Matthew 15, 21-28 (20th Sunday OT, A, Go Forth and Use our Gifts)

August 17, 2008

Focus: Called to go forth to all people in faith to use our gifts in service.

Function: To remind hearers to go forth to all people in faith to use their God-given gifts in service.

1. Our Call as Christians

You are called. You are called. You are called. We are all called. Each one of us in this Church is called to go forth like Jesus, Paul, and Isaiah.

1. The Calls and Responses

The Woman’s Call and Jesus’ Response

1. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Second Person of the Triune God, was called forth from the Father’s bosom to be born in time. He was born and died to serve and to sacrifice.

Jesus Christ’s life of service was manifested in His birth and life. By His birth the eternal God entered human history to teach us how to serve one another. By His earthly life of actions, deeds, and words, God made-flesh demonstrates a new way to love, especially the outcast.

1. In today’s Gospel, Jesus heard the call of a desperate mother; “Please, Lord…” Wouldn’t any mother do the same for her child? Interestingly, she was both a woman and a foreigner, a Syrophenician. As such, in her society, she was at the bottom of the social hierarchy; in her particular situation, she was at the bottom—and had “hit bottom,” and had no other place to go. In her desperation, she turned to Jesus because of her “great faith,” and of her commitment to someone else—to her daughter.
2. Today’s Gospel shows us how Jesus served this Syrophenician woman. He served by responding to her call of faith, and by treating her and her daughter with dignity both as foreigners and as women. In this way, Jesus responded to the call of His mission to serve.
3. Jesus Christ’s life of sacrifice was manifested in His death and resurrection. By His death, He offered His life in ransom for all; He paid the price for our sin. By His resurrection, He gave us a way to new life—a new way to live in this life, and a new way to life eternal. His life was a ransomed for all—even those considered foreign or outcast. Notice that Jesus first went to the Jewish people—some accepted Him, others rejected him—then the non-Jewish people began to come to Him. Paul followed the example of Jesus.
   1. Paul’s Call and Paul’s Response

1. Paul’s call came from Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus.

Paul was called to stop persecuting Christians and to follow Jesus Christ. Paul responded to this call, and in so doing became a great saint, and, in the opinion of many scholars, the second founder of Christianity, after Jesus Christ.

2. In his response to the call, Paul followed the pattern of Jesus:

like Jesus, he was a Jew, and first went to his own people, and only later to the Gentiles. Paul went to the “gens” or the “genos” [the Latin or Greek world meaning “the people” or “the nations,”] and for this mission to the Gentiles, Paul was given “irrevocable” gifts. In today’s reading from Romans, Paul addresses the Gentiles, and refers to himself as “the apostle to the Gentiles,” to non-Jewish peoples. In a very real sense, our being Christians is the fruit of Paul’s response to God’s call to go to the nations.

3. Like Paul, we too are called to go to those considered

“gentiles,”—to those considered “different.” We are called to

take the gifts given us by God, and to offer ourselves in sacrifice for and service of others. We are called as individuals and as a community to go “to the nations,” and especially to the lost and marginalized.

• 1. Isaiah’s Call and Isaiah’s Response

1. Isaiah’s call from God was to be a prophet. During the 700BC, Isaiah, a young man from a noble family, warned the Kingdom of Israel that they were living solely according to human laws, and not the law of God, which must be cultivated in the heart and emerge from real faith in God. The Kingdom of Israel confronted the possibility of being absorbed by Assyria or Egypt. The prophet Isaiah told them to seek first the Kingdom of God and to do justice and, that God would make Israel more powerful.
2. As a prophet to his people, Isaiah called them to a life of justice—to loving others, even their enemies, and caring for the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner. He called them to keep the Sabbath holy, and to be joyful in God’s house of prayer.
3. Like Isaiah, we were called to do justice—to establish right relationships with God and others; we are called to celebrate our communal calling in this house of prayer.
4. Conclusion

The psalmist prays: “Let all the nations praise you, oh God.” So, today, in this house of prayer, we praise God because Jesus was called from all eternity to serve and to sacrifice. We praise God because Paul was called to proclaim the gospel to the Gentiles. We praise God because Isaiah was called to prophesize about justice. We praise God for our call—individually and communally—to go forth in faith to all peoples/nations, especially to the vulnerable and the marginalized.