over the water

This is a difficult story, there’s no doubt. First of all, Jesus challenges our traditions, our touchstones, and tells us off for defiling our language and our relationships with our unclean hearts.

And then directly afterwards he has this interaction with a woman of Canaan.

First, he ignores her. Then, he denies her. And after that, he insults her with a proverb.

Her retort is not a witty comeback, a clever piece of wordplay designed to disarm him, to make him laugh, giving as good as she takes. This woman is on her knees before him, comparing herself to a dog begging under the table for scraps of food, begging him in the language of his temple, his Psalms, Son of David – she cries out not in her own language, not in the language of Canaan and the Baals, not the language of her people but of his – she is on her knees and she is going all out to try to convert him to compassion even for her, even for the enemy of the Israelites, even for the enemy of their God.

Does she even believe in the God of Israel? Who knows? But she believes that Jesus can help her. He is her daughter’s way out of trouble and into a new life.

And at the end of the brief exchange, Jesus does heal her daughter, and he goes on to heal many of her neighbours, and even to share with them the bread of life, the selfsame miracle with which he had fed the lost sheep of the house of Israel, with baskets of broken pieces left over once more to take home and extend the feast.

Preaching on this story back in the fourth century, St John Chrysostom said,

“For both Christ went out of His borders, and the woman out of her borders, and so it became possible for them to fall in with each other: thus He says, Behold a woman of Canaan coming out of her own coasts.”

and again,

 “Do you see how this woman too contributed not a little to the healing of her daughter? For to this purpose neither did Christ say, Let your little daughter be made whole, but, Great is your faith, be it unto you even as you will; to teach you that the words were not used at random, nor were they flattering words, but great was the power of her faith.”

This meeting, in other words, has ramifications far beyond this woman and her daughter. By coming out to meet Jesus, by inviting him into her heart, her home, into relationship with her, a Canaanite with whom no relationship was possible for a traditional Jew; by meeting him halfway, this woman becomes a bridge between her people and his. Jesus has just said that the traditions and rituals of the Pharisees were less important than the commandments upon our hearts, to love God and our neighbour; and here is the proof: that through a meeting that crosses traditional boundaries, in a moment when enemies become co-conspirators in an act of healing, a woman receives mercy for her daughter, and it is through her faith that many are healed.

This has been a really difficult week in America. Behind it all is the story yet to be fully told of the death of a young man whose parents have hardly had the breath yet to grieve. In the forefront, we have seen the spectacle of camouflaged police offers perched on military vehicles aiming long guns at the residents they are sworn to serve. We have heard the stories of those gassed and arrested and assaulted like enemies.The image of a city at war with its own citizens has been hard to bear.

What has helped, in the past couple of days, has been the reaching out of relationship. Once people put themselves on the same side of the barricades, once the people with the firepower, and, let’s face it, all kinds of power; once some of them were willing to stand next to instead of over the people without it, there came in the night a glimmer of hope, a small spark of peace.

Churches in and around Ferguson, Missouri, including the Episcopal diocese, have been praying, marching, meeting, lifting up those around them. They know that it is by reaching out, crossing borders, flaunting barricades to hold hands with one another that healing begins. They have learnt from the encounter between Jesus and the Canaanite woman that there is no such person on our borders as the enemy, no one who must be outcast, no one who does not need and deserve mercy, and the love of God.

It is the call of the churches to be, to build those bridges across barriers, to allow grace and mercy to flow freely, so that all may feast together. We are all in need, kneeling at the feet of Christ, and we say, here, that we have the faith to make things happen. We dare not be the blind leading the blind. We have to open our eyes to see the chasms between us and our neighbours, the people who live just across our street, whom we never see. We have to find out where those fissures lie, so that we can begin to build those bridges. We dare not be the blind leading the blind.

We can begin by acknowledging the things in our own hearts that defile us, the prejudice, the enmity, the disgust. We can begin by cleaning up the language that comes out of our mouths, remembering that promise we made at our baptism, not to stand on our own dignity, but to uphold the dignity of every human being. We dare not call anyone dogs.

We dare not call anyone dogs.

The disciples could not bear her pain and they begged Jesus to send her away. We have seen, to, this week how hard it is to hold another’s pain. In the suicide of Robin Williams, we have recognized our own blindness in the darkening face of depression. It is difficult to build a bridge across that deep chasm, but we can keep reaching out, offering our hands to hold onto. If nothing else, we can hold out hope.

The disciples could not bear her pain, and they begged Jesus to send her away. We dare not send her away, because we too are in need of God’s mercy; we have seen our sisters and brothers, we have known ourselves tormented by demons. We know our own need.

Many of you grew up, as I did, reciting the Prayer of Humble Access from the Book of Common Prayer each time we came to the Communion table. Today might be a good day to revive it in our hearts:

“We do not presume to come to this thy table, o merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in your manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table. But thou art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy…”

Amen. Lord, have mercy.

*Chrysostom homily quoted from

http://www.grtbooks.com/exitfram.asp?idx=0&yr=347&aa=AA&at=AA&ref=chrysostom&URL=http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2001.htm

My father was three years old when war broke out in 1939. The following year, decreased food imports because of submarine activity led to the rationing of meat and other food items in Britain. As the war continued, more foods were rationed. Each family’s allowance was itemized in a book to be shown to the shopkeeper to claim one’s rations. Adults were allowed one egg per week. Even after the war, rationing continued; in fact, it was the year after the war ended that bread was added to the rations list. Rations were finally lifted the year my father turned eighteen. He had gone through all of his childhod savouring and saving every last scrap of food, to make sure that there was always enough to go around.[1]

So it was the remainder that got to me, at the end of it all; the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. These were surely not gathered up to be thrown away. These broken pieces had to mean more than mere leftovers.

We can imagine the scene. The people sit on the ground beside the water’s edge, on the grass. You can hear the psalm murmured among them:

The Lord is my shepherd; he makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. (Psalm 23)

But the men are counted in military formation, apart from their women and children; they sit by the thousand, regimented, with the women and children off to the sides.

You have spread a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. (Psalm 23)

At the centre of it all, Jesus takes fish and bread, looks up to heaven, blesses and breaks the loaves, and gives them to the disciples, who in turn share them amongst the crowds, those counted and those besides. And when all was said and done, they gathered up twelve baskets full of broken pieces.

Those who live with rationing – those who go hungry so that their children can eat; those who can’t heat their houses or who have to choose between shelter and much-needed medicine; the underfed, the underpaid and underappreciated – they know what it’s like to pick up the broken pieces around the edges, that others leave behind.

There are other broken pieces.

I’m thinking of the people of Gaza, after a failed ceasefire, suffering the continued killing of their children. I think about the brokenness of a region, a country which has so far failed to forge a nation of peace out of peoples at war; too many broken pieces on both sides of the security division, but especially those children. I remember that horrible phrase, “collateral damage”; those counted afterwards, besides.

I’m thinking of the broken families that peel off a part of their own hearts, and send their children across another border fence, seeking safety through desert wanderings, hoping for the best. Broken pieces of families living in fear of becoming leftovers; unimportant side characters in a story centred on the gangs and their violence; disposable red shirts; those counted besides.

On Friday, international inspectors were finally allowed back into the area where the Malaysian airliner was shot down, presumably by Russian rebels, over Ukraine two weeks ago. A reporter told of belongings strewn across the fields, untouched; the broken pieces of so many lost lives, tossed aside by the explosion and the crash. And on the ground, and all around; so many broken pieces besides.

In western Africa, in the midst of a different kind of terror, not of anyone’s making but the opportunism of disease, care workers risk their own health and wholeness to gather in the sick and minister to them. They carry grace into the valley of the shadow of death, and those walking through it lean on their shoulders.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. (Psalm 23)

In Gaza, an Episcopal hospital, Al Ahli, continues to pray for the peace of Jerusalem not only in words but in action, binding the wounds of the broken, bringing grace into the valley of the shadow of death.

Grace is not scarce, not even here, nor in Guatemala, nor in Guinea nor in Gaza; grace is not scarce, and it is never rationed; and it is never thrown away.

Of course, the central action of the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand is that of the Eucharist; Jesus takes bread, blesses it – which means to give thanks for it – breaks it and distributes it to the hungry.

But Jesus employs his disciples throughout this episode, and in its aftermath. First, he tells them, “You feed the people.” Do not let your neighbour go hungry, for bread or for grace. Jesus feeds the disciples first, then he has them go out and share what they have received with the others; moving through the sections of five thousand men, with women and children besides, distributing the bread and the fish, and the blessings. Finally, when all is said and done, he has them gather in and gather up the broken pieces. Nothing is tossed aside. Nothing is wasted. Nothing is left to be trampled underfoot. And no one is left out.

The Eucharistic prayer that we have been using this summer contains the petitions:

Deliver us from the presumption of coming to this Table for solace only, and not for strength; for pardon only, and not for renewal. Let the grace of this Holy Communion make us one body, one spirit in Christ, that we may worthily serve the world in his name. (Holy Eucharist II, Prayer C)

Whether we identify with the disciples in the story, who serve as the primary ministers of food, of grace; whether we see ourselves among the crowds, following, waiting, hanging on Jesus’ every word as it feeds us; whether we feel at times as though we are the ones who get the broken pieces; prayers answered differently than we might have liked; still, it is grace, to know that God hears our prayers, gives us our daily bread, one way or another. “We who are many are one body, for we all share in the one bread.”

We bring our own brokenness to the altar, to the Lord, and we are told to go now and gather up the remainder, so that nothing is lost; that we may worthily serve the world in Christ’s name. The feast of grace that we share is not for us alone. It is for those besides, who hunger for the body of God, who thirst for grace. No fragment of grace is too small to share. None is too broken to be gathered in.

Lord God of our Fathers and Mothers; God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ: Open our eyes to see your hand at work in the world about us. Deliver us from the presumption of coming to this Table for solace only, and not for strength; for pardon only, and not for renewal. Let the grace of this Holy Communion make us one body, one spirit in Christ, that we may worthily serve the world in his name.

Risen Lord, be known to us in the breaking of the bread. Amen. (Holy Eucharist II Prayer C)

[1] rationing information from http://www.primaryhomeworkhelp.co.uk/war/rationing2.html