There will be an open air service at Burton at 10am. Please bring a chair. Then an indoor service at Barlavington 11.30 - please bring a facemask. The Gospel is once more from Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 15.10-28. We shall concentrate on the second part of the reading (verses 21-28). This passage is challenging. Jesus is abroad (a topical Gospel for August?) with his disciples. He is once more trying to find time to be away from healing, teaching, miracle working, and he is confronted by a Canaanite mother, desperate to have her child healed. She shouts at him, and he doesn’t answer her. His disciples urge him to send her away. Jesus’ response is to stress that he has been send to the lost sheep of Israel, ie he is concentrating solely on his own people. This desperate mother comes and kneels before him. She begs for his help. Jesus’ reaction is one of the hard sayings. Is he calling her a dog? She is foreign and a woman, both reasons to have nothing to do with her. Is that a reason to be so harsh in his reply? But she doesn’t give up. She turns his rejection round and wins the argument. Her daughter is healed. It is her persistence and her humility that win through. We can learn from her. It is ironic that she comes from a part of the Middle East which is very much in the news at the moment.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorCanon John Green Archives
May 2021
Categories |