Pentecost 12A 2026

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

​One day while in seminary, a few of us got into my car and went into Columbus, Ohio, to rummage through used bookstores. On the way back, we started discussing the upcoming Sunday lessons. One of those was today’s Gospel. A classmate expressed his confusion over it, especially Jesus’s initial response to the Canaanite woman. Use of the word translated as “dog” was as derogatory as any four-letter word we might imagine. 

I had a thought about that and said, "Maybe it’s Jesus’ own conversion.” That led to a discussion about how all the stories in Matthew had been located in Jewish territory up until this point. After this, Jesus begins to move into Gentile territory. 

The history of the institutional church has many stories about membership, at first about the effect of baptism and whether it could or should be repeated. Then, boundaries were set around the table—who could receive Holy Communion and who could administer it.

Recent history regarding the effects of salvation and its reception only helps to reinforce those boundaries. It causes one to wonder why so much energy is used making sure some are excluded, as if God couldn't decide that and needed our help. But then, there's that line heard at Peter's confession, which comes around next week. Stay tuned. 

When we look back at Hebrew teaching—from before and during the time of Moses through the later prophets—we find answers our ecclesiastical ancestors seem to have forgotten. Moses taught, actually included it in what’s considered “The Law,” that aliens and foreigners were to be treated like family. Some family traditions probably mean they are to be treated better than close relatives, but that’s another sermon for another day. When I had siblings in children’s choirs, I often had to say at the beginning of rehearsals, "For the next hour, act like you’re not related.” 

Today’s lesson from that part of Isaiah that covers the restoration of Judah from the Babylonian exile is a case in point. Remember that Judah’s salvation in this sense comes at the behest of the Persians, who are agents God uses to deliver Judah from captivity. Then remember that ancient Persia is modern-day Iran, and Babylon was in what’s now Iraq. That is also Abraham’s native land. We still have ancient lessons to learn. 

The Canaanite woman is an outsider whose mere presence in the room, let alone conversation, means those present are ritually unclean. All she asks is what any mother would want for her child—for her to be made well. Jesus ignores her at first, then finally answers her plea in such a way as to try to just make her go away. Her reply reminds him who he is, which she evidently sees better than anyone else in the room. I can imagine her expression and her determination as she says, "Even the dogs eat the crumbs under the children’s table.” 

I can also imagine that Jesus’ expression changed with his recognition of the consequences of this encounter. Moving from rigid boundaries to compassion, he says, “Go. Because of your faith your daughter is healed.” 

Because of her faith, Jesus’ own faithfulness expands beyond the rigid boundaries of tradition and expectation. If we don’t want to accept that interpretation, then consider this whole scene as a challenge to everyone else in the room that their own boundaries might just exclude them from God’s compassion, God’s salvation. 

And maybe that’s the point. 

The late Rachel Held Evans had an evangelical zeal that led her to the desire to let others know they lived outside her perceived boundaries of God’s grace. She and her husband moved into a part of Chicago known as Boystown, where a majority of the residents were and are homosexual. At first, she wanted to “save” them from their wicked ways. 

Then she got to know her neighbors. She witnessed their love and caring for each other in ways that only those brought together by their outcast status seem to be able to do. She then begins to speak of her own conversion. “I went there wanting to make them Christian. Instead, I learned from them what it really means to be Christian myself.” 

You see, when we truly live into our faith, when we open all the deadbolt locks on the doors of our hearts and minds, we might discover that we are where we are not because God has work for us to do, but that God’s work is really happening within us. I’ve told you many times that God can be sneaky. 

Sometimes we get so settled in our traditions and practices that we lose sight that another way might be just as good, or perhaps even better. Sometimes it takes what might be considered the intrusive presence of an outsider to startle us to a wider understanding of our faith. That's because our faith is often so limited by our own personal boundaries that we lose sight of God’s infinite and eternal love. 

That does not mean that God loves each and every thing going on within and around us. But it does mean that God’s love reaches out to embrace the unloved and sometimes unlovable in our own perspectives. It's just that God uses our own arms to embrace them. It also means that we stand firm in the face of unloving spirits that work to exclude those who differ from themselves. And while many might boast that God loves us just as we are, the love of God does not leave us there but leads us through a life of continued and continuing redemption as we move into closer relationship with our Creator and each other. 

When serving as a hospital chaplain, I was called late one night to visit a patient in the emergency department. She was dropped off in a state of hysteria by friends after they convinced her that demons were going to claim her eternal soul. She said over and over that she knew God was stronger than demons, but she was so afraid. 

After a few repetitions, I began to interrupt her. “But God is stronger.” Again. You said God is stronger than demons. But . . . God is stronger. She began to calm down, and I finally said some words she seemed to have never heard before. “God loves you.” 

We talked more, and after about two hours of waiting for the behavioral health nurse to approve admission, she consented to receive Holy Baptism. Altar guilds would be hard pressed to find the necessary furnishings for baptism in an ER room, but we made do. Let your imagination wander to what I used as a holy water basin. I have no idea what happened to the demons who drove her to the hospital. Visions of water and dissolving witches from the Wizard of Oz come to mind. Baptism, anyone? 

Sometimes demons work overtime to make sure we don’t notice who they are. Our work involves naming reality and where it leads us. Like that day with Jesus and the Canaanite woman, and like the promise of all the Isaiahs, sometimes it also means we ourselves are converted in ways that help to see as God sees us and those around us. That in itself is a full-time job. 

After all, some may be foreigners, outcasts, or alien to us. That doesn’t mean they are those things to God. After we remind ourselves of that, it’s time to make sure they understand that, too.