Old Testament Reading Isaiah 56; v 1-8

The focus of this reading is keeping the Sabbath. A truly counter-cultural marker of being God’s Chosen People. During the pandemic, how have we been challenged to keep the Sabbath in different ways?  What have you found helpful? How much of the responsibility for keeping the Sabbath lies with Church Leaders offering you options and how much lies with your personal commitment of finding new and meaningful ways to both Worship God and grow as disciples?

Isaiah not only embraces the children of Israel in this calling, but foreigners who join themselves to the Lord. I would urge you to read Chapter 56; v 1-8, not just those indicated for this Sunday but for a broader understanding of context.  Here Eunuch’s are rightly included in the blessings of Sabbath. Eunuch’s were often excluded from worship but Isaiah, (the most quoted prophet of Jesus), promotes inclusion. Phillip would later play a wonderful role in the conversation of the Ethiopian Eunuch. (Acts 8; v 26-40).

To keep the Sabbath is not so much about setting aside one day of the week for special worship, although this is to be encouraged, it is a whole life option. The key is given to us in verse 1 of this reading; “Maintain Justice and do what is right”. Jesus would later urge his followers to leave their gift at the altar and seek reconciliation with a brother or sister.  (Matthew 5; v 23 & 24).

Cleary it matters greatly how we treat others. Sadly, sometimes we as individuals and the Church as a whole can all be guilty of adopting what I call the Animal Farm* default position: “All worshipers are equal but some are more equal than others”.  Both Jesus and Isaiah challenged this assumption.

In our Reading from Romans, Paul reminds his culturally diverse audience that God has not rejected Israel simply because Gentiles are finding faith in Jesus. Jesus is both Messiah and universal Christ. Paradoxically Jesus appears to reject the Canaanite woman and her plea for help in this week’s gospel reading……………..

This is the only recorded time that someone took Jesus to task and emerged victorious. That person was neither a disciple nor a Jew, but a Canaanite woman. In that social climate, she was a classic example of Isaiah’s outcasts. The Church, facing the divisions to which Paul referred in his letter written about 30 years before the Gospel, had to grasp that the mission for the Gentiles began in the mission of Jesus. This gospel is for all nations, as Isaiah radically, foresaw. Our own inclusion is a product of this encounter. 

The woman challenged Jesus; she challenges us too, about how we view others who are perceived as different in some way. Also, how we view interruptions in life.

The disciples do not like interruptions, they always want to send inconvenient people away and disregard them. Jesus honours the persistent faith of this woman and others. Perhaps Jesus even had her in mind when he told the Parable of the Persistent Widow and the Unjust Judge. In the end the woman in our Gospel reading got more than she asked for. Yes, her daughter was healed but she also received public praise for her great faith.  There is indeed a wideness in Gods mercy.

A Prayer
Lord I ask your healing upon my life and upon any areas of prejudice and false judgement.
Enable me to see what is wrong and seek to make it right in your name.
Teach me always to be willing to learn from the stranger whoever they may be to listen and respond to their story and be enriched as a result.
Help me to see interruptions as opportunities.
May my agenda go out of the window to make way for yours
Amen.

*Animal Farm was written by George Orwell and published in 1945.
  The line I have deliberately misquoted is “All animals are equal but some are more equal than others.”