Dear Friends,
This Sunday we have a hard Gospel, the kind that tests people’s faith and that preachers would rather skip. A Canaanite woman comes to Jesus seeking healing for her daughter, but Jesus ignores her. When she won’t give up, and his disciples are growing nervous at her insistence, Jesus finally responds, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” Woof.
This is the kind of passage that requires some study and context, a consultation with a commentary or two, and, most important, real wrestling with the text. That’s one of the components of joining a small group at All Saints and one that many members found most meaninful this past Spring. Each week, small groups meet, share where they have experienced God, then they dig into the the Gospel for the upcoming Sunday. The group reads the Gospel aloud, watches a brief video from the clergy at All Saints about that Gospel, and then explore the Gospel together and what it has to say to us today. Our faith, our scripture, are not consumer products to be consumed passively, and small groups help invigorate our faith and our relationship to God and one another.
We will be opening up Fall small groups in next week’s newsletter. I invite you to spend some time thinking and praying about whether this is the time for you to join a small group. In this crazy, disconnected world where some Christians have abandoned the Gospel for nationalism and so many of us feel isolated and long for deeper relationships and meaning, small groups are a way to connect to a faith that is life giving and to one another and to God in ways that are deep, real, and, yes, also life giving.
If you’re still thinking about the Gospel for this Sunday and Jesus’ apparent rudeness, you might want to read and wrestle with Matthew 15:21-28, perhaps especially with the woman’s salty response and Jesus’ final words: “Woman, great is your faith!” Then, come on Sunday ready to hear the sermon.
See you in church!
Faithfully, Suzanne+