Matthew 15:21-28 (8.20.17) It is another story of a woman interrupting Jesus. Like the woman at the well in John’s gospel, she is not Jewish. And both encounters take place outside of Israel, when Jesus has crossed the line into unwashed territory. Matthew tells us this woman is Canaanite… part of the people who had opposed the Israelites in the long ago battle over the real estate we call the Holy Land. When Mark tells the same story, he identifies her as a Syrophoenician woman, a Greek. Both are clear that she is not a Jew, but a Gentile. She is from the regions of Tyre and Sidon, coastal cities on the outside northern edges of Israel, in what was called Canaan, then Syria, then Phoenicia, named for the purple dye found in that part of the world. She is a Gentile living in Gentile territory.
What is Jesus doing there in the first place? I don’t think it is his summer vacation on the Mediterranean coast. Continue reading “Patient Persistence”
“What Are You Afraid Of?”
Delivered by Ruling Elder James Parks, August 13, 2017
Psalm 22: 1-5, 19-26; Matthew 14:22-33
In the movie “Monsters Inc.” the fictional city of Monstropolis is literally fueled by the screams of frightened human children. Ironically, the monsters who are best at scaring the children are terrified of them. It is common knowledge in Monstropolis that human children are “poisonous.” Their very presence threatens to contaminate the purity of the city that the monsters have worked so tirelessly to maintain.
It is not until someone inadvertently brings an actual human child into their world that the story of these dreaded others begins to unravel. As it does, the fear-based economy of Monstropolis is revealed to be unstable. Continue reading ““What Are You Afraid Of?””
Hunting Ridge Presbyterian Church 