Learning Who We Are

Posted on August 23, 2026 | Leave a comment

But who do you say that I am? (The full readings for this morning can be found here.)

In the name of the Living God, who creates, redeems, and sanctifies us.

Well, good morning, good morning. I’ve been thinking lately about the importance of names. I’ll tell you a story about a name.

Some of you know that I love golf. My less generous friends use words like fixation, compulsion, or addiction. Well, in my defense, I used to play a lot more golf than I do now, and one of the guys in my regular foursome was a banker. He and I played a lot together, in fact he was my regular tournament partner. Now he was a good guy, but he had a really sour disposition. He was the most even-tempered man I’ve ever known—he was in a foul mood all the time.

He was upset about the economy, about the political landscape, about traffic. He would complain about his job, the pace of play, or about the food at the club. Well, after a while, somebody in our group gave him a nickname. Somebody called him “Giggles,” and the name stuck. Forty years later, people were still calling him that.

So, our readings this morning invite us to consider the names by which we’re called. We are given this remarkable story in Exodus, a story of two women who commit a revolutionary act of disobedience, an act that changes the world. You see, Pharoah is trying to wipe out the Jews.  He’s given an order that amounts to genocide, requiring the slaughter of all Jewish baby boys. Well, these two midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, refuse and don’t kill the boys. And one of those boys will be named Moses, a name that means “drawn out of the water.” He will be known as Moses the Deliverer, because he delivers his people out of bondage.

That name, Moses, would echo thousands of years later, in the life of Harriet Tubman, who led many people out of the slaveholding South into freedom as a conductor on the underground railroad. And people began calling her “Moses,” because she too would deliver her people from bondage. Names matter. Names have power.

Matthew understands the power of a name. Matthew is profoundly concerned with the issue of identity. He tells us that right from the outset. Remember, his gospel begins with a lengthy, complex, structured genealogy. In part, that’s Matthew’s answer to the question, “Who do you say that I am?” For Matthew, the question doesn’t simply call for some inner exploration, but also calls us to examine all those who have gone before us.

It’s important to look at the place where this discussion happens. In both Mark’s and Matthew’s gospels, this story takes place in Caesarea Philippi; that’s not an accident. The story takes place in the shadow, and against the backdrop, of the city that Caesar built.  It had been a shrine dedicated to the Greek god Pan. The pagans believed the caves were the gate to the underworld, where the fertility gods lived during the winter. It had been a site for the worship of the pagan God Baal. Thus, Jesus’ identity will arise in the context of God’s relationship with the occupied land of Israel and the pagan world. But Jesus will turn that kaleidoscope as well….

Our gospel reading is only 8 verses long today, but I want you to look at the number of names: Jesus, Phillip, Son of Man, John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, Simon, Messiah, Son of the Living God, Jonah, Peter, Father. Each of those words, those names, are loaded with meaning; they carry a lot of freight. This passage offers us several names to examine: Elijah, the prophets, Peter, Messiah, rock, church, Lord. These names all contain layers of meaning: theological meaning, the meaning we learned in catechism, just more churchy talk, the meanings implicit in the Hebrew Bible, filtered through a new understanding and the Greek language. Turn the kaleidoscope just a little, and you see something completely different. And the crux of this lesson lies in our reaching an understanding: what does this all mean to you, and to me? How does this play out in our lives?

At the outset in today’s Gospel, Jesus invites the disciples to engage in a sort of shift in perspectives. At first, he asks them who the people say the Son of Man is. And the answer is kind of predictable, although kind of telling: ‘Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ Each of these candidates for Jesus’ identity has a few things in common with the others.  Each of them was a prophet, each spoke as the voice of God and demonstrated the power of God. So, that’s the predictable part. All these answers have one other thing in common: they were all dead.

The telling part in that answer is that it reveals what the people, and perhaps what we, expect of God. What they expected of God, what they expected of Jesus, was more of the same. They expected that Jesus was simply one more member of the Dead Prophets Society. And in so doing, they underestimated both Jesus and God—because God was doing something completely new. Jesus did not preach a God of the dead, but a God of the Living.

Jesus then changes the conversation. He asks them what may be the most important question in all of Scripture: “But who do you say that I am?” It encompasses several other questions: “Why are you here?” “What are you doing?” “What do I mean to you?” At the same time. the question inquires into Jesus’ identity, it implicitly wonders about our own sense of self, our coherence, our particularity.

It’s a question I have to ask, sometimes several times a day, because my answer is often different. In a way, the question is a bit like a kaleidoscope….turn it just a bit, and you see something completely new. And perhaps that’s what’s happening with us here this morning, a bit of a turn, and something very new emerges.

So then Jesus asks the follow up question: who do you say that I am? This time, no one speaks up but Simon. It’s funny you know, how many of us can give the Church’s answer, or the answer we’ve heard about Jesus. But are we prepared to give our own accounting for our understanding of Jesus?

Peter faced that moment in this passage we usually refer to as “Peter’s confession.” For Peter, that answer was: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” Now, at the time Peter spoke these words, Messiah o, didn’t necessarily connote divinity. It encompassed several meanings: a religious and a political doyen, a great judge and military leader, and a good, observant Jew. So, when Peter calls Jesus the Messiah, the anointed, the Christos, that name is laden with meaning and the hopes of political independence.

And there were all sorts of ideas suggested as far as when the Messiah might come: if Israel observed a single Sabbath properly; if a single person could keep all the law for a single day; if a generation were completely innocent; or if an entire generation lost hope. Perhaps the great mistake in all these theories lay in assumption that the Messiah’s arrival depended on human action rather than the impulse of divine love.

On the other hand, to call Jesus the Son of God, well, that’s something else. That’s an entirely different layer of meaning, inescapably implicating the divine, inescapably pointing toward the incarnation. Every one of us is called to answer that question: “But who do you say that I am. Who do you say that Jesus is?

When Jesus asks the question, Peter is the only one who speaks up. And Jesus offers a remarkable analysis of Peter’s answer:  He says, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.” In other words, Jesus recognizes the divine voice speaking through Peter, recognizes that God is at work in Peter’s life. Now, Peter would screw up later on. And again. And again, like most of us. In fact, Peter would go awry in the very next paragraph. And it takes a profound love to recognize that somewhere in that mess, there’s some God stuff, too.

Recognizing that God stuff, Jesus gives Simon a new name. He calls him Peter, or Petros in the Greek. And here comes the play on words. He tells him, “Upon this rock (petras in the Greek) I will build this church.

So, we might wonder, exactly which rock is that? Some have suggested it was the person of Peter himself. But we should at least consider the possibility that the rock upon which the church would be built was actually Peter’s confession: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Perhaps the rock upon which the church stands is our own answer to the question, “Who do you say that I am?”  In our lifelong struggle with that question, as we turn the kaleidoscope over and over, we not only understand Jesus anew, we come to understand ourselves differently. Like Peter, we find a new identity in Christ. And so, the question remains crucially important; in fact, it’s definitive.  Who do you say Jesus is? Amen.

James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2026

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The Doors Were Locked

Posted on April 12, 2026 | Leave a comment

Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.”  The full readings for this morning can be found here.) In the name of the living God, who is creating, redeeming, and sustaining us.

Well, good morning, everybody, good morning. As I was spending time with the readings for this week, and wondering what we might talk about this morning, I began to think about our wounds, our scars. Our scars are powerful reminders. They recall our history and tell others a bit of our story. They spark our memory, and we rarely forget the event that gave rise to our scars, whether it was a fall from a bunk bed, a bad bicycle accident, or that time your brother shot you (maybe accidentally) with his slingshot. Our scars shape our lives and remind us of our history.

So, a long time ago, I was a kid back in West Texas. I couldn’t have been any more than 6 or 7 years old, so you know it was back before the earth cooled and the dinosaurs died out. Anyway, I was with my father, and we were shopping for something. And I noticed the man behind the sales counter. His face was dreadfully scarred, and he must have been burned terribly. After we walked away, I looked up at my father and asked, “Dad, what happened to that man’s face?”

My father looked at me and said, “James, that man doesn’t have a thing in the world to be ashamed of. That man’s face is scarred because he found something worth fighting for. The man you need to feel sorry for is the man who doesn’t have any scars at all, because he never found anything worth fighting for.” But we’ll come back to that later.

 So, when our gospel story for this morning opens, it’s the evening of Easter—the evening of the resurrection, the evening after the stone was rolled away and the tomb was discovered to be empty. And we find the disciples hiding behind locked doors. They are hiding because they’re terrified, they’re afraid of the same people who accused Jesus. But I think there’s another reason they’re hiding behind locked doors. I think they’re still trying to work through the shock and pain and trauma of their rabbi’s torture and death. And I think they’re desperately trying to understand the disappearance of Jesus’ body and the strange stories the women told them. And so, they lock the doors; they lock themselves in and lock themselves up.

 I wonder how often we lock ourselves up, because we’re afraid, because we’re confused, because we’re grieving or struggling with trauma. There’s no end to the ways we get locked in—anger, resentment, disappointment, busyness, or the many ways we try to avoid that which hurts or requires us to change. It is our natural reaction, which doesn’t mean that it’s the reaction which gives us life or peace. So often, we lock the doors to keep the monsters out, only to find we’ve cornered ourselves in a place of dread and misery.

 And then, once they’ve got all the doors locked and all the trouble shut out, who shows up but that Jesus guy? You know, he’s done that to me. I’m sitting there, raging about something, all locked up in anger or disappointment, and he walks in. Anyway, in the Gospel story, Jesus arrives and he offers them the same thing he offers us. He says, “Peace be with you.” Now, peace (or in the Hebrew “shalom”) meant more than just a ceasefire or a break in the battle. It meant wholeness, a mending of that which is broken, healing and restoration. And which of us couldn’t use a little of that?

So, Jesus says, “Peace be with you”, peace be upon you. Peace be upon you and all the broken parts of your life. Peace be upon your rage. Peace be with your stubborn refusal of forgiveness. Peace be with your shame. Peace be with us in our poverty of spirit. Peace be with you, James, John and Peter. Peace be with you Raymond and Sheryl and Ben. Peace be with you Martha, and Gillian, and Blanca and Mike.

He then breathes on them, which is to say he gives them his Spirit and empowers them to forgive sins. But there’s just one problem. Thomas wasn’t there with the others. Now, you can say what you will about Thomas, but he’s not sitting there with the other disciples cowering behind locked doors. And you may remember, just a couple of weeks ago, when Jesus said it was time to go back to Jerusalem, all the other disciples are worried that Jesus would be killed there. But Thomas, out of loyalty mixed with courage says, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” So, there’s a lot more to Thomas than just his doubts.

As our story goes along, one week later, the disciples are still stuck in the house but this time Thomas is with them. Although they had told Thomas about Jesus’ earlier visit, Thomas didn’t believe them. This time, when Jesus appears, he invites Thomas to feel his wounds. In the great mystery of the Incarnation, Jesus became human and traveled with us through human history. As John said, “The Word became flesh and lived among us.” Well, the flesh of the resurrected Jesus still bears the scars and wounds of his entry into our history.

And then Thomas says something remarkable. I mean, it’s truly astonishing, and probably qualifies Thomas as our first Christian theologian. He says, “My Lord and my God!”

You see, as Thomas explores the physical evidence of Jesus’ torture with his hand, he recognizes the mystery of the Incarnation. Thomas isn’t just saying that God raised Jesus from the dead—he’s saying that Jesus is God. And it will take the Christian Church another three hundred years to catch up with Thomas in the Nicene Creed which we’ll say together in just a bit.

Like many of us, Jesus’ time on this earth left him with wounds, left him with scars. But if you’ll think back to my earlier story about my father, Jesus’ scars teach us something. You see, as Jesus entered into human history, as he walked this world with us, he found something worth fighting for. What he found was you and me. Jesus thought we are worth fighting for, in fact worth dying for. And you’d best be believin’ me, that’s some good news. Amen.

James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2026

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A Great Chasm

Posted on September 28, 2025 | 2 comments

Now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed…. (The full readings for this morning can be found here.)

In the name of the Living God, who is creating us, redeeming us, and sustaining us.

Well, good morning, everybody. So, in today’s gospel we encounter a man who’s having trouble with the afterlife and is concerned for his family. Whenever I hear this story, I think about a family we knew back in West Texas, the Beauchamp brothers.

Now, they were not nice people. In fact, everybody in the whole county knew the Beauchamp brothers. In business they were crooked, mean and cold-blooded. Well, one day, the older brother, Howard Beauchamp, he up and died. The younger brother, Ronnie, wanted to make sure that Howard got the finest funeral there had ever been in the county. He went down to the funeral home and bought a fine cherrywood coffin with silver hardware. Then he went to go see the minister.

The little church there was not doing so well. In fact, it was kind of falling apart at the seams. The air conditioner was old and tired, and the roof struggled to keep out the rain. Well, Ronnie Beauchamp, he went to the minister, and he offered him the Devil’s own bargain. He said, “Pastor, I will give your church half a million dollars if you will preach my brother’s funeral and tell everyone he was a saint.” Well, this was a real conflict for the preacher, because the church really needed that money, but he couldn’t lie from the pulpit.

So, the day of the funeral came around, and the whole town was there as the minister began to preach the funeral sermon.  He said, “The man you see in this coffin was a vile and debauched individual.  He was a liar, a thief, a bully, a great sinner, and he broke his mama’s heart.  He destroyed the fortunes, careers, and lives of countless people in this county, some of whom are here today. This man did every dirty, rotten thing you can think of.”

“But, the preacher added, … compared to his brother, he was a saint.”

Now, before we go any further, I want to make a couple of things clear. The passage we are reading isn’t a theological guide about how to get to heaven or how to avoid hell. This passage is one of Jesus’ parables—a riddle or a fable. So, I don’t think the rich man went to Hades because he was rich. And I don’t think Lazarus went to heaven because he was poor. But I do want us to start thinking this morning about the various chasms we encounter: chasms that separate us from each other, the gulfs between us and God—the chasms we come upon, and the chasms we help create.

One of the first places we notice a gap, or a distance, is between the circumstances of these two men. We are told that every day, the rich man ate luxurious meals, and he wore fine linen and purple. On the other hand, we can imagine Lazarus in rags, and we’re told he’s covered in sores. He’s also starving, and dreams of eating even the crumbs or scraps from the rich man’s meals.

And although their lives were very different, they did not live far away from each other. In fact, Lazarus lived just outside the rich man’s gate. But we get the feeling the rich man never noticed Lazarus. In fact, I get the impression that the rich man had become quite adept at ignoring Lazarus at the gate, a kind of studied disregard, a well-rehearsed apathy. So, their lives on earth were very far apart; they were separated by a great economic and social chasm.

Then, when the two men die, we have one of those classic reversals of fortune that Luke loves. It’s already happened right from the outset of the story. You see, we know the name of the poor man in the story—his name is Lazarus, which means God’s help. We don’t, however, know the name of the other character; he’s just some rich guy. That’s not how things normally work. We remember the rich and the mighty, and too often the names of the poor and the hopeless are forgotten.

But when their earthly lives are over, the angels carry Lazarus to the bosom of Abraham. In other words, he has a place of peace and comfort and honor among the righteous dead. The rich man, however, finds himself being tormented in Hades. There’s a considerable distance, a chasm, between their circumstances. But even from the fiery pit, the rich man doesn’t seem to recognize his new situation yet. He’s still treating Lazarus like a slave. You see, the biggest lie the devil ever told us is that some lives are worth more than others, that some people are more important than others.

The rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus with just a bit of water on his finger to ease the rich man’s suffering. Once again, here’s that Lucan reversal of fortune. Abraham tells the rich man: “Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony.”

The bigger problem, Abraham explains, is that vast chasm between Lazarus and the rich man. Now, maybe Jesus was trying to tell us that heaven is a long, long way away from hell, but I don’t think so. I think the distance between Lazarus and the rich man is simply the echo and amplification of the separation the rich man created while they were alive. In other words, to borrow an idea from Charles Dickens, they wear the chains they forged in life. Jesus reminds us that there is a deep and profound connection between how we live in this life and how we live in the next life.

So, what are we supposed to do with this passage? What am I supposed to do about the homeless man that I drove by on my way to church this morning? Am I supposed to give him a dollar? Buy him a meal? Pay for him to spend a night in a hotel room? If I do that, will Jesus let me into heaven?

I think the very last thing Jesus wanted to do in his parables was to give us easy answers to these questions. I think we were meant to struggle with this issue, to learn to listen to Moses and the prophets. I also think we have to find a way to close the tremendous gaps between ourselves and our brothers and sisters. We all know about the terrible gap of wealth inequality, and we saw the political distance widen in this country after Charlie Kirk was killed and both parties clawed at each other desperately for a spot on the moral high ground

My friends, as Doctor King warned us, “We must learn to live together as brothers and sisters or perish together as fools.” We know about the chasm between God’s children. I think the biggest chasm I have to struggle with every day is the gap between the man I am and the man I want to be, the distance between the life I’m leading, and the life Jesus wants for me.
I think the first thing is that we notice how deeply, how profoundly, God cares for the poor. This morning, the Psalmist tells us happy are those:

Who give justice to those who are oppressed,
and food to those who hunger.
The Lord sets the prisoners free;
the Lord opens the eyes of the blind;
the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down.

A friend of mine puts it a little differently. He likes to tell me that no one gets into heaven without a letter of recommendation from the poor.

Secondly, I think we have to find a way to bridge the gap between us and the broken-hearted of this world. We must find a way to reach across to those who are hungry, to those who live in hopelessness. And we’ve got to quit asking whether they deserve our help, our charity. Quite frankly, that is none of our business. God will figure that out.

I do believe charity is important, and yes, the rich man fails to tend to, or care about, the needs of Lazarus. But there was a sin that came before that, an earlier fault that made all the others possible. He didn’t even notice Lazarus. He didn’t notice the man at his gate. I don’t want to think about the number of times I’ve turned my glance away from the homeless and the poor. And the failure to notice them robs us of any chance we have to make a difference in their lives, to make a friend. So maybe we should begin by noticing them, and I mean this quite literally, for the love of God, notice them. Maybe if we go out of our way, just a little bit, we might learn to share our resources, and more importantly, to share our hearts. Amen.

James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2025

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Things Hoped For

Posted on August 10, 2025 | 3 comments

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (The full readings for this morning can be found here.)

In the name of the living God, who is creating, redeeming, and sustaining us. Amen. Well good morning, good morning. I thought this morning we’d talk about faith, about different ways some folks have of understanding faith, and about what the scriptures can teach us about that.

When I think about faith, I am often reminded of my great great grandfather. You see, he had come to America from the Old Country, from Ireland. He settled for a while in the Boston area. And he was a very busy man, but a very devout man. Well, one day he had an appointment with the bishop, and he was running late. And there was no place left to park.

As I said, he was a very devout man. And he looked to the heavens and prayed. He said, “Lord, you know I’m here to see the bishop. You know I can’t be late, Lord, and you know there’s no place for me to park. So, I’ll tell you what I’ll do, if you help me find a parking place, I’ll go to mass every day for a month. He looked and there were still no places. And so he added, “And Lord, I’ll give up the whiskey.”

Well, it was a cloudy day that afternoon in Boston, but all of a sudden, the skies parted, and a bright beam of sunshine opened up to reveal a single parking spot right in front of the cathedral. And my ancestor looked up to heaven and said, “Never mind, Lord. I found one m’self.”

So, I want to suggest something to you, at least a starting premise for us to work from. I want to suggest that faith is much more about who we trust, or where we place our trust, than about what we believe. I’ll say that again: I wonder whether faith isn’t much more about who we trust, or where we place our trust, than about the ideas we have decided to accept.

Let’s look at a couple of examples that might help with that distinction. We all remember the story of Noah and the flood. The earliest claims of having found the Ark in which Noah sought shelter from the flood date back to around 700 BC. Since then, hundreds of people have claimed that they found the ark. Recently, one group is using ground penetrating radar at the Durupinar formation in Turkey and claim to have found the remains of a preserved vessel. But does that have anything to do with faith? If we could scientifically prove this was the ark, and found trace DNA from Noah, would our lives in faith be better?

If we could absolutely prove the story of Noah and the flood, we might have a very fine argument or some fascinating dinner conversation—we might even have some certainty.  But certainty is not an environment in which faith thrives. Because faith, the scripture teaches us, is the conviction of things not seen. Our discovery of the ark might prove something we could all see with our eyes, but faith looks beyond the visible, the provable, to what can only be seen with the heart.

Let’s examine question, the very old question of which religion offers us the surest path to salvation. So, we have been fighting about our beliefs for a long time: about whether you could have pictures of Jesus in the church, about calculating the date of Easter, and about how Jesus really really gets into the communion host. In the 1960s, one group of the Amish community separated from the main body of the Amish over the question of whether one could wear buttons, or whether one could only be true to their religion by fastening their clothes with hooks and eyes.

We can believe all sorts of things: our beliefs are the conclusions we are led to by our rational minds, the conclusions of our thinking. We can believe that our safety lies in our military might—nuclear submarines that can wipe our enemies off the map. Or you might belief in an afterlife in which all the meals are composed of chocolate cake and crème brûlée, where the streets are made of peanut brittle. Or maybe you believe the government is listening to our every thought through a complex system of internet connections, cell phones, and vaccinations.  I don’t really care whether you think  UFOs come down each summer to swim with the Loch Ness Monster and discuss how we faked the moon landing. You might believe that our salvation only lies in eating unleavened bread while listening to the Star-Spangled Banner and staring at an isosceles triangle.

I am not especially concerned with what you believe: Beliefs change; they are constructs of our mind. So, I’m not especially concerned with that. But I am profoundly concerned with your faith, with the place where your trust abides, and how that trust shapes the way you live your life.

That kind of faith reshapes the world and makes it ready for God’s word to vibrate through creation. This is a music that can only be heard with the heart, a music that assures us that God knows of our deepest hopes. Abraham heard that music of faith, and followed God when God told him to leave behind his home and everything he’d ever known. Abraham trusted God when God told him he would have children, even though both he and his wife were too old. And even when God asked him to give up his only son, Abraham trusted God and knew that somehow it would all work out right.

So, I’ll tell you a secret. I think that kind of trust, that deep faith or “assurance of things hoped for,” usually comes only after you’ve had your heart broken a time or two and learned where you can find shelter—who you can depend on, what you can trust. That kind of trust will necessarily influence our actions, influence how we walk through the world. In our modern world, faith (or trust) is so very hard to come by. We have become so jaded, so suspicious of each other and our institutions.

Back in the earliest days of the Church, those first Christians knew about sorrow, and suffering, and broken hearts. And it took them about 300 years to articulate who they could turn to, who they could trust. And they gathered together to work out their ideas down at a place called Nicaea. We still say their prayer, and we’ll recite it in just a moment.

They said they trusted God, “the maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.” Do you hear that prayer echo in the reading from Hebrews: “the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.” They trusted in Jesus, Mary’s boy, who promised he would be with them until the end of time. They had faith because Jesus told them it pleased his Father to give them the kingdom. The had faith in the Spirit which had moved across the waters, the Spirit which came upon them in baptism, and the Spirit which had inspired their Scriptures. And they trusted the Church, although they knew that from time to time a particular instance of the church might let them down.  But that’s not where their faith abided; no, they trusted in the whole church, which is the mystical body of Christ.

The great J.M. Barrie, who wrote Peter Pan, said, “All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust.” That sounds just about right. I know I have great hopes for us. That hope is invisible, but I am assured of it. “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.” Amen.

James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2025

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Becoming More Human: A Sermon for Poetry Month

Posted on May 7, 2025 | 2 comments

Here’s the link to the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwuOJMirg6U&t=69s

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The Scent of Scandal at Bethany

Posted on April 5, 2025 | 2 comments

Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. (The full readings for this morning can be found here.)



In the name of the living God who is creating, redeeming, and sustaining us.

Way back a very long time ago, back in the early twelfth century, I was a boy in Odessa, Texas. And I can tell you my very first memory. I was riding in a golf cart with my father, and I couldn’t have been older than three or four years old. And the sun was coming up, and I smelled the scent of freshly cut grass, and I thought I must have gone to heaven.

And I remember going to my grandmother’s house for Thanksgiving, and the house was full of the most wonderful smells: ham, turkey, sweet potatoes, about 5 kinds of pie, and a pot of cowboy coffee on that old stove. Oh, I can still smell those thanksgivings.

Rudyard Kipling once wrote, “Smells are surer than sights or sounds to make your heartstrings crack.” And Hellen Keller once observed, “Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived.” Neuropsychologists tell us that smell is one of the most powerful gateways into our memories, in part because those two parts of the brain are very close to each other. Think about your first new car, or favorite book or your first trip to the library as a child, and you will almost automatically be drawn to the way they smelled. I think this is true in part because our sense of smell is so closely tied with the act of breathing—we don’t just detect a scent, we take it into our lungs and our bodies through our breath, which is another way of saying we take it into our spirit.

So, this morning, the Church offers us this wonderful story of a dinner party. It takes place in Bethany, which is bordered by the Mount of Olives, and only about two miles from the city of Jerusalem. And Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem; in fact, it’s his last trip to that city. And nothing very good is going to happen there.

Now, this is sort of an odd dinner party, for a number of reasons. It takes place at the home of Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus—yes, that Lazarus. And just one chapter before this, Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead. And even Jesus, knowing all that he knew and was about to do, wept at that tomb. He wept over the death of his friend, and he wept over the grief he shared with his friend’s sisters. And when Jesus told them to roll away the stone, Martha voiced her concern: “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead for four days.” She was concerned about the stench of the grave, the odor of death and decay. But Jesus called Lazarus back from the grave and ordered them to unbind him from the strips of cloth in which he was entombed.

So, we have these two sisters at this dinner party, along with Lazarus (who was dead, but is alive) and Jesus (who is alive but will not be for much longer). And then, we have Judas. I’ll circle back around to him in a bit. And they are gathered at the table.

Then, one of the sisters (Mary) does something remarkable. She does something scandalous, something embarrassing, something shocking, something prodigal. (You may remember that story of the prodigal son from last week, another story of a reckless love that doesn’t care about dignity.) She takes a pound of perfume made from pure nard and anoints Jesus’ feet with it and then she wipes them with her hair. Let’s break this down a bit.

Nard was a very expensive perfume with a strong, distinctive aroma that clung to the skin. It is mentioned elsewhere in Scripture, in the Song of Solomon, which is also a sensuous and erotic and sometimes scandalous book of the bible. The value of the oil with which she anoints Jesus’ feet is approximately a year’s wages. So, this is a lavish, sensuous act of devotion. And women of that time, did not loosen their hair, let alone wash a man’s feet with it. But just as her brother Lazarus was unbound from his death shroud, Mary unbinds her hair and begins to wash Jesus’ feet. Washing someone’s feet—well, that was dirty work for the servants or slaves. In fact, women of that time did not touch a man at all unless they were married.

So, all the good, proper ladies over at the First Baptist Church of Jerusalem would have been clutching their pearls at this scene.

And then Judas asks a question, “Why didn’t she do some good with this money? Why not give it to the poor?” Now Judas is the consummate cynic, right? You know what a cynic is—a cynic is someone who knows what everything costs but doesn’t know what anything is worth. The stench of betrayal and stinginess and violence clings to him. And he cannot recognize the worth of this moment as this woman pours out her wealth, pours out her life and her dignity, upon this man Jesus. A love that reckless doesn’t care what love costs.

And Jesus tells Judas, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.” And I don’t want you to think that Jesus was unconcerned with the plight of the poor. The gospels tell us, rather, that he was profoundly concerned with the poor. But this is a special moment, a moment of lavish, unselfish tenderness, and I’m sure it strengthened Jesus for those horrifying days that lay ahead. Judas, if we take him at his word, was more concerned with a return on the investment. Mary, on the other hand, wasn’t making an investment; she was giving a gift. Love, with no strings attached. Love may not always be the most practical response, but it is always the divine response.

Now, Mary had purchased this perfume for the time of Jesus’ death, but instead chooses to anoint Jesus now. In a profound sense, she chooses life over death. This woman was willing to risk shame and embarrassment and ridicule— all for a reckless love. That kind of love always leads to the cross. Always. And maybe sometimes, every now and then, we might remember that loving God sometimes means a reckless refusal to consider the cost of love, and we might focus on what it’s worth. And maybe we might remember that God, as Isaiah tells us, is about to do a new thing.

Now, in just a few days we will celebrate Maundy Thursday, the day when Jesus washed his disciples’ feet. It’s the very next Chapter of John’s gospel, and again, it’s very intimate and embarrassing. But, when we get there, I want you to remember, it was this woman Mary who showed Jesus how to do that, who showed him what love looks like.

The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. Breathe that in, breath in her tender, reckless devotion and breathe in the life of Jesus. And then, exhale love. Amen.

James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2025

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Let No One Put Assunder

Posted on October 6, 2024 | 2 comments

“It is to such as these that the Kingdom of God belongs.” (The full text of our readings can be found here.)

In the name of the Living God, who is creating, redeeming, and sustaining us. Well, good morning, everyone, good morning.

You know, I grew up out in West Texas. And when I was a young man I engaged in some pretty risky behavior. Now and then I would drink too much. And I liked fast cars, and liked to see how fast they would go. And I would date these girls..well, if you’ve ever been to a rodeo…well, they were barrel racers. And I want to assure you that they are, every single one of them, loco. I mean not average plain old crazy…they were fancy crazy, with glitter and everything, and some of them were mean, too.

So, I know what it means to walk into a room full of trouble. But when you walk into a church full of people you really don’t know all that well, about a third to half of whom have been divorced, including the guy in the pulpit, to preach a sermon on the topic of divorce, well, that’s next-level hazardous; that’s right on the border between silly and imbalanced. But here in the diocese of West Texas when there’s a really foolish, precarious situation, one that really no one with good sense would mess with, I’m the guy they call. Because, as we all know, fools rush in where angels dare not tread.

So, let’s turn to this passage of Scripture, a passage that has been poorly understood, horribly misused, and cruelly interpreted.  Let’s try to look at this story in context, beginning with the historical context.

The first thing we need to understand is that whatever sort of divorce Jesus was talking about, divorce in first-century Palestine had very little to do with the sort of divorce we may have had some experience with. Ancient Israel, like most of the ancient world, was patriarchal, and wives were regarded as the property of their husbands. Thus, while a husband could divorce his wife, the wife had no reciprocal ability to divorce her husband. Marriages were not based on our current notions of romantic love between two persons but on considerations of property, status, and honor between two families. If a husband did divorce his wife, she and the children would  probably end up penniless, begging, or something worse

Now let’s look at this story in the textual context, in the context of a story that Mark is telling us. This discussion takes place when Jesus is answering certain questions he’s asked by the Pharisees, asked to test him or to trap him. In this passage, Jesus isn’t asked about how God feels about divorce, or even how Jesus feels about divorce. Rather, they ask Jesus a question they already know the answer to—they ask him what the law says. Now, the Pharisees were a lot of things, but mostly, they were a group devoted to understanding, preserving, and interpreting the law. So, they didn’t come to Jesus with a genuine question, but rather with a snare.

Now let’s look at this story in the broader Gospel context about Jesus’ relationship with the law. Everything we know tells us that Jesus’ relationship with the law was….well, complicated. When Jesus’ disciples were accused of breaking Jewish law by plucking grain and eating it as they walked along on the Sabbath, Jesus responded that David and his companions ate the consecrated bread that the law reserved for the priests.  When the Pharisees caught a woman in adultery and were going to stone her as the law directed, Jesus told them that the one without sin should throw the first rock. The Pharisees constantly criticized Jesus for healing on the Sabbath, which he did so regularly one might conclude that Jesus was looking for trouble. And I think he was: I think Jesus was looking for what the great John Lewis called “Good Trouble.”

It seems to me that in this morning’s reading, Jesus is doing what he did so often. I think he was forcing us to overcome our legalism and look more deeply at the principles that underlie the law, and to look more deeply within ourselves. Jesus tells us the problem isn’t with our legal situation but with our medical situation—with the hardening of our hearts.  He says Moses only gave you the commandment concerning divorce because of the hardness of your hearts. If you’ve ever walked through a divorce with one of the parties, or with a couple, you know how hard our hearts can get. If you’ve ever watched children go through a custody battle, you know how hard our hearts can become.

Rather than involving himself in a debate about the circumstances in which divorce might be permissible, Jesus (as he so often did) calls us to examine the first principles behind marriage. Part of that first principle Jesus turns to is the story of creation: we were not made to be alone; we were made for life in common, a life in love.

We know of many reasons why a marriage can fail: infidelity; alcohol and substance abuse; workplace stress; financial stress; mental illness; disagreements over parenting styles; religious differences; physical and mental abuse. Like the psalmist says, we’re “just a little lower than the angels.” Very rarely have I encountered a situation where one party was completely to blame and the other party was completely blameless in the failure of the marriage. Divorce can leave behind emotional and spiritual wreckage. And sometimes I have seen circumstances where ending the marriage was the least wrong answer two people had available to them. Because whatever the marriage covenant is, I’m pretty sure God didn’t intend it to be a suicide pact.

I have known way too many people, mostly women, who were berated and shamed by churches and church leaders when their marriage ended in divorce. And I don’t know how Jesus would feel about all the reasons modern marriages break down. But I do know how Jesus felt about our habit of judging each other and I know how he felt about cruelty. I know that, for all of us, hardness of heart is a spiritual issue. Our lives can become so very isolated, so very disintegrated, so very fragmented.

Today’s Scripture isn’t really about the legality of our justifications for divorce. It’s about how we overcome our natural hard-heartedness and learn to live lives that are full of compassion and vulnerability and courage. It’s about learning to live into God’s dreams for the world rather than our failures and disappointments. That’s the only way we’ll discover the real intimacy God intended for us and the real blessing of a life spent in gratitude and the joy of delighting in each other. I’m pretty sure if we start off in that direction we might find the kingdom of God. That’s the kind of life I want, and I hope you want it, too. Amen.

James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2024

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You Are the Man!

Posted on August 5, 2024 | 1 comment

But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord, and the Lord sent Nathan to David. (The full readings for today can be found here.)

In the name of the Living God, who is creating, redeeming, and sustaining us. Good morning, good morning. Now, some of y’all know that my family came from out in West Texas, and that’s where I grew up. And y’all might find this surprising, but I was not always the saintly person you know today. No, I was not always the shining angelic light you see here on Sunday mornings. My misbehavior wasn’t usually all that serious: maybe I was cruel to my brothers, or acted selfishly, or took something that didn’t belong to me. And every now and then, the fire trucks would have to come to our house, but that’s another story.

So, when I would fall short of my parents’ expectations, my father would pull me aside and look me in the eyes and tell me, “Son, that’s not the cowboy way.” And without fail, I would crater. I would dwindle away and shrink to about 2 inches tall because I knew I had failed to live the way my family had lived for generations. And come to think about it, my father was not unlike one of the Old Testament prophets, not unlike Nathan in today’s story. And when my father had these little chats with me . . . well, I knew I had been prophesied to.

So, our reading today continues the story we began last week. So, maybe we ought to review just a bit. Our story began when David was king over Israel, in the springtime as scripture tells us, “when kings go out to battle.” But David, he didn’t go out to battle, and we’re not told why, but David let others fight his battles for him. David looked down from his roof and saw a beautiful woman bathing herself, and he wanted her. Even knowing she is the wife of one of his commanders, who is off fighting his battles for him, he wanted to have her.

And David took her, and lay with her and she became pregnant. And then, and this is hard to imagine, it gets worse. First, he tried to cover up his affair by bringing Uriah home from the war. When that didn’t work, he arranged to have Uriah killed in battle. And that gets us up to where our reading begins this morning. After arranging for her husband’s death, David brings Bathsheba into his house, marries her, and she gives birth to his child.

I know this is a shocking story and we are all clutching our collective pearls. Within about a month, David has managed to break almost every one of the Ten Commandments. I mean, a political figure, a religious leader, involved in a sexual scandal and then trying to cover it up? Thank heavens we don’t have to deal with that sort of thing anymore.

 So, I want to stop there and do a bit of a theological reflection on this man, this king, David. We all remember the story of David killing the giant Goliath who had been mocking the armies of Israel. The very first words we hear out of David’s mouth in that story are: “What will you do for the man who kills this Philistine?” In other words, what exactly is in it for me? Then we have him engage in an affair with Bathsheba, and engage in all sorts of sordid behavior to try and cover it up, including what amounts to basically murder. Our Jewish brothers and sisters have a complicated theological term for this sort of person. They would tell us that David is acting like a schmuck, and they would be right.

So, our translation this morning tells us that the thing that David had done displeased the Lord. That translation sort of softens the original text;  this is not exactly what the original Hebrew says. In Hebrew, the text reads that the thing David had done was evil in the in eyes of the Lord. And so, the Lord sends the prophet Nathan to speak to David, to tell him that he’s been acting like a schmuck, to tell him “that’s not the cowboy way.”

So Nathan goes to David,  and Nathan tells him a little story: he tells him a parable about a poor man and a rich man who stole the poor man’s only lamb. And to his credit, David hasn’t completely lost his sense of right and wrong. David says, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die.”  So, David can see the moral failure in the story; he just can’t manage to see it in the mirror.

This gets me to one of the first observations I want to make about sin. Sin can act like a kind of moral cataract, obscuring our ability to clearly see our own situation and the nature of our actions. Like King David, self-delusion is one of my superpowers. And because of the nature of sin and its ability to blur our vision, from time to time we all need a prophet Nathan to help us see ourselves more clearly.

And Nathan shows David some of the consequences of what he’s done. He says because you’ve taken the life of Uriah and taken his wife, the sword will never leave your house. And God tells him, I will raise up trouble against you from within your own house. God says, you did these things in secret but I will do them openly. And David comes to realize that he has sinned.

So, I think this story teaches us a few other things about the nature of sin. First, we think we can control it, but we can’t. The outcome of sin is unpredictable. Sin operates sort of like the science of forensics. When the bullet enters the body, it enters through a tiny hole, but as it travels through cartilage and bone it flattens and spreads and the exit wound is much larger and jagged.

Secondly, there are two people who haven’t done anything wrong in this story: Uriah and the child of David and Bathsheba’s union. Both of them will die. It would be nice if the only people who suffered because of sin were the guilty, but that’s not the way this world works. Sin has a gravitational pull and draws the innocent into it. Sin is unstable, and collateral damage is just part of its capricious nature.

Third, we hope that the harm done by our wrong will be comparable to the wrong done. Again, that’s magical thinking, an infantile hope. Because of sin’s unstable nature, the consequence of sin can sometimes be vastly disproportionate to the level of wrong done.

And the last observation I’ll make about sin comes from one of my favorite novels, The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald wrote: “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” The point is this: in order to great harm, we don’t actually have to intend some evil plan; great harm and great suffering can result from our simple carelessness.

The more we understand about the nature of sin, the more perilous this world can seem, as though we were walking through a moral minefield, with nowhere safe to step. But there is a place we can go. There is a balm in Gilead, and there is mercy, and it is plentiful. We can trust in the practice of confession and absolution. We can turn to the Nathans in our lives, perhaps our confessors, perhaps our spiritual directors, perhaps a priest or a close friend. We can find all those right here at St. Mark’s Episcolopolus Church. And in a few moments, we can come to this altar, to take a bit of Jesus into our lives, maybe lay down some of our burdens there. And in that sacrament of repentance and forgiveness and renewal, we can start over again. Amen.

James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2024

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The First Duty of Love

Posted on April 21, 2024 | 2 comments


“I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.” (The full readings for today can be found here.) In the name of the Living God, who is creating, redeeming, and sustaining us.

Well, good morning, everybody, good morning. You know, I’m not sure…no, I’m not sure at all. I’m not sure that I’m qualified to preach on this Good Shepherd Sunday. You see, my people were cattle people. They weren’t sheep people. And cattle people didn’t always get along with sheep people. By “not always,” I mean they never got along with each other.

And while there are a lot of differences between cattle and sheep, a couple of them come to mind. One of the biggest differences is that you can lead sheep, but you have to drive cattle. Unlike cattle, sheep will learn to follow. They build friendships and will stick up for one another. Like us, they are highly social animals, and when they are under stress or isolation, they become sad, and yes, even depressed. And they are very intelligent creatures; they recognize faces and voices. But like us, they will sometimes stray away from the herd, and need to be watched over.

In Jesus’ time, sheep were a mainstay of survival: they provided milk and cheese, and sometimes meat for the family and for sacrifices. They also provided wool for warm garments. But I think there’s something going on in John’s gospel than a discussion of first-century animal husbandry or livestock. I think this gospel reading is, at its core, about how we love, and how we are loved.

So, I think we should note a couple of things before we go on. And for this, I think we have to go all the way back to the beginning of John’s gospel, back to the very first time we meet this man called Jesus. You may remember that John was baptizing people in the river Jordan when he saw Jesus and shouted out: “Here is the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” Now, lambs had been used as sacrificial animals for a long time by the Jewish people and were particularly associated with the holy feast of Passover.

We hear this same image, this same symbolic language in the last passage of John’s gospel, where the resurrected Jesus and Peter sit by a charcoal fire after breakfast.  And Jesus makes clear to Peter that Peter’s assurance of love carries with it a tender and sometimes difficult office, an obligation to feed his sheep. So, I want to suggest if we find this image being used in the beginning of John’s gospel, at the end of his gospel, and this morning pretty much in the middle of the gospel, we can probably safely assume that John thought this was important.

But as we read this, we might be forgiven if we have a moment of confusion. Is Jesus the lamb or the shepherd? Why is Peter feeding the sheep? Are we the sheep, or is Jesus the lamb? Quite frankly, it seems a bit complicated, and a little bewildering.

I think at least part of the answer lies, perhaps a bit veiled, in Jesus’ statement: “I am the good shepherd.” It’s one of what’s called the “I am” sayings of Jesus: you know, “I am the Bread of Life”, “I am the Light of the World”, “I am the vine,” and “I am the Good Shepherd.” In doing so, Jesus is aligning himself with a very old understanding of who God is. You remember the story from the Book of Exodus, when Moses asks God his name and God replies, “I am who I am.” For John, there is no difference between God and Jesus, the Word, the Logos. And for John, there is no difference between listening to Jesus and listening to God.

Jesus distinguishes his role from that of a hired hand. And at least part of the distinction has to do with how they react when the wolves come. Whether you’re a cattle person or a sheep person, you know about wolves. Lord have mercy, I believe we all know about wolves. You can find them in any walk of life—in business, in politics, and on our television screens. Sometimes those wolves come disguised as ambition or greed, sometimes as addictions, sometimes as failure, and sometimes as desperation.

You might argue that the distinction between the Good Shepherd and the hired hand is about their level of commitment. Perhaps the hired hand acts out of self-interest, while the Good Shepherd isn’t afraid of the wolves and understands his responsibilities. But I think there’s something more there. I think the Good Shepherd doesn’t run away when the wolves come because he acts out of something much more profound. Love, and only love, hangs around when the wolves come. Love, and only love, is willing to stand its ground when the situation gets risky. Only that kind of love is willing to lay down its life for the beloved.

Now, here’s the good news. We are the beloved. And Jesus is telling us that he loves us like that, that God loves us like that. And that kind of love doesn’t even ask what it costs, because it knows what it’s worth.
Later in this same Chapter of John, Jesus tells us “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” I often wonder how well I’m listening for the voice of Jesus. When I get busy, when I get worried, or when I’m simply careless, it’s hard to hear.

You know, a very famous theologian named Paul Tillich said, “The first duty of love is to listen.” That’s worth repeating: “The first duty of love is to listen.” We have a lot of choices in this world as to which voices we’ll listen to. We can listen to the voices that tell us that our neighbors aren’t like us—voices that tell us that they’re not as smart as we are, or they’re freeloaders, or they’re dangerous. Or we can listen to the voices that tell us this world is full of risk and danger, that we might not have enough, or the voices that tell us that our lives will finally make sense if we just get that new car, that new outfit, that new iPhone, or earn enough to retire. We can listen to those voices that tell us that we’re not quite smart enough, not quite pretty enough, or not quite good enough.  

Or we can listen to the voice of the One who will never run away when the wolves come, the one who offers us forgiveness, the one who came to show us what an abundant life really looks like. We can listen to the One who laid down his life for us, who said he’d never leave us, who says he’s with us always, even to the end of time. That kind of voice, that kind of love, is hard to fathom; in fact, it’s one of life’s deepest mysteries.

We are sometimes told, “You are what you eat.” I think it’s equally true that we are what we listen to. The voices we hear can shape us in powerful ways. Genuine listening is an attitude of the heart, a vulnerability to the holy. If indeed the first duty of love is to listen, the choice we are compelled to make is which voice we are going to listen for. Maybe, just maybe, if we listen in love, we will hear the voice of the One who loves us limitlessly, who loves us fearlessly. Amen.

James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2024

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The Border Crisis

Posted on August 20, 2023 | Leave a comment

Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly Matt. 15:28. The full readings for today can be found here.

In the name of the Living God: by whom we are being created, redeemed and sustained.

          You know, I have met a lot of priests. Many of them are my friends. And to be honest with you, I’m really not sure why. Because they treat me so bad. They really do. When it’s time for the Good Samaritan, or the little baby Jesus in the manger, my phone is silent—as silent as a midnight graveyard. But when the lectionary rolls around to Jesus calling a woman with a sick child a dog, all my friends have a conflict: “Brother James, could you come preach for me this Sunday?”  And all the sudden my phone is ringing like the bells of Notre Dame.

          I want to talk about that, but I want to put this story in a bit of context. You know, I love borders. I have spent most of my life near the border, and spent 25 years living right on the border with Mexico. And one of the things I love the most is the intersection of two cultures, the way culture is porous, even when a border may not be. When you live near a border, you come to realize just how fluid and flexible borders can be.

We see it in our meals: I learned very early on that enchiladas and huevos rancheros and carne asada just made life better. We see it in our families, as blended families soften our hard hearts, and all a sudden that’s not just some immigrant, that’s my grandchild, or my uncle, my tio. And we see it in our language: words and phrases cross cultural boundaries with absolute sovereignty, with no constraints. So, in Mexico, if you need to leave your car to go shopping, you’ll look for el parquing, or for breakfast you might have a cereal called los confleis, and the device you use for with your computer is el maus. And it travels in both directions: Our words corral, ranch, stampede all came from Spanish. We have states called Arizona and Florida, and even the name of your own town, Blanco comes from the Spanish. Borders and the confluence of cultures are fascinating.

My favorite border story comes from Mother Teresa, who was crossing one day into Israel. The border guards there asked her if she was carrying any weapons, and she replied, “Oh yes. I have my rosary and I have my prayer books.”

So, this morning, we find Jesus crossing from Jewish territory into the area of Tyre and Sidon, into Gentile country, into the land of the Canaanites. You remember the Canaanites; they were the people in the Old Testament who continually worshipped idols and were always in fights with the people of Israel. They really didn’t get along with the Jewish people, in fact, Jews would routinely refer to these Gentile pagans as “dogs.” It was a commonly used slur for the Canaanites, but it seems shocking when we hear that slur being used by Jesus. We might ask ourselves, “Was Jesus just having a very bad day?” Maybe we begin to get a sense that something more is going on here when we look at Jesus’ family tree and find three Canaanite women there: Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth. As I said, the border changes things.

We learn just how elastic things are on the border when this woman cries out: “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” So, here’s a gentile woman, who calls Jesus “Lord” and the “Son of David.” She may be a pagan, but she’s speaking a pretty solidly Jewish language. In this borderland, this woman doesn’t seem to fit any of the fixed markers of a pagan or a Gentile.

Jesus seems to ignore her, then tells her, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” In other words, I’m not here for you; you’re outside my borders. But then, the story begins to shift, and there’s an interesting shift in the plot. This woman, this Canaanite woman, kneels before Jesus and begs, “Lord, help me.” And things begin to change. They enter into a conversation.  It’s worth noting that Matthew says this woman knelt before Jesus.  

Jesus tells her that it wouldn’t be fair to take the children’s food and give it to the dogs. And it’s shocking, and it’s uncomfortable to hear Jesus say that. But maybe we should remember a couple of things here. First, remember from Matthew’s gospel the parable about the workers who showed up early in the morning getting paid the same as those who showed up late in the afternoon? I don’t think Jesus gave a hoot about what’s fair; I think he was fiercely indifferent to our ideas of fairness. I think Jesus knew God’s mercy was lavish, that there was enough of it for everyone. And I think this woman knew it, too. And as for the slur about calling this woman a dog, well, as we observed earlier, Jesus had a little “dog” blood in him, too.

And look at this woman’s response, in the context of how desperate she is for Jesus to help her daughter. She doesn’t get her feelings hurt, she doesn’t lose her nerve or her persistence. She tells Jesus even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the table. In other words, there’s enough for everyone to eat—to quote that old hymn, “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy.” In God’s economy, supplies of grace and blessings are not limited. God’s love and mercy cross every border we try to establish, skirt around all our barricades, and break down every wall. Now, here’s the tricky part: none of that was news to Jesus.

So, I want to pause that story and go back to the first part of our gospel today. Jesus is talking about the Jewish dietary laws, which are sometimes called the Purity Codes. And there were lots of these regulations, governing who you couldn’t spend your time with (like tax collectors), who you could and couldn’t touch (like lepers), and what you could eat and what you couldn’t eat. And all these rules operated as a kind of a border, a border between what was holy and the things and people that were not. And Jesus rejects this notion, he challenges this border.

Jesus tells us, it’s not what you put into your mouth, it’s what comes out of it that’s the problem. The problem isn’t what you eat; the problem is the slander and gossip and envy in your heart. So, your borders were all wrong. Holiness has a lot more to do with what’s in your heart than with what you eat. That’s the real border.

So, now we return to this woman, begging for Jesus to help her, to heal her child. And I think Jesus looked into her heart and knew that whatever border separated them, he was going to cross it. He tells her that she has great faith, and here I don’t think faith has anything to do with some intellectual proposition that she’s going to accept. I think it has to do with who she trusts. She is willing to give up her dignity, her pride, and her self-respect because she trusts that Jesus can help her daughter. And Jesus, having looked into her heart, is willing to cross the borders that separate them. He assures her that her prayers have been heard and answered.

So, I think it’s worth asking ourselves, “What are the borders that I have that separate me from God?” A lot of us have created a spiritual ghetto, isolated God and Jesus to an hour on Sunday morning. Jesus, you can have a bit of time while I’m in church, but I don’t want you coming with me to work, or when I’m arguing with my family, and I don’t want you getting into my politics, and I sure don’t want to see you on the golf course.

There’s a fellow named Russell Moore, who used to be a top official with the Southern Baptist Convention and is now the editor of Christianity Today. And he and several other pastors talked about preaching on turning the other cheek and preaching the Sermon on the Mount. And they were accosted by their congregation for preaching on “liberal talking points.” And when these pastors would reply “I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ” their congregations would answer “Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak.” Moore concludes that our church today is in a crisis, a crisis in which the teachings of Jesus Christ are considered subversive. I think that happens because some of us have created a border between Jesus and our politics.

And I think Moore may be right: we are in a crisis. But here’s the good news: if we trust Jesus, if we let him into our lives and take him seriously, he will knock down every false border we’ve created until there’s nothing left standing between us and God. Amen.

James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2023

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