Dogs Breakfast

Psalm 133, Genesis 45:1-15, Matthew 15:21-28 and Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32

What a mess - what a dog’s breakfast - the financial markets are at present, or our so-called Malaysia solution, or London and other parts of the UK!

The events in London are a tragic illustration in opposite of the words of our Psalm this morning:

In the words of ABC reporter Phillip Williams: It's only five days since any British sense of security and cohesion has been shattered. Criminal opportunism or the wages of social injustice? ...Undeniably, something has gone seriously awry in British society where some appear so disconnected, they can attack their own communities, where the bonds and boundaries have simply disappeared.

Or – if you are a Clarke and Dawe’s fan....

DAWE: This hasn’t got anything to with a social divide?

JOHN CLARKE: A social divide?...In England? Bryan, the Prime Minister's flown back from Tuscany to point out that's not right.

And yet even our families and friendships – our orderly society – appear a long way from the community in which the Psalmist takes such evident delight.

We may relate better to reflections on human community such as:

- Oscar Wilde’s - "A true friend stabs you in the front."

- Or this more positive, anonymous quote - "Friends are God's ways of apologizing for our families."

- Or this one (which I like because I’m about to move house) - "An old friend will help you move. A good friend will help you move a dead body."

- But my favourite and a comment on modern relationships from our very own Tash Joyce – “I have 423 friends and I know all of them.”

But community is such a wondrous thing to the Psalmist – such a revelation of God’s love and care for human beings - that they are lost for words and resort – as poets and song writers and all of us do when something overwhelms us – to similes... It is like... It is like...

Throughout the biblical record we see glimpses of the community that God intended for us; from the very beginning of Genesis where God says, “It is not good that the man should be alone” to the end of Revelations where the home of God is among mortals...God himself dwells with them.

This morning’s lectionary readings are some of these glimpses; Joseph reunited with his brothers, the oil running off, the priest, Aaron’s head, the dew of Hermon on the mountains of Zion and Jesus’ encounter with a Canaanite woman. Each of these reveals to us something of what God’s community is like.

God’s community is, firstly, like a man who – given the opportunity to revenge himself on his brothers – men who, Genesis 37:4 tells us, hated him, kidnapped him (Genesis 37:23), planned to murder him, (Genesis 37: 18) and compromised on selling him into slavery, (Genesis 37:28), a possible if not likely death sentence – forgives them.

It would be hard to imagine such a dramatic scene, though there was one – very much like it – broadcast on Iranian television a few weeks ago. Ameneh Bahrami, a young Iranian woman, who was blinded and disfigured by a man throwing aid in her face because she had refused his marriage proposal, had been awarded the right under Islamic law to have him blinded in the same way. "I am not doing this out of revenge,” she said in an earlier interview, “but rather so that the suffering I went through is not repeated." However, in a dramatic scene, at the last minute, Bahrami asked the doctor to spare him. "I forgave him, I forgave him," she said.

This is not forgiveness that comes lightly. Joseph, we’re told, “Could no longer control himself....He went so loudly – literally, put his voice into his weeping – that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it.” His brothers are so terrified that they cannot speak. But Joseph’s forgiveness is genuine and he utters this incredible statement. “God sent me before you – don’t be distressed or angry because of your motives at the time – to preserve life – to preserve you.”

How good and how pleasant it is – when community is like this forgiveness.

God’s community is also like ‘the precious oil on the head’ – oil that runs down the beard and down the collar of Aaron’s robe.

This is an image from Israel’s cultic life, an image of consecration to God, of connection to God... but someone has clearly got carried away with the oil!

The stuff is being poured out, splashed about – like champagne by a Formula 1 winner – a sign of how abundant the love and forgiveness, the grace, of God is to us!

Similarly, the ‘dew of Hermon’, the highest point in eastern Palestine, was legendary for its ability to water the earth. According to Henry Maundrell, Anglican clergyman and Oxford academic who wrote a series of travel diaries in the 18th century, "with this dew, even in dry weather, our tents were as wet as if it had rained all night." (This sounds like a likely location for a Dad’s and Kid’s camp!)

Paul, in Romans, is also certain of God’s unfailing grace to God’s people – Jews and Gentiles. “The gifts and calling of God,” he says in verse 29, “are irrevocable.”

And Paul, like Aaron the priest, like the dew of Hebron, is so overwhelmed by this God, by this grace, that he breaks into worship at the end of this chapter, “Who has given a gift to him,” he says, “to receive a gift in return?”

How good and how pleasant it is – when community is like God’s lavish grace.

So how then do we make sense of Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman in Matthew?

Jesus is travelling in the regions of Tyre and Sidon, predominantly Gentile regions, and he is confronted by a Canaanite woman, who has to shout to get his attention, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Kyrie, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon possessed." But Jesus ignores her - so she keeps on shouting.

The disciples say, “Tell her to go away. She’s being a pest.” But Jesus still doesn’t speak to her! He speaks to them! “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” Then the woman prostrates herself before him, in the position of a worshipper, and says, “Lord, help me.”

(Someone has commented, this puts a new twist on WWJD, ‘what would Jesus do?’) This is certainly nothing like Jesus encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well, one that fits our theology, one that portrays a Jesus we like!

But Jesus adds insult to injury. He calls her a word that some explain away as local proverb or as referring to cute little puppies, but which was commonly used by Jews of Gentiles. “It is not fair,” he says “to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." The forgiveness and mercy and grace of God, God’s blessings and salvation, for the Jewish people – not for you.

But this woman does not allow Jesus to exclude her. Taking on his image of the dogs and applying her own domestic experience, she says to him, “Yes, Lord, but dogs can live off scraps.”

In her understanding dogs and children can both be fed. And in her response, this is the table of the Lord, the kyrion, and, “From this table,” she challenges her Lord, “can’t all be fed?” Aren’t even those who feel like a dog’s breakfast welcome in the community of God?

“Woman, says Jesus, “great is your faith!” And the miracle – the blessing of God is experienced instantly as her daughter is healed.

Some say that Jesus’ intention is this moment of revelation – a dramatic teaching point for his disciples. Others say that Jesus, himself, experiences a conversion in his understanding, but however you understand it, this encounter and this text redefine the mission of Jesus. It shows us that God’s community is like a woman who although excluded, knew she belonged; that the community of God is one of unlimited potential, unlimited possibilities.

We are very good at assigning priorities – there is enough for this, this should come first, that must wait. But this woman shows us that the Kingdom of God is a place of dog’s breakfast blessings – where all are welcome; where all can be fed.

I remember hearing Tim Costello interviewed on Grandstand during the Commonwealth Games…

Perhaps Londoners, too, have a big enough heart to respond to the disenfranchised in their society and put on a wonderful Olympic Games.

Perhaps Australians can explore what dogs breakfast blessings might mean to processing asylum seekers.

Perhaps we can find a way to respond generously and live sustainably; to welcome strangers without neglecting those we love.

How good and how pleasant it is – when we are willing to examine our own understanding of the wideness of God's mercy – when we see what the community of God is really like!

A dog’s breakfast. A lavish grace. Forgiveness that offers life. Life forevermore.