SERMON AT ST. MARY’S PARISH CHURCH, ALDERBURY - SUNDAY 20th AUGUST 2023 – ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY
GENESIS
45:1-15; MATTHEW 15:10-28
May I speak in the name of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and
Holy Spirit and may these words be yours and bless all those who hear them.
Amen.
Shalom! ……. The traditional Jewish greeting, but what does
“Shalom” actually mean? …
Yes, “Peace” but what sort of peace. Certainly, at this moment in time, the world
could do with a lot more peace when we consider all the conflicts which there
are ongoing today – Niger, Yemen, Somalia, Myanmar and of course Ukraine. I am sure it will not surprise you to know
that since the end of the Second World War in 1945, not a single week has gone
past without there being a conflict or war somewhere on our planet.
On the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus set out the eight Beatitudes
– listing those classes of people who would receive especial blessings from
God. One of those (in Matthew 5:9) is
“Blessed are the Peacemakers; for they will be called the Children of God”; so,
it seems logical that if anyone can bring about peace in these current
conflicts they must be called the Children of God.
Well, as with much of what Jesus taught it isn’t that
simple. The Hebrew word for “peace” as I
said right at the beginning is “shalom” but that doesn’t mean simply a peace
which can be defined as an absence of war or conflict. The word more accurately
can be translated as a wish for contentment, fulfilment, a tranquil state of
the soul, to be at peace with ourselves and at peace with God.
In this modern world we are constantly being told that we are
not good enough, that we need to be better, to be like so and so, the film star
or influencer, that we need to be slimmer, fitter, more beautiful or handsome or
that we need more or better possessions – bigger houses, smarter cars, the
latest phone or technical device and, of course, there are always people and
companies prepared to provide these to us – at a price! All of these things put a great deal of
pressure on us and we live in a constant whirl of feeling inadequate – not at
peace with our ourselves and with little time to find or understand what it is
that is God’s purpose for us. So let us consider how we can find that peace and
what it is to be a peacemaker.
Our first reading is a good example of illustrating Joseph’s
example of demonstrating true “shalom”.
I am sure that the story is well familiar to you all but just to remind
ourselves, Joseph, the favourite of his father Jacob, was taken out into the
desert by his envious brothers with a view to killing him and returning to
their father to say he had been the victim of an accident. They, in fact, sold
him to slave-traders and he was sold into slavery in Egypt. Through a number of
different circumstances – well catalogued in the Book of Genesis, Joseph was
first of all promoted within the house of an important official, framed by a
vengeful wife when he did not succumb to her charms, imprisoned, released and
through his ability to interpret dreams given status as a minister in Pharaoh’s
government. He predicted, through his dreams, that Egypt would enjoy seven
years of bountiful harvest and then suffer seven years of famine. He advised Pharaoh that all the excess grain
produced in the seven years of bounty should be stored in massive warehouses
for use during the seven years of famine.
A wonderfully simple but effective strategy and one which many people,
in today’s unpredictable world, would do well to remember when considering how
to manage their finances.
Our story, from this morning’s reading, picks up where the
famine years are now well on – already two years of famine have passed with
another five years to go. Egypt’s prudence has become known to the starving
nations surrounding it – including Canaan from where Joseph hails. Joseph’s
father has sent his elder sons from there to Egypt to see if they can get some
grain to feed the family and our reading describes the meeting between them and
their brother whom they think is far away or maybe even dead.
Just as we will see in our second reading, when Jesus meets
another Canaanite, Joseph teases his brothers. He has let them beg for grain
without revealing who he is. Now in this chapter he tells them that he is, in
fact, the brother whom they would have killed.
Instead of punishing them for what they did to him, he actually thanks
them for he sees their actions, which resulted in him becoming influential in
Egypt, as being the will of God. He could quite easily have turned them away or
even arrested them but, in fact, as we later learn he encourages them to return
with the rest of the family and settle in Egypt. But that is another story.
What we see here is a real example of peacemaking. A
reconciliation between Jospeh and his errant brothers. Indeed, making peace is
really of a two-fold nature. First of
all, it is necessary for us to be at peace with ourselves and thereby with
God. God loves us and has a plan for
each and every one of us. Often we try to make our own plans and often fail dismally.
We then blame others or look to others and envy their preferment or lifestyle –
back to the modern world of comparisons and feelings of inadequacy mentioned
earlier. Oscar Wilde one quipped “Don’t try and be like somebody else because
‘somebody else’ is already taken”. I
love that piece of witticism and often use it myself when I find myself envying
others – which I must confess can be quite often! We have to accept who we are
and whom God made us to be – that is being at peace with ourselves and thereby
at peace with God. Each and every one of
us has a uniqueness, yes we are each and every one of us unique, God-created
and, when we accept that, we indeed can call ourselves “Children of God”.
Secondly, to be a peacemaker we have to hold no grudges or spite or hatred of others – accepting them for what they too are – God-created unique individuals. That’s not always easy, especially with those who have hurt us in the past, but Christianity, the teachings of Christ, is very much based on this whole concept of forgiveness – something which Joseph did in forgiving his brothers and realising that, although their own personal intent was malicious, in the end they did him a great favour in enabling him do God’s work towards the Egyptians and also surrounding nations.
I must admit that our Gospel reading, at first glance,
appears to be somewhat contradictory to what I have said. The Gospel reading is in two halves – the
first part finds the holy men of Israel, the Pharisees and Elders berating
Jesus for letting his disciples break the tradition of washing hands before
eating. A good hygienic tradition born
out of the fact that in the hot Middle East bacteria could spread so easily.
However, he uses the point about unclean food going into the mouth as being
less harmful than what can come out of it. Jesus explains to the disciples that
what he means is that bad food will pass through the body and defile the sewer
whereas what evil things are spoken come from the heart and do more damage to
another. I remember my mother often saying to me “If you can’t say anything
good then it is better not to say anything at all”. How many wars or conflicts,
especially in the home, have been caused by ill-spoken words. What Jesus is saying is that we cannot expect
to be peacemakers, and therefore children of God, if we do not honour and
respect others.
The second part of the Gospel Reading is more testing I
think. Here, a Canaanite women, a
foreigner, brazenly comes up to Jesus shouting for him to have mercy upon her
and implores Jesus to help drive out the demons which she says have taken hold
of her daughter. Jesus ignores her. On
first reading, up to this point, it seems so unlike the Jesus we have seen
before, the same Jesus who healed that other woman with the haemorrhaging. The
disciples want him to send the woman away and Jesus, at first, appears to be in
sympathy with them when he says “I was sent only for the lost sheep of the
House of Israel”. When I first read this
passage I could not reconcile it with the notion that Jesus had come for
everybody not just the Jews. However, on further readings I have come to the
conclusion that he was teasing the woman as a test of her faith. Would she just
walk away, allow herself to be fobbed off, or would she be persistent? She was
persistent and knelt and then Jesus says something profound “Is it not fair to
take the children’s food and feed it to the dogs?” In other words, is it fair
for him to deny ministry to the Jews by ministering to her, a foreigner? She answers brilliantly – but even the dogs
eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table – in other words, every living
creature, high or low, is entitled to something.
Jesus, now having tested her faith by seeing her persistence
does as she asks and thereby reinforces the notion that he has, indeed, come
for all - high and low, Jew and Gentile.
Another example of where an incident has shown God’s mercy to all. I think it also shows Jesus (and therefore
God) to have a sense of humour. I think he was playing with her – talking
tongue in cheek to see how she would react.
The essence of all these stories, therefore, is that as true
Christians, living in Christ’s shadow, we are expected to show grace, mercy and
peace to all we meet – whether they are of our own “type” or, as is often the
case in our now very much cultural society, quite different in upbringing and
culture. Common decency seems to be going out of fashion as discussed
earlier. We are often too much involved
in making our own way regardless of how it affects others around the world. We
can become selfish and self-centred.
Celtic Spirituality, as we have been experiencing this
morning, is all about seeing God everywhere in our world and in everybody. It is based on honouring all God’s Creation
and remembering that by Him and in Him and with Him we are the people we are
and are meant to be. If we remember
that, and honour other people and our planet in general, we are well on our way
to being peacemakers and thereby true Children of God.
Amen MFB/12082023/188
