Embracing Interruptions: The Power of God's Grace

**Holy Gospel According to Saint Matthew, the 15th Chapter**

Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just 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."

But Jesus did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, "Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us."

Jesus answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."

But she came and knelt before Jesus, saying, "Lord, help me!"

Jesus answered, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs."

She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table."

Then Jesus answered her, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed instantly.

The Gospel of the Lord.

**Praise to you, O Christ.**

May be seated.

I've been a pastor and a preacher for over 20 years now. Actually, in May, it will be 25 years. I truly believe that God speaks to us in new ways every time we hear or read scripture.

But there are certain stories from my life that have become forever intertwined with certain Bible passages for me, and one of those is the Bible passage I just read and a story that perhaps you've heard me tell before.

Whenever I hear about Jesus being interrupted by this woman we heard from in the Gospel, I think about an evening many years ago. My husband and I were celebrating our eighth wedding anniversary. Yes, that was just a few years ago now.

We'd gone to a hip new restaurant. I'm told that Lady Gaga was just there. The name of it is Café Lurcat, and it's located in downtown Minneapolis. While there, we enjoyed ourselves very much, and the food and the service were just excellent.

But you know, since this was a rare occasion for us to get out of the house and have a date night without our kids—they were quite young at that time—we kind of just wanted to be left alone and not interrupted.

However, throughout the meal, there was this one server who constantly interrupted us, but in a really, really great way. He was so irreverent, good-natured, full of joy, and funny that we couldn't help but get into a wonderful conversation with him. He really made our evening so very special.

After a while, he asked what we did for a living, and when we told him that we were both pastors, he didn't run away and busy himself with other customers like has happened before with us. He actually wanted to know more.

Unfortunately, by that point, we were at the end of our meal, and we were in a hurry to go to a play that we were going to. But in the rush, I must have invited him to come to my church sometime. But then we headed off and went to the theater, not thinking much about it.

It's interesting how some conversations flow so naturally, and before you know it, you're sharing your lives with someone you hardly knew before. I think God uses moments like that in our lives. God provides openings and conversations so we can get to know people in need of healing all the time, but often we're just too busy to stop and listen to what they're saying.

Our Gospel lesson tells about an opening in a conversation that took place between Jesus and the Canaanite woman. It took place after Jesus had taught his disciples what defiles a person, and after that, Jesus goes north into the region of Tyre and Sidon.

If Jesus had a steady abroad experience that pushed him outside of all of his comfort zones, well, this was that trip. These were completely non-Jewish areas and the farthest north that the Gospel says that Jesus traveled.

Many speculate about why Jesus went so far north. Was he going into unknown Gentile territory really intentionally? Did he want to get away, perhaps, from the scrutiny of the Pharisees? Did he want to gain some perspective, perhaps, on his mission to his fellow Jews? Or did he just want a break from all of the crowds?

Well, we don't know, and it doesn't say. What we do know is that while there, a woman yells out to him. Actually, it says she started shouting. She was a Canaanite woman—in other words, an outsider, not a Jewish woman—and she asks for Jesus to help her daughter who is tormented by a demon.

She shouts out to him because her love for her daughter has prompted her to come to the source of healing. She must have heard about Jesus at some point along the way, and she crossed many boundaries to get to him. Those must have been taboo crossings at the time, but she came to him because she knew her daughter needed Jesus.

She cried out to him knowing that Jesus could offer healing.

Well, a couple of months after my husband and I went to Café Lurcat, two young men and a young woman were waiting to talk to me after one of the worship services in Minneapolis at Bethlehem. It took me a while to put together who this young man was and how I had met him. I was a little bit slow there, but finally, I remembered our exchange at the restaurant.

Before he could introduce me to the two other people who were with him, he told me that he had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer at age 25. Then he began to cry and sob loudly right there in the narthex.

This young man, who had been so full of joy when I had met him that night in the restaurant, was now looking much thinner and much paler than before. He had come to be fed that day at the Lord's table and fed with the gospel of hope, resurrection, and new life.

He then introduced me to his partner and his sister, who had come with him. They were also in tears by that point. Several weeks later, after coming to worship regularly, he and his partner asked to meet with me. They were wondering if his funeral could be at the church.

At that point, I asked, as I always do with non-members, if he was affiliated with any other church. He said he was, but that he was estranged from his family and that they were a part of a church that could never accept him and his partner.

That's why they were there. They had not been allowed even the crumbs from the table at his home church.

This is the first time I had been faced with a pastoral ministry question like this. I could have cited all kinds of reasons why I couldn't do the funeral. You see, since he was affiliated with another church, there are boundaries clergy are not supposed to cross, especially with other church members.

Instead, I decided to err on the side of grace and follow Jesus into unknown ministry territory. In our Gospel reading today, Jesus does give the woman and her daughter the food and healing they need, but there was a significant shift and change that happened in the middle of the dialogue.

When Jesus comments, saying that it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs, the woman counters in a similar, you know, equal footing rabbinic banter. She says, "Well, even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall."

After that, Jesus heals the daughter. This is the pivotal moment in the Gospel of Matthew and similarly in the Gospel of Mark, where Jesus expands God's mission to non-Jews. Initially, he says his mission was to focus on the lost sheep of Israel or the Jews, but this is the key phrase and passage where Jesus's ministry extends God's grace to all.

Now, some say Jesus was changed in this encounter with the woman, having her show such compassion for her daughter and having faith moved him and changed him. Others say that he was just testing the woman and bantering with her back and forth. Still, others say Jesus treated the woman the way he did in order to test and see how the disciples would respond.

You see, Jesus had just been teaching them that it's the hurtful things that come out of one's mouth that defile a person, and their response telling Jesus to send her away meant, well, the disciples had not learned what Jesus was teaching them.

But whatever the explanation about why Jesus said what he did, God was doing something crucially important in the midst of this boundary-breaking interruption. It demonstrates the widening of God's love and grace to the disciples and to us today.

We too are to pay attention to the conversations and interruptions in our lives. Jesus demonstrates what to do in those moments. He leads us to go through those openings and listen with love and then extend grace.

My relationship with the young man from Café Lurcat led me to open some conversations that I will admit were quite difficult and challenging for me at first. Not only was I having these heart-wrenching conversations with a talented, artistic young man dying of cancer at such a young age, but I was also challenged with some other awful questions.

How do you show love and plan a funeral for a couple that has no legal rights? How would I walk alongside this man's partner who couldn't make any health care decisions for him and a family who is not recognizing the partner? How do you proclaim the love of Christ to a dying young man who has been told that he was going to go to hell unless he changed?

Through it all, though, I marveled at how the young man continued to cling to his faith, said again and again that the promises of baptism and God's grace and God's love were enough, and that was enough for him.

In the end, there were some reconciliations that happened with this man, his family, and the partner before he died. It was a privilege to walk with them and see the healing that took place.

In the end, the young man's entire family did come to the funeral that we had planned together. God used a very small opening in a conversation to bring about healing and hope in this young man, in his partner, in his family, and in me.

They experienced God's healing through the health and pastoral care ministries of the church. He experienced healing through the knitting ministry that made him a very special prayer shawl during his last days. He was proclaimed the love of God through worship and the music ministry that made, as he said, his heart melt.

My eyes were opened to the wider extension of God's grace in the congregation that was shown to him. And through it all, and most importantly, I witnessed this man and his partner come to the table of God's grace to be sustained and fed in their weariness—not simply with crumbs, but with the abundant love of Christ.

Our lives and our ministries today will lead all of us to extend grace and cross boundaries that may be very different from those experienced by Jesus. However, Jesus didn't avoid it. Jesus went into all of the messiness of our lives and all of our struggles headfirst.

In spite of the fact that some eyebrows were raised because of the Canaanite woman's insistence and persistence, well, Jesus gave her the bread and the food that she was looking for because of her faith.

Some say the encounter with the Canaanite woman functions as the narrative turning point in Jesus's own ministry. The opening of the Gospel message to all is made even more clear at the end of the Gospel with the Great Commission in Matthew chapter 28, where Jesus says, "Go and make disciples of all nations."

This affirms God's desire to extend grace to all peoples in all places—in places as strange as Tyre and Sidon, in Café Lurcat, in your favorite bar, restaurant, or hangout, in those places where you just go to get away from it all, or even in your schools, your work, or even at home.

In our sermon series, we've been exploring what on earth as in heaven looks like. Two weeks ago, the image was all being fed. Last week, the image was trusting God amid all the storms in our lives. Today, we have another image, and that is the act of extending God's grace.

That too gives us a glimpse of heaven on earth. Extending God's grace was, after all, what Jesus's ministry was all about. Jesus's love for us finally crossed the greatest boundary and barrier of all—that of death—to make sure that God's love and grace were available to all.

We continue to unpack and be amazed at what all of this means for us today, trusting in God's healing love for all.

Blinded by passionate love, the Canaanite woman boldly reached out to Christ. In doing so, she brought healing to someone else in need. We too have been brought to Jesus because of the bold love of someone else.

We're here because someone else extended God's grace and mercy to us. This weekend, we see this in action and happening once again. We're celebrating the Bible Milestone, and that means that parents, Sunday school teachers, confirmation teachers, and all of us as a congregation are extending God's grace through God's holy word to children and youth in the congregation.

But in addition to this congregation, I wonder who do you know who might need Jesus's healing and feeding and grace today? And how can you bring God's grace to someone tormented, alone, and struggling?

God can use even the tiniest opening in a conversation or in words of welcome to bring about healing and hope. So pay attention to the interruptions in your life this week. Listen to those opening up a conversation with you.

Invite someone to church, confirmation, SWAT, or to a Bible study or common interest group, because who knows what God can do through that simple opening in a conversation? God may offer someone the hope and healing that they so desperately need, or God may offer you an opportunity to understand his grace in a deeper way.

Regardless, for the disruptive, interrupting Spirit calling us to extend God's grace on earth as it is in heaven, for this let us give thanks to God.

**Amen.**