That's Worship Too

Isaiah 58:1-12

Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins. ²Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments, they delight to draw near to God.

³“Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?” Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers. ⁴Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high. ⁵Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord? ⁶Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? ⁷Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

⁸Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. ⁹Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, ¹⁰if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. ¹¹The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. ¹²Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.

Andre is a short man with high cheekbones that seem to get even higher when he smiles. He is missing his two front teeth. And he doesn’t walk, he struts, as he gives us a personal tour of Philadelphia. But this isn’t just a tour of the “Rocky Steps” and the famous “LOVE” sculpture. This is a tour of his neighborhood – the park benches he used to sleep on, the grates where he’d sneak some free air conditioning in the summer, and the tree where he’d stash his trash bag full of all of his worldly possessions when he’d go out for the day in search of work, a hot meal, a cup of coffee. For three months, Andre was homeless. For three months, he slept on the ground next to an abandoned building and a full dumpster, both teeming with rats. Andre is not mentally ill. Andre is not a drug addict or an alcoholic. Andre is not lazy or stupid. Andre just came under some hard times and found himself without support, without a home, a wanderer through the streets of Philadelphia.

The National Coalition for the Homeless estimates that 3.5 million people are homeless in a given year. That is the entire population of the state of Oregon. That’s enough to fill Heinz Field 54 times. But you all don’t need to know that. All of you are tremendously generous when it comes to donations to organizations that fight the global, macro issues of poverty. But what I want to talk about today is about how it can, and does, touch us personally, on a micro level.

It is a fact that most of us are all just two steps away from homelessness. We lose our job. We get a serious illness. A relationship falls apart. Our child needs special care. The stock market tanks and the monthly checks from our retirement get smaller and smaller. A natural disaster destroys our home and we forgot to mail that month’s insurance check. Just two steps, and we could be taming the rats by an abandoned building like Andre. Or living under our porch steps like our recent visitors, who spent last summer roaming from place to place in Pittsburgh, and then camping on our front porch at night. These are people with names and faces and stories.

Just two steps.

The Israelites in our reading today were homeless, too. They were in exile, told where they could live, what they could eat, where they could work, and how they should worship. But for these later readings in Isaiah, what is often called “Third Isaiah” by scholars, the Israelites had made it out the other side. They had come back home. They’d survived their homelessness. And things were starting to get back to normal. They were worshipping God just like their ancestors had been taught before them. They were fasting and honoring holy days, and they were starting trade again, building small businesses, planting crops, settling down. They had made it out the other side of their troubles and were on the upswing.

But there were still some problems. They were following the letter of the law, crossing every T and dotting every I in their worship, but strangely, God felt further away from them than ever. They were sacrificing and fasting, calling out to God and worshipping in all the “right” ways, and yet, God seemed to not be listening. It says that they “delight to draw near to God.” God says that “they seek me and delight to know my ways.” In a sense, in our terms, you could say that they were coming to church every Sunday, wearing their ties and their sport coats and forcing their feet into their fanciest dress shoes. They were writing checks to all of the right organizations. They were following the lectionary, and singing the traditional hymns, accompanied by a talented choir and a beautiful organ, and never ever letting the service extend past an hour and fifteen minutes. In a sense, they were just like us, and like us, they were asking “Where is God?” They were saying, “Look, God, we’re doing all the right things here, we’re doing what we’re told, and yet, You’re not fulfilling your end of the bargain.” What’s the deal? They are calling out to God. They are good people who want a true relationship with God; they want to do the right thing; they long for the love of God. These are good people. But God seems so far away. What’s the deal?

And God responds to them through the Prophet. God says, “Look, you’ve got this all backwards. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high.” You’re forgetting the whole point of these rituals. These rituals are meant to remind you of where you came from. Rituals are a way to retell and reconnect to your story. Your rituals of fasting are supposed to remind you that you, too, were once homeless, you too, were once in bondage, and you, too, were poor and needy. We worship to reconnect to our story, and to reconnect to the God who brought us through the desert, brought us out of Egypt, out of exile, out of our homelessness, out of an abusive relationship or a bad job or an addiction - and out of our own personal and communal poverty. If you don’t remember your own story, then your rituals are meaningless. And when we remember our own stories, when we remember our own neediness, we will act in justice by serving the poor, feeding the hungry, loosing the yoke from the necks of those who pick our tomatoes, sew our clothes, dig out our coal. God tells the Israelites: “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?” Remember what Jesus tells us in Matthew 25, in the parable of the sheep and the goats. Remember that he tells us that when we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, and visit the sick and the imprisoned, we do it to Christ himself. He says, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me.” Worship and Justice go hand in hand. They both lead us to the presence of God.

God doesn’t want us to just “throw money” at a problem, although money is sometimes necessary to solve problems. God wants us to remember where we’ve come from. God wants us to remember our story. Every person in this church has struggled in some way. We’ve all experienced loss. Maybe we’ve lost a job, or we’ve been disappointed by a friend. Maybe we’ve been unable to pay a bill on time, or we’ve had to ask a relative for help. God wants us to remember that like the Israelites, we are not that far from our own homelessness, either literal or figurative. Just two steps. And we must bring these memories into our worship. We must worship with the stories of God’s Grace in the Bible in one hand and the stories of God’s Grace in our own lives in the other.

Andre finally got out of homelessness, and he tells this story of when things started to turn around for him:

He was down to his last fifty cents. He says that he was so hungry that it felt like his stomach was gnawing at his spine. So he went to a corner drug store and bought some chips, and he sat down in Love Park to eat them. As he opened the bag, the pigeons and finches swarmed him. And he said to himself, “Heck no, I’m not giving you anything.” But one bird was insistent. Even after all the others had scattered, it looked up at him, pleading for a scrap. And finally, Andre relented. He gave the bird his last potato chip. And he watched as the bird took it into its mouth, and hopped over to a nest, where three tiny chicks were stretching their necks toward their mother. And just then, a hand came upon his shoulder, and he met the kind eyes of a woman who said, “I don’t mean to bother you, but I know where you can get a hot meal, if you’re hungry.” And she took him to a shelter where he ate, got cleaned up, and was given services that would eventually help him find a job and afford a permanent place to live. Now, he works to help others in transition out of homelessness. And when he is overwhelmed with the task, when he fears that he won’t be able to help one more person, when he is tired and worried about his own situation, he remembers his story. He remembers what his grandmother used to always say, “Feed the birds, and you will eat.”

God tells us this today, through the Prophet Isaiah. It’s just a simple gesture of a potato chip to a sparrow, or a hand on a shoulder. God tells us that true worship is remembering our story and then being present to others, offering them a chance to share their story. True worship is responding to God’s grace through greeting the homeless on our porch steps and in our neighborhoods, remembering their names, asking them if there is anything we can do for them, giving them a cup of coffee and sitting with them while they talk, or while they stay silent. When we worship, we should remember that the hungry have faces, have stories. We worship God when we listen to Andre’s story about feeding the birds. It is worship when we share our own stories of trouble and heartache and immense grace. God tells us that when we participate in the lives of the poor, the hungry, the naked and the homeless, God will be there, in our midst. When we serve the needy, “Then we shall call, and the LORD will answer; we shall cry for help, and God will say Here I Am.” God wants relationship, not posturing. And when we share in each other’s stories, we invite each other into the family of God, one where we are connected to each other in intimate ways, a family that will do anything it takes to help each other. May this New Year be filled with names and faces, worship and stories. Thanks be to God.

The Canaanite Woman's Dogged Faith (Sorry, I couldn't help myself...)

Matthew 15:21-28:

Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. ²²Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” ²³But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” ²⁴He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” ²⁵But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” ²⁶He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” ²⁷She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” ²⁸Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

According to the UN, it would take 30 billion dollars a year to launch the necessary agricultural programs to solve global food insecurity.

$30 billion a year to solve world hunger.

That may seem like a lot, but…

There are approximately 1 billion people suffering from hunger.

So, if we just spent thirty dollars for each person who suffers from hunger, we could feed them all for an entire year. Just thirty bucks a person.

According to CBS News, Americans spend about $35 billion a year on weight-loss products.

That means that if we all stopped spending our money trying to figure out how not to eat, and spent it enabling others to be able to eat, we’d solve world hunger.

See, people aren’t going hungry because there isn’t enough food. People are starving because the food isn’t getting to them.

Their cries aren’t being heard past the dollar menus, and the sub-prime lending, and the credit default swaps. Their voices are being drowned out by corn subsidies and Ipods and the Atkins Diet.

But you and I, we have Slim-Fast and Weight Watchers and Nutrisystem, and the Biggest Loser.

There’s enough food. It’s just not getting where it needs to go.

Grace, like food, suffers from a distribution problem, not a scarcity problem. And the Canaanite Woman understands this. She has a need. She knows that Jesus can fill this need. She knows that there is enough to go around. But how will she convince Jesus, an educated man, a Jew, a prophet, the Son of David, of this? She does this by using his language, his metaphors, and she shows him, and us, that there is plenty of grace to go around.

Jesus and the Disciples have just come from Nazareth, where they have encountered many who were on a kind of Grace-Diet, if you will. They don’t need forgiveness; they have purity laws. They don’t need healing; they have religious rituals. They don’t need what Jesus offers; they are doing just fine paying their taxes, doing what they’re told, and quietly going through the motions of what was once a rich, ancient, life-giving faith. They don’t need a radical and messy faith; they have Orthodoxy. They have rejected Jesus and the spiritual food that Jesus offers. His food is too rich, too powerful, too overwhelming, too real. Sure, they all wanted stuff from him, some fish and bread, maybe a cure for eczema, a change in the weather, some fancy magic tricks, but none of them want what he truly has to offer. He has been walking around longing for his people, his family, to know him, to accept the grace that he offers them, but all they want is what will satisfy them right now, what will make them comfortable, like those of us who want a thinner waist, or to hide our cellulite.

And so Jesus needs a break. He heads out for a mini-vacation, a retreat, some time alone.

And sure enough, here comes another one – a woman, a Canaanite woman, at that, demanding something else. And Jesus basically says, “I’ve got nothin’ else to give.” “I’m done.” “I’m tapped out.” “The kitchen is closed, we’ve run out of food. The shelves are empty; we’ve scraped the bottom of the pot. Pack up your stuff and go home.”

He reminds me of when I’m passing by a beggar on the sidewalk. I look straight ahead, ignoring his or her presence, or if I have to, I might mumble “sorry” when they ask if I’ve got any spare change. After all, I justify to myself, I’ve got my own kid to feed, my own bills to pay. I’ve got $100 in my bank account and I have groceries to buy and loans to pay, and the house to heat. I tell myself, I need to take care of my own first.

But this woman isn’t just sitting on the side of the road waiting for a little grace to bounce into her cup. She is relentlessly pursuing it. Not for herself, but for her daughter, for someone who truly needs it.

And she’s not gonna give up.

When it comes to getting what she needs, she doesn’t care that she’s a woman, addressing a man, surrounded by other men. When it comes to the healing of her daughter, she doesn’t care that she’s a Canaanite, not a Jew, addressing a group of Jews. When it comes down to the greatest desire and need of her heart, she is willing to be ignored, and then insulted. Her faith tells her to hold on a little longer, to accept whatever is thrown at her, for the sake of her daughter. This woman is not surprised by being called a dog – she expects it. She’s ready for it. Like a skilled debater, she is ready with a retort to Jesus’ insult.

And let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that Jesus wasn’t also a man of his time, place and culture. Jesus is insulting this woman. He calls her a dog, a typical derogatory term for Canaanites and other non-Jews. She is not at all shocked at her treatment. I think it’s fair to say that she’s been treated like this before. So she’s ready for it. She says, essentially, “Ok, fine, I’ll play your game, I’ll use your language, but I’m not going to leave until I get what I need.” Like a master apologist, she is ready to respond in order to get Jesus to heal her daughter. She says, “Sure, I’m a dog, but even the dogs get the crumbs. And crumbs are all I’m asking for. Crumbs are enough for me. Crumbs are plenty. Your crumbs will heal my daughter.”

See, her faith is one that understands the true economy of Grace. She understands that Grace is not a limited commodity. She knows that there is plenty to go around. God’s bank account doesn’t empty.

We are all starving for Grace, not because there isn’t enough, but because we aren’t seeing it, accepting it, embracing it, when it is right in front of us. There is plenty of Grace out there. Plenty for all of us. And the Canaanite woman understands this. And Jesus is astonished by her understanding. Can you hear his surprise in the text? Something inside Jesus has changed.

Jesus responds with even more Grace. More Grace by the healing of this woman’s daughter. More Grace by opening up his ministry to all, to Jews and Greeks, slaves and the free, males and females. From this point on throughout the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is clear and bold to say that God’s Grace encompasses all, and there is no end, even as he hangs on the cross, surrounded by criminals, mocked by those in authority, mourned by poor, powerless women. We are all one in Christ Jesus. After his encounter with this woman, Jesus explicitly and completely enters into a radical Grace, culminating after his resurrection when he invites us to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

This is a far cry from his command to his disciples in Chapter 10 to “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” And it is a poor, powerless woman who bids Jesus beyond his cultural boundaries and into this abundant Grace.

This may seem shocking to us, this idea that Jesus was a man who used racial slurs and was tempted to ignore the needs of outsiders, that this Son of God was changed, was affected, was taught by an uneducated woman.

What do we do with a God who not only shows us God’s self through a changing Jesus, but also through the persistent cries, cunning argument, and shameless need of a woman cast to the side of the road?

What do we do with a God who calls us to remember that Grace is not a bank account? It’s not an economy. It’s not a limited resource like oil, or Big Macs, or facelifts or tummy tucks.

What do we do with the terrifying freedom of all this abundant Grace?

Grace, like food, suffers from a distribution problem. It’s a problem of our inability, or maybe our refusal, to see it, to see that it is right there, right in front of us, as easy as crumbs falling from the table.

Thanks be to God.