Sermon for the 12th Sunday after Trinity

Sunday 14th August

Preached by Rev Paul Hewitt

Do you remember a couple of Sundays ago I mentioned to you that I had been on a kind of mini retreat down with the Benedictine monks in Rostrevor? Well, I met there a Parish Priest from St Oliver Plunkett’s Parish in West Belfast. In my day (and I sound like an old man, now) but parish priests were always old and grey. Not this time. We exchanged email addresses and we arranged to meet up some time for coffee and a chat, which I was very willing to do. And then he had the idea of inviting me to a performance of the Three Tenors that he had tickets for in Clonard Monastery. It was part of the West Belfast Feile! Before the event, there was a reception for invited guests. I even had my picture taken with Fr. Martin and Ken Newell, former Moderator, indeed. So it was that kind of evening, I even met up with the former organist in St. Patrick’s Ballymena, who now heads the School of Music in Belfast, Joe McKee. While we were all chatting, who would walk in to the room but Gerry Adams, the MP for West Belfast. I couldn’t believe it, but no one batted an eyelid.

The evening with the Celtic Tenors was a complete joy and not to be missed. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it. But I couldn’t wait to get home to tell them that I not only had been in the same room as Gerry Adams (an accomplishment that half our politicians couldn’t manage) but that I was also practically sitting beside him at the concert!

To get there in the first place, I had driven up the Falls Road and past that huge Police Station that isn’t there any more, and went right up the Glen Road. You may know it. I had been there before, because any rare visitors that we have to stay with us from the South always want to see all the hot spots. This was one of them, I thought. St. Oliver Plunkett’s was at the top of Glen Road in Glenveagh Drive. After a fairly brief chat (because I got lost) we travelled down to Clonard Monastery, which was towards town, off the Falls Road.

I think it’s fair to say (and you may appreciate this) that I was not on familiar territory!

Mathew 15: 21-28 is one of those weird passages of which commentators say different things! Apart from anything else, this passage describes the only occasion on which Jesus was ever outside of Jewish territory. He had gone far north through Galilee until he came to the land of Tyre and Sidon where the Phoenicians lived. And there he meets this extraordinary woman. Not only a Gentile, she belonged to the old Canaanite stock, the ancestral enemies of the Jewish people. As the Jewish historian, Josephus, would write of them, “Of all people, they have the most ill-feeling towards us”. He was outside his familiar territory, and he seemed to react to this woman in a very strange way. Certainly, his disciples, although she had referred to Jesus as the ‘Son of David’ wanted her appeals for her daughter to be silenced. But she begged him on her knees. She even accepted the contemptible term of abuse, and there is real banter between her and Jesus, and even after all that, here’s the thing…she answers him back! I cannot imagine that a smile does not appear on Jesus’ face when he says, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted” and, as it says, her daughter was healed from that very hour. I think we see a very human Jesus here. I think he has learnt here something most of us Gentile men have known for some time; you never mess with gentile women!!

At the end of the day, this Gospel message is not for the Jewish people alone. Jesus had to go to them first, otherwise it would seem God had made a mistake in choosing them to be his special people. Now things have changed. Jesus constantly broke barriers. Even after his ascension, the early, mainly Jewish Church, argued over the gentiles right to the Kingdom. Thank goodness, at least that controversy has been resolved. Now it’s only the gentiles that are arguing between themselves! Do we ever learn?

I wonder is our ‘ministry’ as ordinary Christians only really valuable if we are prepared to step outside our familiar territory. We label people far too quickly; we categorise people far too quickly. Little Amy has not been baptised as Church of Ireland, no one is ever baptised into a denomination, Amy is baptised now in to the Church of God, that’s it!

Whatever about the controversy of Jew and Gentile, I just wish that some of the Gentiles would ever get their act together!

There was a Jewish man named Levi who was troubled by the life his son had chosen, and he went to see his old friend Mordecai about it.
“Mordecai”, he said, I brought my son up in the Jewish faith, gave him a very expensive bar mitzvah, and paid a fortune to educate him. Then he tells me last week he’s decided to be a Christian. Where did I go wrong?”
“Funny you should come to me,” said Mordecai, “I too brought my son up in the faith, sent him to the best schools at great expense, only to find out that he converted to the Christian faith.
The two men decided to ask their rabbi for advice.
“Funny you should come to me,” said the rabbi after hearing the mens’ stories. Like you two, I brought my boy up in the faith and put him through the university, which cost me a fortune. Then one day he too tells me he has decided to become a Christian”.
“And what did you do?” the men asked.
“I turned to God for the answer” replied the rabbi.
“And what did he say?” the two men questioned.
God said…”Funny you should come to me…”

The good news of the gospel is for everyone. “The same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on his name” (Rom 10:12). Why can’t we remember this more often, whether we are on unfamiliar territory or not?