From August 13, 2023
Gospel for the day: Matthew 14:22-33
Jesus Walks on the Water
Immediately he made the disciples get into a boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”
Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and, beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”
Transformative Grace
A few weeks ago, I was feeling down. The summer was half over, my son and DIL had just left, Dan was on the road again, and all the fun we had been having was winding down. I was also exhausted and not feeling well, having been battling illness since April when I had covid. I went to the grocery store, and I was in a very crabby mood indeed, and while I was standing there trying to decide what I needed, a charming little girl came over to me and smiled at me. She was holding a small heart in her hand, a little misshapen, but easily recognizable. I thought she was going to ask me to buy this heart, because a lot of kids around town do make little crafts and try to sell them to people, and I was neither in the mood for it, nor did I have any cash on me. My hardened heart was all set to reject her, when she just went ahead and started telling me that her sister was making these little hearts. Then she handed it to me, and said, “I want to give this one to you.” She smiled at me again and then walked away.
My heart simply melted at her act of generosity and kindness. She had shown me true grace, and I felt it deeply. My little friend in the grocery store was not known to me, and she could have just ignored me. I could hardly have merited her gracious favor less. I was not welcoming her intrusion into my space, and I’m pretty sure I wasn’t hiding my feelings very well. I was extending my low mood towards her, and I was cynically expecting her to ask for something in exchange for what I initially considered to be nothing.
Her kindness, the grace of a child, transformed my day from sadness to joy, and from negativity to positive thinking. It was a reminder to me that grace doesn’t always have to be the Big Thing. Feeding the 5000, raising people from the dead, or dying on the cross is the ultimate example of grace, but that kind of grace is beyond our human abilities, and doesn’t happen every day.
But there was something more for me in that little heart she gave me. It was a little wonky and misshapen, much like my own heart often is. It was a reminder to me that God has always used the imperfect to advance his mission - David, Moses, Paul, Rahab, Jonah, Mary Magdalene… all the greats throughout the entire Bible, even Peter, his right hand man, failed God. But over and over and over again, God has taken the sinner, given grace for the failure, and used those very same people for his purpose.
So what does God expect from us? Can we extend grace to transform the lives of others, just as his grace has transformed us from hopeless sinners to redeemed children of God?
A couple of weeks ago, I asked you to think about the difference between the words mercy and grace. As you probably realize, I am a word person. Words matter, and getting your words right is important. There is a lot of unspoken, and sometimes even unrealized, nuance in your word choice. Big, grand, large, immense, colossal, voluminous, huge… they are all more or less the same. But I would bet that each one means something slightly different to you, and you wouldn’t use them interchangeably.
I think it is important to understand the root meaning of words, especially in the Bible, so we can further our understanding of what God is telling us. His words were not careless or casual. I believe each one has specific meaning and is essential for us to hear. Thus, I usually try to get into the root meaning of the main topic of a passage to gain deeper understanding of the message being conveyed.
Mercy and grace are often used interchangeably in faith conversation, but, while related, they are not the same thing. Grace is technically an unmerited favor, a gift we receive although we don’t deserve it. It is broad and applies to any situation where undeserved favor is given.
Mercy, on the other hand, is compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm. It is much more narrowly defined, then, a relationship in which power and control is a driver. While mercy always involves grace, the opposite is not necessarily true, and I think this is an important difference.
My little friend had no power over me at all, and yet, she showed me grace by her gift of a heart. That is, in fact, what made it so powerful for me. I had no expectation whatsoever, there was no relationship or tie between us, I don’t even know who she is, and yet, I received this gift from her heart on her own whim. I am reminded of Mark 9:36-37:
Then he took a little child and put it among them, and taking it in his arms he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
God sent this child to me that day, to lift my mood, to make me feel better, and also to remind me that I am his representative in this world at all times and in all things, and how I treat other people matters, even in the small stuff. You better believe I carry that little heart with me all the time now, right in my phone case, where I can see it every single time I make a call or send a text. It has reminded me many times since that day that I have been given grace, unmerited favor, more times than I can remember, and I need to do the same for others, because grace transforms, and that is what God wants us to do.
In today’s gospel, Jesus is weary. He has been traveling and preaching to ever increasing crowds of people, who along with his disciples make more and more demands on his time and his energy. He wanted some rest and he wanted some time alone with God for prayer. While he was in the mountains praying, the disciples were in a boat, and in rough waters, drifting out to sea. The Bible often references being adrift in rough waters, and I wonder if that isn’t an allegory for us in our faith life. I feel that I have often been in rough waters, drifting far from shore and safety. Because the wind was against them, they could not come back to get Jesus. Thus, he came to them. Again, isn’t that how it generally is? Jesus comes to us, and meets us where we are, because we are unable (or unwilling) to come to him?
The disciples, not recognizing him walking towards them on top of the water, were fearful and thought he was a ghost. Peter, ever the skeptic, challenged Jesus in that moment of fear. I find Peter interesting, because he had a long history of challenging and questioning, impulsively giving voice to what the other disciples were probably thinking or feeling, but afraid to say, and this time was no different. His humanness makes him real to me, because I think I would have the same questions and struggle with the same stumbling blocks. How often do we fail to recognize God when he is coming along side us? How often do we respond in fear when the unknown is threatening, rather than trusting that God has it covered?
Jesus reassured them, but again, Peter continued to be skeptical, and insisted on a miracle before he would believe the proof of his own eyes. Boy. This sounds more and more like me as we go along. It is not enough to just trust, we want proof positive or we will handle it ourselves. Or at least we think we will.
So Jesus met Peter where he was. He told him to come. And initially, Peter did step out in faith. But the moment he became conscious of what he was doing, he began to sink. Instead of simply trusting in the grace of Jesus to hold him up, he took it upon himself to walk on the water, and he failed. He is not Jesus, he cannot do what Jesus did. But he can turn to Jesus for help and salvation, and Jesus did that for him. Jesus literally held out his hand and lifted Peter up. Grace. An unmerited favor. Peter couldn’t trust Jesus for two minutes, yet Jesus extended him grace and saved him from drowning. And his grace, right where Peter was at, sinking in the water, once again influenced those who saw it, and caused them to worship Jesus as the Son of God.
Have you ever felt that hand lifting you up? When something that was all wrong suddenly came right, not because you earned it or deserved it but just because? We call it good luck, or even a miracle, but it is really the hand of God touching us and giving us grace.
I feel like too often when we talk about the story of Peter walking on the water, we focus on Peter. Of course Jesus can walk on the water - he can do anything. But Peter? He’s human. He can’t do that. So his unusual experience is the shiny object that attracts our attention.
But Peter is not the subject of Matthew. Jesus is. It is the actions of Jesus that we are learning from and trying to follow. And we can do for others in a smaller way what Jesus did for Peter. We can hold out our hand and lift others up, extending grace, showing them kindness, right where they are. The very nature of grace, that unmerited favor, is what can transform those who are touched by it. Because it is undeserved, and unqualified, it changes hearts. We have seen it here at Wangen Prairie quite often when we help someone, and they can’t believe someone would do that for them. They are touched by God’s grace through us, and it transforms them.
We do not have to extend grace. No one is forcing us, not even God. The love of God, the desire to worship and glorify him, is the only trigger pushing us to take notice when we would rather choose to look away. But when we give grace to others, we are modeling the calm peacefulness that having God in control of our lives brings us, and we can inspire a longing in others to find that same peace.
Matthew 25:35-36, 40:
‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me…. ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.’
Whether it is a small plastic heart or our Savior dying on the cross and rising again, grace changes us. If the earthly grace of a little girl in a grocery store with a plastic heart has that kind of transformative power, to turn a sullen, crabby, self-centered adult into someone who is more concerned with others than themselves, how much more does God’s grace do to transform our hardened, self-centered hearts?
God’s grace transforms souls. As we extend grace to those around us, we are showing those who are touched a tiny piece of God’s kingdom. Reach out. Meet people where they are. Give grace without qualification to those who do not deserve it. Give someone a piece of your own misshapen heart, and give God a chance to transform their life as he has transformed yours.
Dear Heavenly Father:
Thank you for taking our failures and washing them away with your gracious forgiveness. Give us the opportunity to give grace to others, and allow us to give without hesitation where you ask it of us. Let strangers be friends, let those who are in need know your goodness through our actions, and take our hearts and mold them to love others as you have loved us. In Jesus’ name we ask this. Amen.
From August 20, 2023
Restorative Mercy
Gracious Lord Jesus, in the words of King David, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart reflect your will and your way to find the ears that need to hear your intentions for their lives, today and always. Amen.
Many years ago, I worked for Southern MN Legal Services. It was during the farm crisis, and one part of my job was working for the Family Farm Law Project. The focus of the FLP was to help small farmers who were financially under water renegotiate their debt so they could hang on to their family farms.
Lenders were surprisingly willing to work with us, as long as foreclosure hadn’t already occurred. Mercy, in the form of loan forbearance, interest only payments, renegotiation, and other creative means of making it work, was sometimes available, and benefited both the bank and the farmer. When it happened, it was a win/win, and a very satisfying thing for everyone involved. But the key was to ask early in the default, so that there was time to work with the bank on a plan.
It was a difficult and heartbreaking job for many reasons, starting with the reluctance of the farmers to admit there was a problem in the first place. Too often, we received a frantic call when the sheriff's auction notice was received, after months of ignoring their loan officer and avoiding their mailbox. At that point, there was nothing we could do. It was just too late.
The most heartbreaking case, which is seared into my memory, was the wife who called us when the sheriff delivered the sale notice to their farm, which was the first she knew about it. Her husband had diligently gotten the mail and kept her in the dark, hoping against hope that somehow, some way, a miracle would happen and he would find a way out of their troubles, without ever having to admit to anyone that there was a problem.
She was frantic, of course, and didn’t know what to do, and someone told her to call us. Unfortunately, the time was simply too short and the sale went through. Her husband couldn’t cope with the disgrace, and he committed suicide on the day of the auction, leaving his family to grieve not only the loss of the farm, but his loss, as well. It was gut wrenching in every way, particularly because it might have been avoidable.
He hoped for mercy, but he was unwilling to ask for it. The bank would most likely have been willing to look for ways to forgive or forbear on that debt, if only he had been willing to ask for help. They had a relationship, a partnership between them, but he allowed his pride to get in the way of working things through, and it ended in the worst way imaginable.
I am not criticizing this farmer. On the contrary, he exemplifies all of us. Hiding is part of the human condition since Adam and Eve tried to hide from God in the Garden. But hiding is not a solution to any problem. Things don’t go away, they get worse.
Last week, we looked at grace, unmerited favor, a gift we receive although we don’t deserve it, and talked about how it can transform lives. This farmer was hoping for a miracle solution from out of nowhere, a windfall of grace, so to speak, but what he really needed was mercy.
Mercy is compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm. I see mercy as reformative, rather than transformative, because mercy remodels or remakes the relationship, making a change in order to improve the relationship. It is, in short, active compassion towards someone whom you have the power to harm, but choose not to.
This family needed to restructure their debt and their relationship with their bank. They couldn’t end the relationship - they still needed the loan but they couldn’t repay it. And the bank couldn’t simply pretend it didn’t exist, because the money was out there and needed to be repaid somehow. But the relationship could be remodeled, reformed, changed, in order to make it work for everyone. The bank might have granted mercy, if only they had been asked. Their positive working relationship could have been restored, if only they had been asked.
In today’s gospel, that was the key to the mercy Jesus showed. But I think it is important to put into context what happened prior to today’s reading before we go any further. The roots of what happens in today’s gospel, and our ability to fully understand it, actually lie in the first part of Matthew 15, so I am going to begin there. Matthew 15:1-20:
Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands before they eat.” He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.’ But you say that whoever tells father or mother, ‘Whatever support you might have had from me is given to God,’ then that person need not honor the father. So, for the sake of your tradition, you nullify the word of God. You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied rightly about you when he said:
‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’ ”
Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” Then the disciples approached and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?” He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.” But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.” Then he said, “Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”
As always, the religious authorities are questioning and harassing Jesus. They were afraid of him, because his message was revolutionary. Jesus is actually outlining his earthly mission here, although the leaders and his disciples were not really hearing him. He is not focused on laws that no longer have any meaning and which are, in fact, even disregarded by the religious leaders, who don’t practice what they preach to the public. He calls them out on this specifically in verses 8-9: This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines. Jesus looks into the heart, and sees what is there, and turns their ideas upside down, and the religious leaders do not like it.
In this particular situation, the Gentiles were considered unclean because of their habits and beliefs, and the Jewish leaders insisted on strictly segregating themselves from those they considered unclean under the law. Jesus was turning the idea of what was clean, honoring and worshiping God in their hearts, and what was unclean, pretending to worship using their own doctrine instead of God’s, inside out.
This is important, and we will come back to this later.
We read from Matthew 15:21-22:
Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.”
So after this encounter with the Pharisees, Jesus traveled to a foreign area, Tyre and Sidon, a land of Gentiles. News of his arrival had spread far and wide to a remarkable degree (even without twitter or social media to help people keep up!) The Caananite woman had heard about him and his healing powers, and was desperately seeking help for her daughter. According to the law, she was considered unclean, untouchable, for Jesus and his disciples. And yet, she refers to him as Lord, Son of David. She has already recognized his mission as Savior of the world, while the disciples continue to struggle to understand what his ministry is about and where it is leading.
Verses 23-24:
But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
Her faith and understanding is commanding of attention, but Jesus did not help immediately. I think he was aiming for a larger message, for his disciples, for the people following him, and for us. By resisting, he used the teachable moment. Jesus made clear to everyone, including her, that according to the religious law she was not really his concern, not considered worthy of his attention. No doubt the disciples, who were still rather lacking in understanding, were feeling validated in their request to send her away. He doesn’t even bother to answer her.
This is a different picture of Jesus than the one we are used to, and a little disconcerting, even maybe uncomfortable. Where is he going with this? Why isn’t he helping her, when she so clearly needs his help? Here he is, refusing even to acknowledge this woman who has faithfully reached out to him. It is confusing and hard to understand.
But yet, she did not give up. With a simple faith and a keener understanding of who he really is, she persisted. And it is important to note that while he is not immediately acknowledging her, he also does not do as the disciples ask and send her away. Then he engages with her.
Verses 25-27:
But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”
Imagine her desperation at that moment. She has faith that this man, this Savior, standing before her can restore her daughter from the demon possessed wretch to a normal, productive person, and he is refusing to help her. He refers to her and her daughter as dogs - a metaphor often used in those times to denote unclean beings, unworthy of his notice.
But she kneels at his feet, acknowledges his power over her, and begs for his help. And the most important part - she recognizes that with God’s power, there is enough for everyone. Just as the master ensures the well being of all in his household, even the dogs under the table, so Jesus came to ensure the well being of all, even those on the outside, the Gentiles, the unclean, who recognized him. Her faith touches him, and he grants her mercy. Verse 28:
Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed from that moment.
As always, the scholars and the religious leaders were focused on following the law whether it was legitimate (inspired by God) or not (made up by them,) assured that by scrupulous observation, they were guaranteed a place in heaven. But Jesus totally redefined the ground rules, established new criteria, and opened the door to anyone and everyone who came to him and asked.
This Canaanite woman had a need, and because she asked, Jesus granted her mercy and her daughter was healed. Her life was restored, changed and improved with a healed and whole daughter. Her daughter was transformed by a demon free life through the grace of God, but the asking and the active compassion of Jesus is what triggered the grace. He did not care about the earthly criteria of the Pharisees. He cared about what was in this woman’s heart, and when he looked there, he saw that she truly worshiped God and believed in him. She was pure of heart, and he gave her mercy. There was a place for her at the table.
We all need mercy and grace in our lives. Jesus came to provide both. When we need help, we need to ask, and give God the opportunity to have mercy on us, to change our circumstance in the way he knows we need, and to reform our lives according to his will. We are all sinners, we will all make mistakes, but when we ask for mercy, God will grant us grace.
Grace and mercy. Unmerited favor and active compassion. Together, they are two reflections of God’s love for us. When we grant mercy, when we extend grace, we are reflecting God’s love to others. And sometimes we change our own hearts, too.
Gracious God, help us to overcome our pride and humble ourselves in your presence. We ask for your mercy when we lose our way and follow our will instead of yours. As you restore us with your mercy, give us the opportunity to show mercy to others as a reflection of your love. In Jesus name we ask this. Amen.
All references are taken from the NRSVUE.
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