[RCL] Genesis 45:1-15; Psalm 133; Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32; Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28 In our Gospel lesson for today, we have one of the most amazing stories in all of the New Testament. It is the profound and troubling and ultimately transformative story of Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman. It is also a story that…

[RCL]: Genesis 45:1-15; Psalm 133; Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32; Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28 Do you remember the children’s puzzle game called What’s Wrong with This Picture? Hearing the odd confrontation between Jesus and the woman in today’s gospel reading might well provoke us to ask, “What’s wrong with this picture?” Jesus and his disciples went into…

This week we continue our Pentecost tour through Genesis, Romans, and the parables and stories of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. We have two unsettling encounters: the meeting of Joseph and his brothers, and the meeting of Jesus and the Canaanite woman. The Genesis stories of our founding fathers and mothers are often perplexing….

In today’s passages we encounter the prickly theme of “choseness.” Does God have favorites? Is there really a chosen nation, a chosen people? If God is the Creator of us all, how can this be? Not easy questions to confront or to answer. Not when we now know what terrible acts have been perpetrated by…

Have you ever felt as desperate as the Caananite woman in today’s gospel? Emotions seem to explode from us when we’re desperate. We’ve all seen pictures on the television of women and men wailing with grief over their children slaughtered in a bomb attack in the Middle East. They often collapse in unbearable pain over…

Try as we may, we do not always find ourselves comfortable when we are among people we don’t know. Visiting a new church can be nerve wracking, unless we are among the extroverted class. Even within our own country we find cultural and ethnic differences that may challenge the best of us. Traveling abroad may…

Let us prefer nothing to the love of Christ;and may he bring us all to everlasting life. In today’s Gospel we hear the remarkable story of a Canaanite woman who comes to Jesus seeking healing for her daughter. “Canaanite” signified “pagan” to the Jews of Jesus’ time. The area of Tyre and Sidon, on the…

I first met today’s Gospel a long time ago in a children’s story by C. S. Lewis, part of his famous Chronicles of Narnia. Reepicheep, the bravest mouse of all Narnia, loses his tail in battle. As he bows to Aslan, the Great Lion, the King of Narnia, he realizes the terrifying absence of something…