A sermon given at St. Andrew’s Church on August 20, 2023. The readings were from Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32 and Matthew 15:21-28.
Gracious God, thank you for burning up our IOUs, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
I want to give two sermons this morning. The first one is only thirty seconds long. But it’s important, because on the surface, today’s gospel (Matthew 15:21-28) appears to present a Jesus who is kind of rude and dismissive. In fact, he’s being loving, not rude. And another time, I’ll preach a sermon on how Jesus is teaching us a lesson here on the doggedness of faith.
Also, of course, this gospel reminds us that in fact, all dogs do go to heaven. Let’s be clear about that.
As well, this passage inspired the great English reformer Thomas Cranmer to write one of the magnificent prayers in our prayer book. It’s called the Prayer of Humble Access, and prayed just before receiving communion. “Lord we are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table,” thereby inviting all of us to identify with this Canaanite woman in today’s gospel.
So that’s sermon one. Sermon two, which is just a little longer, has to do with something that happened just this past week to a friend of mine who will remain anonymous.
This friend decided to send an email to herself. She had just received some important information, and she didn’t want to forget it, so she emailed herself. And it never arrived. For days, she kept checking her emails — nothing. Then, a couple of days ago, she was cleaning out the spam emails in her junk file — and there was her email.
My friend was asking for a little mercy from her computer. And instead of mercy, her computer thought that she was junk. And you can imagine how Sue Riley felt when she couldn’t get any mercy from her laptop.
Well, William Shakespeare probably wasn’t thinking about Sue’s laptop when he wrote about mercy in his play The Merchant of Venice. The lovely Portia is trying to get Shylock, a moneylender, to extend mercy to those who owe him money. She says this:
The quality of mercy is not strained, it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed: it blesseth him that gives and him that takes … It is an attribute to God himself … when mercy seasons justice.
Mercy and forgiveness are the themes of all the readings from the Bible that we’ve just heard. And maybe Portia is right — maybe the quality of mercy is not strained.
But before you and I too quickly claim that mercy and forgiveness droppeth as the gentle rain on our own particular turf, I want to ask you to think about someone who has hurt you in some way, either a little tiny hurt or a bigger one, maybe just this last week or maybe years ago.
Then, imagine that right at this moment, that person is sitting beside you in your pew. What would it be like, if you were to turn to that person and with mercy in your heart say very simply, “I forgive you”?
Now, I realize that a scene like that raises a lot of issues. The dynamics with the person you’re maybe thinking of are always complicated and multi-layered. Nonetheless, in the passages from the Bible that we’ve just heard, the word “mercy” appears all over the place.
In the psalm (Psalm 67), the psalmist cries out, “May God be merciful to us.” Think of all those who are crying out right now, in Ukraine, in Hawaii, in Baystate, for healing and mercy.
Then in the passage from Romans (11:1-2a,29-32), St. Paul says that, “You who were once disobedient have now received mercy.” Think of all the incarcerated men and women who hunger for some mercy.
Then, in today’s gospel, the Canaanite woman cries out to Jesus, “Have mercy on me.” This Canaanite woman is a foreigner. She’s an alien. She’s an outcast. Think of the outcast people in shelters and sleeping outdoors on the streets of Springfield, with a cry for mercy in their hearts.
So the passages from the Bible this morning point to the fact that real mercy, real forgiveness, can sometimes be extraordinarily difficult — difficult to receive, and difficult to give.
Several summers ago, I visited the Tower of London in England. There is a special prison cell in that Tower. It has a huge, thick oak door that blocks out all light. And inside the cell, it is so small that it’s impossible to stand upright or to lie down at full length. The cell has a nickname. It’s known as “The Cell of Little Ease.”
And that cell is a picture of what life can be like when it’s so hard for you and me to be open to receiving forgiveness — and what life can be like when it’s so hard for you and me to offer forgiveness and mercy as well.
That is why the incredible good news of the gospel this morning is that you and I define ourselves here at St. Andrew’s as the community of the forgiven.
If we were to define ourselves as the community of having-their-act-together Christians, I would have stayed in bed this morning. If we were to define ourselves as the community of brave, saintly Christians, I would have stayed in bed.
But because the gospel picture of St. Andrew’s Church is the community of the forgiven, the community of those who receive mercy, I was honestly able to get out of bed this morning with some real excitement about being here with all of you.
The key to unlock the cell of little ease is the forgiveness that is offered us in the life, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus — and in that experience, to find ourselves also free to begin to extend some mercy to others as well.
I want to close with a picture of what it’s like to get out of the cell of little ease. A young man named Kenneth Godfrey, a real person, was eighteen years old when his father died. His father had owned a gas station in a small town, and over the years he had allowed people to buy gas on credit. After he died, Kenneth and his mom tried to run the station on their own.
One day, Kenneth found a large file in a back room of the station. It was a file that listed all of the debts that the customers of his father had built up over the years. Since his dad had died, the customers had ignored what they owed. Kenneth and his mom tried to collect the debts, but to no avail. And after a year of getting nowhere, they decided to sell the gas station. But they kept that file of debts.
One Sunday afternoon some time later, Kenneth’s mom got out that file and made an announcement. “Son, there’s something that’s eating at me about these debts, and I’ve decided to do something about it.” Kenneth thought, “Well, thank goodness. We’re finally going to get a lawyer.” He said to his mother, “What are you going to do?” She said, “I’m going to forgive them.” Kenneth said, “How are you going to do that?” “Follow me,” she said, “and I’ll show you.”
They went out into the back yard. The mother gathered some sticks and made a fire in an old cookout grill. Then she opened up the file and took out one of the slips of paper. She read it out loud – “George Sullivan, $25.” She tore the paper in half, and she said, “George, wherever you are, you old goat – I forgive you.” And she threw the paper into the fire.
She looked at her son, and she said, “Kenneth, do you want to try it?” He said, “I don’t think I can.” She said, “I don’t think you have a choice. We need to get free.”
The mother continued ripping and burning the debts, while Kenneth stood there in silence. Finally, he reached slowly into the file and pulled out a debt. He read in a quiet voice, “Douglas Miner, $65.” Then he tore it up and threw it in the fire. He took out another one and glanced over at his mother. She was smiling at him. He started to smile. And then they were both laughing out loud.
It took Kenneth and his mother two hours to empty the file. By the time they were done, the oak door of their cell of little ease had swung open, and they had walked into the land of forgiveness and mercy, the land that is also known as the Kingdom of God, where their own IOU’s had been burned up a long time ago on the cross by a loving God.
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What a wonderful sermon! Thank you!