Isaiah 56:1, 6-7
Romans 11:13-15, 29-32
Matthew 15:21-28

          It is refreshing to read scriptures that are more connected than they are apart.  I mean, there feels like an actual theme running through these passages  for a change and I am glad that I got them to work with for this week.

          For years, I have felt like an outsider of sorts.  On more than one occasion things have happened to put me on the outside of what was considered normal by many others around me.  I grew up with six sisters (one older brother) and so I did and learned many things that my sisters did.  For so long, it became clear that I was able to do things that they did, or any other girl did, just because I was around them and watched them do it.  By the time I was about eight years old, I was twirling a broomstick or a mop handle, marching around our yard as the drum major or majorette of an imaginative marching band; and by the time I was eleven, I was cartwheeling, flipping, doing splits and straddles and even mastered just about every cheer that any cheer leading squad seen on any Saturday or Sunday sports football game (college or national) was doing.  My sisters were doing it, so it felt only natural that I was able to do it, too.  But, not everyone was okay with this. 

          My stepfather had no problem hurling names at me from time to time just to make himself feel good.  My Boy Scout Troop enjoyed doing the same and then carried the name calling to the halls of our schools.  It was all done in an attempt to push me out and make me feel like I was “less than” they were.  I was never taught that anyone was “less than” anyone else and I especially never felt that way growing up and listening to the Word of God in church, any church that I attended.

          In third grade, my teacher at the time, taught every one of the students who wanted to learn, how to knit.  It looked fun and so I decided that I would give it a whirl!  I knitted a long purple scarf, and at the end of the school year, along with many of the other students in that class, participated in a fashion show to allow our parents see the work we had done throughout the year.  I was not the only boy who learned how to knit but I was the only one who was ridiculed for learning how.  And, one of the boys who was the most cruel had learned to knit much more than I did and yet, the other boys in the school thought that what he had done was ‘cool’, I was a ‘sissy’.  Anyway, I was as proud of my scarf as he was of the baby outfit that he had knitted for his new little sister.          

          In our OT reading, we read of how during the reconstruction period after the exile the matter of who was eligible to be a member of the community.  Although some wanted to be exclusivists and keep out disqualified people, these verses make clear that the Third Isaiah advocates an inclusive policy that is extended to “eunuchs” and foreigners.

          One of the reasons I was strongly attracted to the Episcopal Church and our church is our policy of inclusiveness.  I will never forget the first time, not so long ago, when while sitting in the pew of an Episcopal Church, I heard the words “gay” and “people with AIDS” shared from the pulpit!  I got all choked up because for so long I wanted to feel like I wasn’t stuck sitting on the margins of my faith. 

          But up until this moment, and like so many before and after me, sitting on the margins of most things has been the norm.  Isaiah 56:5c, 6 says “even the foreigners will not be cut off.  They will be given a new name.” and then in verse 6 further says:  “And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, all who keep the sabbath, and do not profane it, and hold fast my covenant – those I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for ALL peoples. Thus says the Lord God; who gathers the outcasts of Israel. I will gather others to them; beside those already gathered.” And, yet, many ‘churches’ refuse people access to the church or even refuse to give them the Body and Blood of Almighty God.  Why?

          And still there are well meaning people associated with the church that are quick to cast people aside because they don’t look right, have on the right clothes, smell right, live in the right neighborhoods, drive the right cars, go to the right schools, have the right jobs, and on and on and on.  You get what I mean.  And, we don’t do anything to try and welcome people into the fold of God where they belong.  Our job is to be the example of Christ.  The Canaanite woman was doing nothing wrong.  She knew who the Almighty was and she wanted to see Him to be with Him to tell Him what was going on with her daughter.  Those around Him didn’t want Him to be bothered with that.  They didn’t want for Him to have to deal with probably ‘another whiner who just wanted to see Jesus.’ And, what is wrong with that?  “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David!” I say this prayer more than once a day and I don’t care who hears me.  I know that God hears me and in spite of those around (wolves in sheep’s clothing) who are quick to tell me that I am wasting my time, I still pray that prayer because I know that by the precious blood of Jesus, I no longer sit on the sidelines, in the margins, in the ditches, in the background…wherever.  I know that my redeemer lives and has delivered me to move to the head of the class, to the front of the line, passed GO, to the foot of the cross and live eternally with Him.  This is the message we need to always be willing to share and exemplify.  No one should ever be told that they are not good enough.  When we get so high and mighty to think that we are even remotely better than anyone else when we look in the mirror, like my 11-year-old niece reminded me when I told her that I was prettier than her, “GET SOME WINDEX!”

May Jesus Christ be praised!