Crumbs From an Overflowing Table

A Homily for the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

Grace to you and peace, from God our Heavenly Father and Christ Jesus our Lord, whose table is overflowing. Amen.

Our text this morning is a difficult one, full of ancient tensions between insiders and outsiders. The Hebrew Bible, situated as it is at the intersection of royal politics and religious identity – and those in a kingdom situated at the crossroads of empires – wrestles with the question of how to respond to the outsider.

The prophets employ polemical rhetoric to mock and condemn Israel’s enemies and foreign militaries – but then again, Naaman the Aramean army officer, comes to Elisha seeking healing and from then worships only the Lord God of Israel.

In the twin books of Ezra and Nehemiah, those returning from Exile in Babylon forswear marriage with foreign women – but the stories of Rahab and Ruth place foreign women in crucial roles, and Saint Matthew puts these alien wives in the Messiah’s lineage.

This sort of back-and-forth was still a live question in Jesus’ day. First-century Judea was home to Jews but also Greeks, Romans, Samaritans, and others, and had Gentile neighbors in every direction. Continue reading “Crumbs From an Overflowing Table” →

Sinking Beneath the Waves

A Homily for the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

Text: St. Matthew 14:22-33

Grace to you and peace from God our Heaven Father and Christ Jesus our Lord, who walks across the face of the deep. Amen.

Preachers and the folks who write Bible study curriculum have gotten a lot of mileage out of this story, reading it in completely opposite ways.

Some have criticized Simon Peter for his doubt, spending page after page tsk-tsking Peter for his fear, for his lack of trust. Jesus says, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” and authors, safe in their armchairs far away from the crashing waves, have taken this as an opportunity to rake poor Simon over the coals. He’s supposed to be the rock upon which the Church is built, but he sinks like a stone. Continue reading “Sinking Beneath the Waves” →

How Long? Not Long

A Homily for the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Text: Psalm 13

Grace to you and peace from God our Heavenly Father and Christ Jesus our Lord, who strengths us to endure the trials and tribulations of this world. Amen.

“How long, O Lord?” the psalmist asks.

It’s the cry of the elect throughout the ages.

“How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?” Continue reading “How Long? Not Long” →

Faith the Size of a Mustard Seed

A Homily for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

Text: St. Luke 17:5-10

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Grace to you and peace from God our Heavenly Father and Christ Jesus our Lord, who gives us faith the size of a mustard seed. Amen.

“Lord, increase our faith.” How often have we asked for more faith? Those times when we aren’t quite sure that we’ll be able to make it: at the end of the month, when we don’t know how the account balance will cover all of the bills, when the doctor says she’ll call in a few days with the test results, or when a loved one is deployed to a combat zone. For years now, that’s how some of us have felt about the this parish: “Lord, increase our faith…give us something, anything to get us through, to keep our doors open.” As we shuffle through this mortal life, there is no shortage of trials and tribulations when we find our faith not only tested but almost withdrawing, as though it is insufficient for the challenge at hand.

In situations like these, Christ’s words can come off as almost insulting. Continue reading “Faith the Size of a Mustard Seed” →