

   And how often have we said (by our lives if not our words) "It isn't fair to give the bread of the children to the dogs?" We care for ourselves first, the fine wine, the grand destinations, the nice house - but then if we have a few crumbs leftover we'll share with the poor. Or when we do something like make sandwiches for the poor, we buy the cheapest bread and the deli meat that's off-brand and on sale. Crumbs...

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   Let me refer you to my Festival of Homiletics lecture, "Hope as Arsenic," on when we offer to much, or not enough, or the wrong kind of hope. Very important for us who preach!!