The Rev. Joseph Peters-Mathews is the vicar of St. Hilda St. Patrick. The sermon for August 20, 2023 was preached in response to Matthew 15: 10-28 based on the notes below.
It’s worth it. The reading, the demonstrating, the praying, the longing are worth it.
Finished 1619. Started in Lent, took a month off. Long but good. To what end? It’s worth it
Isaiah, “for soon my salvation will come, and my deliverance be revealed.”
Wrong kind of person talking to Jesus. Woman. Gentile.
Mission to Jews, back and forth.
Knows Jesus can heal, keeps asking. One of two, maybe three, gentiles Jesus ministers to in Matthew.
Critical of Pharisees before this, Paul reaffirms God’s call and promises to the children of Israel, “has God rejected his people? By no means!…For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” Don’t get any bad ideas.
Vituperative Erb, “The thing I always say to myself is that if Frederick Douglass kept going in 1857 I can sure as hell get through this
Jamelle Bouie, “i have a whole monologue about why people should study the antislavery movement as an example of doing the work with no expectation of ever seeing it come to fruition”
That’s the Kingdom of Heaven, God’s reign, that Jesus has been proclaiming
Healing this woman’s daughter, expanding ministry from Judaism to all of the nations in Matthew, shows God’s reign being brought by Jesus
for soon my salvation will come, and my deliverance be revealed.
The reading, the demonstrating, the praying, the longing are worth it — and we have enough. We’re not righteous; God gives us the strength to endure.
Even the crumbs are more than enough, and God gives us more than the crumbs: For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. Sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism, marked as Christ’s own forever. It’s worth it. We keep at it.
Let us pray: We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy. Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.