Sermons

Read Reverend Art Domingue's Sermons below.

Crumbs
08/17/08

CRUMBS

Matthew 15:21-28

August 17, 2008

Squaw Valley Chapel, United Church of Christ

Olympic Valley, CA

Art Domingue

Designated Term Minister

Our Bible story today is about a non-Jewish woman seeking help for her daughter from a Jewish faith healer.

Quite predictably, Jesus’ disciples offered their usual, knee-jerk response: "Send her away. Her crying is upsetting everyone." Not the most sensitive of men, the disciples had this habit of resenting anything or anyone who got between them and their personal time with Jesus." Send her away." vs. 23

But Jesus chose to have a conversation with the Canaanite woman. This, in itself, was revolutionary. Orthodox Jewish men did not speak to women, even Jewish women, other than those who were members of their immediate family. To speak to a woman was to risk contamination. To speak to a non-Jewish woman meant the certain loss of one’s personal, ritual purity.... But this was a rule Jesus had come to resent. Some of his better conversations were with woman. Women seemed to catch many of the finer points in his message, points that simply flew over the disciples’ heads.

Jesus chose to speak with the Canaanite woman and he began by pointing out to her that she was standing in the wrong line, making application at the wrong agency, filling out an inappropriate form. She had no claim on the God who had made a covenant with the Israelites. She was not a Jew. "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." - vs. 24

Which, of course, meant nothing to a woman desperate for help for her daughter. She would have made application to Beelzebub if she thought he could help. So she came closer. She knelt at Jesus’ feet, "Teacher, help us." - vs. 25

Whereupon Jesus uttered what has to be one of the nastiest lines in the Bible: "It is not fair to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs." vs. 26

Nasty, because it implied that the woman and her deranged daughter were animals. Ugly, because it suggests that some human beings are created by God as God’s children, whereas others will never rise above the level of beast.

"It is not fair to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs."

There have been linguistic scholars who try to mitigate the ugliness of this quote by saying that the word translated as "dogs," should in fact have been translated as "puppies." The Greek was the word for personal pet, as opposed to other words that would mean mangy cur or a dog being raised for the pot.

But I don’t find these linguistic cosmetics particularly helpful. We are still left with a scene in which Jesus dismisses some of God’s children to give preference to other of God’s children and I don’t believe that is the way God’s will works.

But.... the Canaanite woman was a mother, a desperate mother, and it would take more than the disciples’ selfishness, or Jesus’ insult, or bad theology to turn her aside.

Perhaps you’re right, but even dogs are allowed to catch the crumbs

that fall from the master’s table. - vs. 27

All’s well that ends well. Jesus commends her for her faith and steps aside saying:

"Let it be done for you as you desire." -vs.28

And the daughter was instantly healed.

It’s as if Jesus and the disciples had been a road block; as if their prejudices and preferences had stood between the woman, her daughter and God.

"Let is be done for you as you desire."

And the daughter was instantly healed.

In the first few years after my retirement from the First Congregational Church of San Jose, that church joined with a group of other churches in a campaign to find affordable health care insurance for all children. At that time 90% of California’s kids were covered by insurance. Of the remaining 763,000 about half qualified for existing public programs like Healthy Families and Medi-Cal. 71% of the remaining, uninsured kids were from families where the head of household worked full time, all year but, after food, clothing and housing had been deducted, there was no money left to purchase health insurance. It would take 330 million to get all California kids covered. That’s a lot but it’s a pittance when compared to the cost of missed inoculations or diseases allowed ripen until they required massive intervention or were spread throughout the schools.

Low cost health insurance for all California kids seemed to us a no brainer and a proper role for government....

But there were those who stood against it; those who interjected themselves between the needy and the health care that could have helped everyone.

And they were saying the same things Jesus’ disciples said. "Send them away! Instead of moaning in our space why don’t they go back to Mexico or wherever it was they came from?."

And they were saying the same things Jesus: "God sent me only to the lost sheep of Israel, which was updated to: American services for American citizens."

At least in the City of San Jose the churches got the nay-sayers to stand aside, and the city began an affordable program of health insurance for all children and no bank has been broken, and the schools are improving and our church was proud to have had a part in a program that affirmed the basic worth of all children... because God loves them.

I believe scripture implies that the ramifications of any humane decision are huge. When Jesus and the disciples stepped aside it was as if a great battle had been won and the flood gates were opened and compassion was free to flow.

of Galilee. And he went into the hills, and sat down there.

And great crowds came to him, bringing with him the lame,

the maimed, the blind, the dumb and many others, and they

put them at his feet, and he healed them, so that the throng

wondered when they saw the dumb speaking, the maimed

whole, the lame walking, and the blind seeing...... vv. 29-31.

And no one asked to see a passports, and no one claimed preference because they were insiders, or a part of the old boy network, or native born or of a color matching the majority.

When people stop interjecting their prejudice, healing finds room to bloom as if it were a part God’s plan, all along.

Leftovers and Leftouts
08/03/08

LEFTOVERS AND LEFTOUTS

Matthew 14: 13-21

Squaw Valley Chapel, UCC

Olympic Valley, CA

August 3, 2008

Art Domingue, Designated Term Minister

This morning I am going to try a different style of preaching. I plan to keep a firm grip on the Bible and to retrace the ground Charley Luckhardt has already covered.. But I shall do it verse by verse, interspersing comments. In some quarters this is called "Biblically-based preaching," but don’t be fooled. Holding the book and reading from it at frequent intervals, doesn’t necessarily mean a preacher has caught God’s drift.

But going verse by verse allows free range and minimizes the need for consistency. This is especially welcome this morning because we are dealing with a Bible reading that is dense with meaning.

From the gospel of Matthew, the 14^th Chapter....

We don’t know a lot about how well Jesus knew his cousin, John the Baptist. Were they distant cousins or kissing cousins? Except for their meeting at the Jordan River they seemed to have conducted their lives and their ministries along parallel courses. Each had his own set of disciples. John went the way of the aesthetic and roared of upheaval from the wilderness. Jesus was much more of a synthesizer, and worked for reform within the faith traveling from village to village heading toward Jerusalem. There is ample proof that the cousins kept an ear to the ground interested in what was going on with their relative.

When John was beheaded, the victim of vicious palace politics, Jesus felt diminished. Another of God’s prophets had been destroyed:

Jesus felt the way many of us felt after the series of assassinations that took the lives of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King.

Jesus... went to a lonely place, by himself.

As an aside, going off by yourself to grieve is not something I would recommend. It is tough enough to deal with denial I a crowd. Almost impossible when you’re alone.

One year while I was attending our church’s Conference Annual Meeting at Asilomar, I received a phone call from the church secretary in San Jose. A young man had died very suddenly. His parents were distraught and had gone into isolation. The Associate Minister had tried to visit but they wouldn’t come to the door. The mortician needed someone to make a few decisions, but they wouldn’t answer the phone. Would I please get myself back to San Jose?

Denial of a loved one’s loss is natural and normal but some prolong it by isolating themselves.

But Jesus soon discovered that isolation was not an option:

In my mind is the image of Jesus and his boat casting a shadow on the shore. When Jesus and the boat moved the shadow moved, except the shadow was, in fact, a great crowd of people. It was as if Jesus had signed up for the Verizon network..Isolation was not a option. There were people there watching his every move. But as they could see him, Jesus could see them and what eventually drew him back to show was compassion.

His heart was filled with pity for them. - Vs. 14

These days it’s common knowledge, something everyone knows... that a good way to get past our own sorrows is to reach out to others who grieve. I have known widows and widowers to co me to grips with their own loss and loneliness by volunteering to work for Hospice. I’ve known parents, lost in the abyss of losing a child to find their way out through work with the Special Olympics. Compassion can be a giant step toward healing. It changes our focus from within to without.

Jesus got out of the boat... and he healed the sick. Vs 14.

And it wasn’t only the sick that stirred Jesus to compassion. We are given one other piece of information about that crowd that followed him the last verse of each of the two readings::

There are some who think Matthew made a mistake. The two distributions of food are so similar perhaps there was only one incident. I don’t think so. When oral traditions finally find their way into print the process reveals how the story teller was able to memorize so much material. Certain subjects always sound alike. There are stock words to describe a feast and the story teller can put his/her brain into neutral and coast for a while in the telling, and have a little time to think ahead to what’s coming next. Every banquet in Homer’s great stories the Odyssey and Iliad when set down in print used the same Greek words to describe every banquet. So too the gospels stories of Jesus feeding the people.

Which makes it all the more important that in every retelling it was mentioned that the women and the children were not counted.

Why were they not counted? Quite simply, because, in those times, women and the children did not count. In Leviticus the fine for having accidently killed another man’s slave is quite substantial. The fine for having killed another man’s ox or ass is not quite so substantial but significant nevertheless. If a wife or child has been accidently killed the cost is but a pittance. They didn’t count for much - except to Jesus who consistently saw them as full citizens in the Kingdom of God/. It is my guess that the crowd on shore was filled with people who did not count for much. In any city census lepers were not counted. They were required to remain outside the city gates and keep a bell with them. If someone who did count came too close they were to ring that bell to warn them away. The mentally ill did not count. They were assigned a cave somewhere in the hills and were expected to stay there, even if that meant that they had to be chained. Relatives brought them their food and drink Shepherds seldom counted. They spent entire seasons in isolation, unable to worship because they hadn’t the minimum number required, unable to conform to the dietary laws or even wash as often as the Pharisees said a pure person must and if you were not pure you became invisible.... and you counted for nothing. But I believe the lepers, the women and children, the shepherds were following Jesus for they wanted to count for something and he saw them, and his heart was filled with compassion.

Sending the onlookers away was a consistent theme for Jesus’ disciples. They seemed to resent anyone other than themselves getting close to Jesus. In other passages throughout the gospel they shoo away children, blind men. A woman with a long-standing issue of blood.... "Step back," they shouted. "Don’t bother the master. Can’t you see he’s got all the disciples he needs?"

I believe the disciples desire to send the crowds off to find a Taco Bell in the neighboring village was merely a ruse. They wanted to get rid of them. They wanted to return to the intimacy of 12 on one. It’s as natural as our locals longing for Labor Day, and having the roads all to themselves again and two for one dinners at the restaurants. It’s the small church mentality but unfortunately it keeps the small church small. Guard carefully guard what you have. Don’t share it. There may not be enough to go around.

But Jesus said:

I this Jesus was ministering to the mind set. Instead of protecting what you perceive to be limited

blessings, start sharing in the faith that there will always be enough for all.

All we have here is five loaves and two fish...Vs. 17.

Whereupon Jesus instituted the first One Great Hour of Sharing which sounds to us a bit like every communion service we have ever attended.

What are the take-aways from this story?

I come away with a heightened sense of the fallibility of human measurement. Both the left outs and the left overs in this story suggest that ours are undersized expectations.

And I come away with the news that good things happen when disciples decide to share.

And a third thing - preachers always find three points for every story - a third thing is that when it is compassion that brings us together healing breaks out all over the place.

There’s a lot packed into this morning’s scripture reading but, then, most of the Bible comes that way.

When disciples share there are no limits

Mustard Seed
07/27/08 MUSTARD SEED

Matthew 13: 31-33, 44-46

Squaw Valley Chapel, United Church of Christ

Olympic Valley, CA

July 27, 2008

Art Domingue, Designated Term Minister

The smallest person that comes to our house on a regular basis is Jacob Arthur Box. He just turned four and comes mid-way up my thigh. Jacob was born second child in his family so he has no illusions about being the center of the world. His older sister holds prior claim that position. Most of the time Jacob is happy being off to the side quietly taking something apart. Jacob’s dad regularly takes things apart, he’s a plumber, but he knows how to put them back together. Jacob’s still experimenting with the first part. All day long, you have to watch him like a hawk.