August 16, 2026 · Rev. Dr. James Olson · Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32; Matthew 15:20-28
A Canaanite woman, an outsider in every way, talks back to Jesus and wins, and the next story is the feeding of four thousand Gentiles. Rev. Dr. James Olson traces how God's welcome breaks out to everyone, and remembers a church shelter in Northampton that fed its unhoused guests on real dishes, with style and grace.
Transcript
Our lessons this morning continue on this theme of Paul arguing for salvation. Who is salvation for? And this was an important question for the early church. How were the people relating to God? And how was God relating to the people? And why did it matter?
In this morning's verses from Romans, Paul is at the end of his legal argument that salvation, meaning reconciliation with God and with people and with one another and even within ourselves, was not just for the Jews in Jerusalem, where Jesus initially had his life in ministry and where he appeared first. Where within Jewish culture, he was prophesied. Paul is getting to the end of his argument that he realized that salvation is offered to the world. Last week we read in his scripture that all that was needed was faith in God through Christ, and it did not matter who had faith in God through Christ. If you did, you were part of the covenant. If you did, you were part of the people of God. If you did, salvation was yours.
Now, this morning in the gospel lesson, we have the Canaanite woman whose daughter was dying. And everything about her, like the Samaritan man, like so many other stories. She was an outsider. She was Canaanite. She was not part of the covenant. She believed in different gods. She was not part of the tribe of Israel. She was not Torah observant. She did not keep the kosher laws or the purity laws. She was a woman in that culture. You didn't spontaneously talk to a man, not your brothers or your father or your husband. She was, in every way a foreigner, an outsider.
Jesus himself was in a foreign land. It said right at the beginning, Jesus went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon. That was in Cana, not in Israel, not in Judea. Today it would be where the country of Lebanon is. North of Samaria, north of Galilee, north of Judea.
And he encounters this woman. And she says to him, Lord, son of David. She took the initiative to recognize Jesus. As a person of note. Lord, Son of David. The Canaanite woman recognizes Jesus and names him, names him as another, as an other, not a native in her land. There comes this reciprocal recognition.
Jesus himself tries to turn her away, saying, I am only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. To which he responds, even the dogs under the master's table get the crumbs. Jesus, the human Jesus learns something about his own ministry in that moment, right?
This story is set in the midst of two other, more familiar stories. The previous story Jesus had just fed five thousand, really, probably fifteen thousand with the women and the children and everybody. And the next story to. And those folks were Jewish. And then we have this story with the Canaanite woman where she calls him out. And the very next story, which is much less known, is the feeding of four thousand. Gentiles, which is an ancient Middle Eastern word for everybody that wasn't Jewish. This transition from Jesus believing himself only to be called to the people of Israel to the next story. Feeding four thousand Gentiles is an important shift, and one that Paul recognized as being the moment where the ministry of Jesus stops being just for the ancient Jews and starts being for everybody.
There are leftovers everywhere. There were leftovers after the five thousand. They were leftovers after the four thousand. Everybody ate. Didn't matter. Jew or Greek, slave or free, man or woman. Everybody was fed. Both clean according to Jewish law and unclean. according to Jewish law.
Jesus learned compassion in that moment. Jesus learned that his message could not be contained. Jesus learned that it could not be restricted just to one person or another, because that was not God's will. And he had to learn it for himself. From a Canaanite woman. That his ministry of love and acceptance and bold extravagance was to everyone.
I used to help manage. I actually helped start it years ago, before I was even in ministry. A cat shelter. November to April. It was insufficient, but it got folks out of the winter weather. This was in Northampton, Massachusetts when I was an undergraduate. And each night a different church, these poor folks had to trudge from church to church in town, and they would get a cot and an insufficient pillow and a scratchy wool blanket and a hot meal.
And the folks of First Church in Northampton. Not only did they feed the people, but they did it with style and grace. They used the real dishes. And the real silverware. Where? At other churches, they were getting paper plates and plastic utensils. They started putting tablecloths on the tables where we were feeding these unhoused people. And the food. Was amazing. Hot. It was filling. It wasn't terribly complicated, but I watched the kitchen. Ladies take care to season the food carefully. And there was always bread. And there was always a dessert. A homemade church lady dessert. And there was coffee and there was juice. And there were cookies wrapped up for them to take with them the next day.
It was in every way that mattered. Eucharistic. We did not ask where these people were from. We did not judge them for being under housed.
This was a community that had a had had a very large state hospital that in the eighties was closed. And these folks were transitioned into group housing. And the group housing was insufficient. And so they ended up many of them. So not only were they homeless, but many of them were addicted to substances and were mentally ill. It was a challenging population. And the extravagance of God's love that these folks who had no training in how to deal with this population except to love them was inspiring.
The truth is, my friends, that someone once said we're all just one beggar telling another beggar where to find some bread. And you know as well as I do that our lives can turn on a dime. And the plenty that we have can disappear in a heartbeat. Through no fault of our own.
With Jesus, there is always enough food. There is always enough healing. There is always enough compassion. And there is always enough love to go around. And right now, in this place, in this time, that love comes through us.
We must show love to those who we think are our enemies. We must show love to those whom we might deem unclean. We must show love and compassion for outsiders. For those who are on the margins of society, for those whom we just don't have anything in common with and we don't understand.
It is enough to claim the name of Jesus and to believe in him. For salvation. But we cannot just sit on that. We must then go and do likewise. And feed and clothe and shelter and love those who need what we can give. The people that we serve are not dogs. They are created in the image of God. And when they fall on hard times, or when one of us falls on hard times, we are called to respond. Amen.