over the water

I feel as though the lectionary has been leading us on. It started a few weeks ago, with the feeding of the multitude, and the reminder that the Eucharist was given not only for us but for all of those left over, for whom baskets of broken pieces were gathered up and saved, in order that no one should go hungry; neither those on the grass beside the Sea of Galilee nor those left behind; and the disciples were charged with taking care of the distribution.

Then we had Peter stepping out of the boat, and the woman of Canaan coming out to her own borders, both taking their faith in their hands and stepping out of their comfort zones to meet Jesus at least halfway; one with a little faith and one with a lot, each did what they could and each caused a miracle to happen.

Last week, we stepped outside and sat together in the shade, on the grass, and we talked about what Jesus means to us, who he is to us, and whether we should tell anyone else about him.

And now Paul tells us, the church,

Love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.

Love one another; contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.

The other week, I posted an article on facebook which was roundly damning of churches that look only inward, doing only in-reach, instead of looking outward, offering outreach. 

The consensus on our facebook page is that this critique was all well and good in a way – but a church surely needs to take care of its members as well as its mission. It is by being a community of the Holy Spirit that we get the inspiration to share our spiritual and material gifts with the world. We need to pay attention to Paul’s exhortation to love one another with mutual affection, without lagging in zeal, being patient and persevering.

But one of the reasons that we need to do it is that it is excellent practice for extending hospitality to strangers. A few weeks ago, there was plenty of giggling and whispering around the changing of seats after the Peace – and a few new introductions were made. Out of forty-three people in the building, three of whom were the priest, the musician and an infant, each of whom had arguably less freedom in their seating choice than the other forty – so out of forty people in the building, a few had never even met, although they’d worshipped within sight of one another week by week. We can think, perhaps, of loving one another with mutual affection, in this safe and small community, as practice in reaching out, introducing ourselves, loving our other neighbours.

And it shows on the outside, too. When you show up to visit one another in the hospital or at home; when you drive one another to doctor’s appointments, or sit with one another waiting for news, people notice. They notice who shows up. They know whether or not this is a real community of mutual affection by who shows up on the outside, when a neighbour is in need.

We do it for ourselves, for our own community of saints; but it also lets others know that we are open to mutual affection, that there is a chance of a welcome here, hospitality to the stranger.

William Temple, a rather wonderful twentieth-century Archbishop of Canterbury, is often quoted as saying that the church is the only society that exists for the benefit of those who are not its members (although there are so many variants of the quote that I have to wonder what he really said; also, I wonder if he considered God a member?). Likewise, a book on Missional Church noes that, “We have begun to see that the church of Jesus Christ is not the purpose or goal of the gospel, but rather its instrument and witness,” that is, as wonderful and sacramental and good as the church is, it is not an end in itself.

We’ve taken some baby steps. We are praying for the city through the Euclid prayer walks. We are, largely through the dedicated zeal of Cyrus and his band of volunteers, forging ahead with re-starting the community meal: in fact, that’s a great example of the intersection of the gospel and the world, our servanthood and our leadership. We are serving food to anyone who needs it, regardless of religion or demographic or any other human marker of worth or values. That’s important. Showing hospitality to strangers has to be unconditional. Conditional hospitality is not hospitable at all. We offer this food, this meal to our neighbours because Jesus told us that when we do, we feed him. We offer this meal because we have promised at our baptism to seek and serve Christ in all persons, and would we see him go hungry? We do not ask for anything in return – not even a prayer. And yet that very act of self-giving, of unconditional laying down and giving up raises up disciples. It raises us up first. We re-learn what it means to be disciples, distributing the bounty that Jesus has provided for us, dividing it among the multitudes. We invite others to help us – in working with St Bartholomew’s, we are acting out and actively building those bonds of mutual affection, that we all may be one as Jesus and his Father are one. When we say that we do this for the sake of God’s love for God’s world, then we preach the gospel in word and deed. And people see that. They see whether this is a community that lives its faith, that loves God and neighbour.

We tend to think in terms of either/or. Serve the community within or the community without. Us or them. Peter was afraid to choose one way over another; he was afraid that Jesus, heading towards Jerusalem and the cross, was narrowing his options. The resurrection proved otherwise. But the thing is, when it comes to the gospel, we really can have it all. We can feed the five thousand and have baskets of broken pieces left over. We can get out of the boat and walk on the very water. Given that we worship one who can both die and live forever, we really should be able to understand that we get to have it all.

Where is the gospel? We have it. It is right here. It is in our heart, in our hearts, it is in our souls and in our singing, it is in our bodies and yes, in our building, in the memories it holds and the music it emits and the spire silhouetted at sunset. And it is out there, in the empty horizon and in the knowledge that God’s Spirit breathes over the whole earth and not only over us, that there are baskets of broken pieces left over, that we carry with us, to distribute within a broken, hurting and ever-hopeful world. A world full of strangers reaching for a little holy hospitality.

So where is the gospel leading us? Wherever we choose to preach it.

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