Scripture Passage
Listen to today’s sermon on Women’s Sunday.
Lifting Up Our Praise to God
So I hope you all liked the worship dance that was presented by women’s group. They prepared for weeks for this worship dance. It’s a short song, but for them to all move like that, it takes a lot of practice. Some of them wake up every morning and start the day with this worship dance, not just to practice, but as their way of worshiping and lifting praise to God. And some of them had dreams and some had nightmares about it. But God was good, and God is good, and it was beautifully done. What a reminder, a blessing to us, that there’s so many ways that we can offer worship to God; not just with our voice or every movement of our hands or bodies.
There’s so many ways that we can offer and lift up our praise and gratitude to God. So, I’m just very grateful to our women’s group. Today we have before us a story about a woman, a Gentile woman, who knelt before Jesus asking for him to heal her sick daughter. And you hear this desperate plea of a mother who would do anything, perhaps everything if it meant her daughter would be healed. And then you hear the response of Jesus saying, “Let the children be fed first for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” And I don’t know about you, but it makes me feel pretty uncomfortable, very bad. And you wonder, is that Jesus saying this? Did he actually say these words? And there are all kinds of interpretation as to what he meant and why he said that.
Crumbs are More than Enough
There are some who say it kind of aligns with the gospel Mark. He’s all about portraying human vulnerabilities. He was so tired, but he entered the house and he just wanted his time. But this woman somehow finds him and corners him and asked to be healed with her persistent request. Then there’s another interpretation that that’s how much he was set on his mission to reach out to the Jews first; they were the people that he was after primarily. Or perhaps, he’s just simply voicing out the words of the disciples. In the Gospel of Matthew, it says that they urged him to send her away. They were annoyed. The passage just prior to this story shines some light of understanding. Jesus had just told the disciples that it’s not the food that enters our body that defiles us. It is what comes out of us, out of our heart, that defiles us.
I disagreed. Our selfishness, our fear, our pride, our jealousy; those are the things that come out of us at defiles us. It’s not the food, it’s not what you eat. Don’t judge people by what they eat or what they look like on the outside, by their outer appearance. And interestingly just after that, immediately after that, I focused on the food. Like crumbs, you know, how could she ask for crumbs? And be okay with it. If I had asked someone for food and they gave me crumbs, I’d be offended, right? Crumbs. Crumbs are insignificant, crumbs are a nuisance. The disciples, immediately after that teaching, looked at her and saw that she was a Gentile. She’s not one of us. So she doesn’t even need to be healed. We can’t afford to spend time with this woman. Send her away. But this woman, there was something about her, something that made Jesus turn around and look at her again. And he even says, “Great is your faith. For what you just said I will heal your daughter.” Initially, I wondered: Was it her persistency? Was it her desperately plea, that she won’t give up? Is that what he says when he says, “Great is your faith?” Is that what faith is all about? And I’m like no, there must be something more, something more to her and about her. When Jesus brushed her away by saying, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She says, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” She’s saying, “Lord, it’s okay. Even the crumbs are enough; even the crumbs, they’re more than enough for me if I could just have that.” Somehow this woman knew that there was no size to God’s love and God’s grace. She knew that if even if it’s crumbs, if it’s God’s grace, it’s bountiful. It’s abundant.
Love Leaves No Space for Fear
It’s not the grace and love of God that is small and skimpy, that we don’t experience it. It is because we’re not able to see it and recognize that it is God’s grace. And she kind of helps me understand what love is, the characteristics love. First, it seems that love casts away fear. To this woman, love for her sick child was so great that she did not even feel. She did not even take or receive the insults and the rejections of the disciples and what seems like Jesus. To her, it was incomparably small because there’s so much love inside of her for her child that swallowed it up. And we think “how could she tolerate the rejection?” You know, what seems like almost injustice, words of Jesus. But there’s so much love in this woman that there was no space for hatred. There’s no space for fear. It seems like love and fear cannot coexist. When there’s love inside of you, it casts away fear; it casts away anger and hatred. And another thing I see is when you have love, you forget about yourself. We’re so self absorbed. Self protection. It’s all about us. It’s so innate in us. But when there’s love, we can easily forget about ourself. What can empty ourselves. That’s what love does to us.
A Mother’s Love
In celebration of Woman Sunday, I see that in our mothers, that they can empty themselves. The things that they would do, the extent that they will go for their children and their family, it’s amazing. How could you do that? But they don’t think twice. If it was for themselves, I think they would think again. There are some things that they wouldn’t do. But for their family, if it’s for their children, their husbands, they go all the way.And sometimes I realize that they don’t even feel their pain or they forget about their pain. They don’t even realize that it’s pain, because they’re so focused on their loved ones. In KSM, when we have early morning prayer, I see mothers praying. Those mothers, the women who are praying, they’re crying as they pray. I know they’re praying for their children, and then their husbands. But primarily I know it’s for their children, it’s for different reasons that they pray. This is love I see in this woman gives her courage. She’s not afraid to be vulnerable, she’s not afraid to open herself up, and she’s not stuck in shame or guilt. There’s no time for that. Not with the mentality of a victim, but with the strength that refuses to remain in the darkness. She’s going to go at it. She’s going to fight. She’s going to face this.
Recently, I saw a movie called Room. It’s based on a true story unfortunately. And it’s about a story of a woman, a young woman, who’s locked up with her five year old son for the past seven years. And they haven’t been seeing the world. That little room is the world to them. But then one day she said, “We can’t go on like this anymore,” and to save her son’s life, she takes risks and they escape that prison. And I find that it’s the love the mother has for her son that gave her the courage to step out, to do something. I’ll not just remain. I will not be paralyzed. I will not just stay here like this and die. For my son, I’m going to fight. We’re going to go out. He gave her the reason and he gave her the courage to face her problem and tackle it. And once they got out, the love between the mother and the son, it helped them to heal and restore the terrible pain and scars. They eventually healed. And it was a story that tells us, yes there’s evil out there, tremendous evil. But, love is much stronger and love can overcome that evil.
Love Starts in God
We have to remember that this love starts first with God. It starts first in God. It’s the love that we see on the cross. We saw on the cross, that it was love that was victorious. It was love that defeated death, hatred, anger, and fear. We wonder how could Jesus tolerate that abandonment, that rejection, that pain, and that absolute separation from God. How could he even stand that?
I realize that he can, and he did that, because love for all of us is much greater than the evil, and the hatred, and the pain that he had to face. And when we experience this, and get a taste of this unconditional, unlimited love of God, and we know that we’re truly loved, that we are beloved childs of God, you start to discover the beauty, the beloved inside of you. He started to just cherish that and you see, and you marvel that. And another thing I realized is that you, without even an intention, you reflect that love because that love can’t help itself but be reflected and flow from you. Another thing I realized is that when you see the belovedness in you, you are able to discover the belovedness in other people. It may be family, it may be a complete stranger, but you can see and discover the belovedness in them.
And that love creates within us the space to embrace sometimes the rejection that comes along. And we’re not too bothered if that love does not get returned. It’s okay. We are already anchored in something more stronger and stable inside of us. But we go back to scripture, the disciples, they haven’t got it quite yet. Rather than love, it was fear that was triggered inside of them. They saw and considered the woman as the other; not part of us. And that fear held them back, and it holds us back from offering love and offering ourself to other people. This past week, there has been numerous disturbing incidents, as you are all aware, because people are reacting in fear. In the wake of what has happened in Paris, and everywhere around the world, because of the fear in us, we judge people immediately. We consider them as the other, if they’re different. And then we put up walls within us and around us, and we become defensive and protective.
Flowers are More Powerful than Guns
There was an interview that went viral about a father who took his preschooler to the site in Paris. As they were giving flowers and candles, this reporter comes to the little boy and asked, “Little boy, do you know what happened?” And the boy replies, “Yes. The bad guys, they did very mean things, and now we might have to move.” And the father says, “No, we’re not moving. France is our home.” But he says, “But daddy, those guys are really mean, and they have guns.” But the father replies, “That’s okay. You know, they might have guns but we have flowers.” And the boy was reassured. I think the father ultimately wanted to tell the boy that love, flowers, are much more powerful; much more powerful than hatred and any kind of violence.
We see that in today’s passage, love is much more powerful than fear. And when you have love, it drives out fear; it casts away hatred. And you can see this woman was much bigger, much more courageous and wiser than the disciples. Again, it’s something that Jesus has taught us on the cross. Love is much greater than hatred and even death. Like the disciples however, it probably will not come easy for us. Henry Nouwen said in his book, The Prodigal Son, “This giving of self is a discipline because it’s something that does not come spontaneously. There’s children of the darkness that rules through fear. Self-interest, greed, and power are great motivators of survival and self preservation. But as children of the light, who know that perfect love casts out all fear, it becomes possible to give away all that we have for others. Every time I take a step in the direction of generosity, I know that I’m moving from fear to love.
It will not come naturally to us. It’s something we need to practice. But first we need to recognize that God’s love is what makes that possible. That love does not come from us. It’s, God’s love that casts away all fear. It breaks down the walls of hostility within me and around me. I pray that we draw ourselves closer to this love so that this love is reflected in our lives in all that we do, so that whoever you see, it might be a stranger, that we are able to discover and call up their beauty in every day that we live.
Prayer for the World
God, give us the eyes to see the abundance of your love and grace. It’s not just crumbs. In every little thing around us, there’s beauty and there’s your grace. Help us to see that and help us to realize that we have your love that casts out fear from us. Lord grant us your grace so that the walls of hostility and fear are broken down within us and around us. Grant us your perfect love so that it overflows in our being to the people around us, to the strangers that we meet, throughout the day. In the world, the hearts that are wounded and in fear are still filled with disbelief of what has happened and what is happening. In the places around the world, in the hearts of your people, please grant your presence and your peace and mercy. Help all of us to discover that flowers, your love and compassion are much more powerful than any guns or hatred of any kind.
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