“When Kindred Live Together in Unity”

Matthew 15:10-28; Genesis 45:1-15; Psalm 133

Introduction to the Old Testament Readings

The brothers had it in for Joseph, partly because their father, Jacob, loved him best, but mainly because little Joseph was insufferable.

When he was 17, they hatched a plot to kill him; but instead—with the kindness of brothers—they only sold him into slavery. He ended up in Egypt, where he was eventually thrown into prison. But the all-mighty dictator of Egypt, the Pharaoh, learned that Joseph could interpret dreams, so he let him out of prison, and made him one of the Pharaoh’s most trusted advisors.

When Joseph interpreted one of Pharaoh’s dreams to mean that seven years of drought were coming, Joseph was put in charge of overseeing the harvests to get ready for it.

When it came, it affected people outside Egypt, including Joseph’s family. So Jacob sent ten of his sons—Joseph’s brothers, who had sent him into slavery—into Egypt to buy grain.

So the brothers made it to Egypt, and they got an audience with the “governor of the land,” which they didn’t know was their long-lost brother. And even when they met, they didn’t recognize him.

But he knew them.

As Frederick Buechner tells it, “Joseph couldn’t resist getting a little of his own back for a while. He pretended he thought they were spies. He gave them some grain to take home but made one of them stay behind as a hostage. He planted some silverware in their luggage and accused them of [stealing] it. But though with part of himself he was presumably getting a kick out of all this, with another part he was so moved and pleased to be back in touch with his own flesh and blood after so long that every once in a while he had to get out of the room in a hurry so they wouldn’t see how choked up he was and discover his true identity” (Peculiar Treasures. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1979).

Genesis 45:1-15

¹ Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried out, “Send everyone away from me.”

So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers.

² And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it.

³ Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?” But his brothers could not answer him, so dismayed were they at his presence. ⁴ Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come closer to me.” And they came closer.

He said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. ⁵ And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. ⁶ For the famine has been in the land these two years; and there are five more years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. ⁷ God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. ⁸ So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. ⁹ Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, ‘Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not delay. ¹⁰ You shall settle in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children’s children, as well as your flocks, your herds, and all that you have. ¹¹ I will provide for you there—since there are five more years of famine to come—so that you and your household, and all that you have, will not come to poverty.’ ¹² And now your eyes […] see that it is my own mouth that speaks to you. ¹³ You must tell my father how greatly I am honored in Egypt, and all that you have seen. Hurry and bring my father down here.”

¹⁴ Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, while Benjamin wept upon his neck. ¹⁵ And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.

Psalm 133

¹ How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!

² It is like the precious oil on the head, running down upon the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down over the collar of his robes.

³ It is like the dew of Mount Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord ordained his blessing, life forevermore.

Matthew 15:10-20

¹⁰ Then [Jesus] called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand: ¹¹ it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.”

¹² Then the disciples approached and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?” ¹³ He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. ¹⁴ Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.”

¹⁵ But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.” ¹⁶ Then he said, “Are you also still without understanding? ¹⁷ Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? ¹⁸ But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. ¹⁹ For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. ²⁰ These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”

Matthew 15:21-28

²¹ Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. ²² 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.” ²³ 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.”

²⁴ He answered her, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

²⁵ But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.”

²⁶ He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

²⁷ She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”

²⁸ Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

The Sermon

Back in the days of Apartheid in South Africa, when black people were not allowed into the privileges of white society, a white woman walked into her white church’s sanctuary one weekday afternoon, and she saw a black woman up in front, kneeling at the altar.

And she charged forward and said, “Hey, what’s going on here; you get away from there!”

But as she got closer she saw that it was the cleaning woman, kneeling to polish the altar rail.

And the white woman said, “Oh, thank God! For a minute I thought you were praying.”

These Bible texts are inviting us to ask the question: Who’s in, and who’s out—who is included, and who is excluded?

So the real question is: who’s in the family, and who is not in the family? Who are the children of God, and who are just the dogs who nibble at the crumbs that fall from the children’s table?

Matthew’s story, which is not one of Christianity’s favorites, is that a Canaanite woman came to Jesus and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord; my daughter is tormented by a demon.”

But he didn’t answer her, and his disciples said, “Get her out of here, she keeps shouting after us.” And Jesus answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

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.”

In other words, what I’m delivering wasn’t sent for you Canaanites; it’s for the children of the covenant, the children of Israel.

Obviously, this is hardly characteristic of the Jesus we know. Some suggest that he was testing the woman; at the end, without specifically saying, “All right, you passed the test,” he does heal the woman’s daughter.

Others suggest he really did think his mission was just to the Jews, until his encounter with the Canaanite woman pushed him into a new direction. It wouldn’t be the first time a woman had that effect on him: at Cana, when the wine ran out early and it would take a sign from God to turn the water into wine, Jesus said, “I’m not ready to do that kind of thing just yet” and his mother completely ignored him, called the steward over, and said, “Do what my son tells you to do.” And he did it, and his ministry of self-revelation had begun—apparently ahead of his own schedule.

Both those theories hold some water, but at the end of the day, they’re still just that: theories. You and I aren’t always going to know from reading the Bible exactly why. What we know is God loves us—we know, because even “while we were yet sinners,” Jesus died for us. It’s not up to you or me to decide why, just to remember that truth, and live a life in response to it.

This Canaanite woman knew it. Regardless of what was going on with Jesus, she knew. 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.”

And she said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Even we Canaanite pups—even we who were not born into the covenant people—can be fed on the leftovers, the crumbs of grace, that fall from the table where the children of Israel sit for breakfast.

From that point on, we all have a place at the table. We are all family.

Yesterday afternoon, I was getting worship ready for today, and I felt like I needed another illustration or some connecting material for part of the sermon. So I figured I’d go for a walk and see if anything would come to me.

There is a neighborhood I had never been in before, about a quarter mile from the parking lot. As I entered the neighborhood to walk the circle, I passed a house where there was some activity in front, with a moving truck parked across the street. I looked for someone to make eye contact with, but they were all going inside, so I didn’t catch anybody’s eye.

I went on around the circle, and as I came back out the way I had gone in, some people were in front of the house again. I said hello, and a guy said a friendly hello back, and I kept walking to another block.

I lost myself in thoughts about who’s in and who’s out, who’s in the family and who’s not in the family. I was thinking about Joseph and his brothers, and how they essentially kicked him out of the family; and then when he was in a position to wield great power over them, and had the ideal opportunity to take revenge, he chose instead to bring them back into his family—to make them all one family again.

I thought about how Jesus initially told a woman with a sick child that his power and gifts and grace were not for her because she was in the wrong family, and she said, in essence, “I call bull.” And he said, “You’re right.” Who’s family, and who’s not family? Who has a place at the table—and who doesn’t?

Around that time it occurred to me that I had passed by a house that was five minutes’ walk from the church, with a moving truck in front of it, and a family who responded warmly to “Hello.” I went back to that house, timidly went up to the porch, and before I could knock, the woman of the house opened the door.

I said, “It just occurred to me how rude it was of me a few minutes ago, not to invite you to church tomorrow.” She said, “Thank you! That’s nice.” I said, “Are you moving in?”

She said, “No, moving out.” She’s been there for a year, but now she was moving to Wilmington to be closer to her job. I said, “I’m sorry we never came by here a year ago and invited you. We should have.” She said, “Not at all; don’t worry about it.”

So I came back to the church, back to getting ready for this message, and said to myself, “Well, I was hoping God would tell me something about who should be invited to the table.”

There’s a great speaker named Scott Phillips who’s spoken at the Montreat Youth Conference a couple of times. Both times we’ve seen him, he’s told a story about a girl who was in his high school art class, an arrogant, beautiful, out-of-his-league kind of girl who would make fun of him because he went to church. She didn’t believe in God, or at least, she didn’t believe in church.

A few years later, in college, he ran into the same young woman, and they talked for a minute. It turned out she had had some kind of religious experience and had become active in church. What a victory! Scott said he knew exactly where this was going: this formerly uppity girl, who had been so unkind to him, was leading up to an acknowledgement at long last that he was right, that she had been wrong, and she would say she was so sorry for the way she had treated him back then.

She said, “You always went to stuff at your church, right?”

He said, “Yeah!” But there was something else she wanted to say, and he got ready for the big pay-off, and she said:

“How come you never invited me?”

And he held up his fingers for us and said, “This big. I felt this big.”

Who’s invited? Who’s got the right to come to the table? Who’s family? Are you? Am I? Even us, with our hidden agendas, our unacceptable hatreds, our pathetic addictions, our limp commitment to the God who has given us everything—are you in on this? Am I part of the family? Who’s worthy?

The Pharisees were saying, people in the family, if they want to be in the circle, had to eat a certain way; you had to follow certain rituals of hand washing; you had to prepare your food in such a way. That’s how they would know whether you belonged in the family.

And if you don’t follow all those rules, you can’t be in. You’re not included. It’s not for you. You know why? Because you are unclean; you are defiled; you are unacceptable.

And Jesus said, “It isn’t what goes into the mouth that defiles a person; it’s what comes out of it. Whatever goes into the mouth ends up in the sewer anyway. Big deal. But what comes out of the mouth has come from the heart, and that’s what defiles.”

Your evil intentions, your threats of murder, your impure thoughts, your false witness, the lies you’re willing to tell about people when you don’t trust them, or their ways, or their motives. That’s what defiles a person. Not eating with unwashed hands.

Who’s part of the family? Who’s invited? Who has a place at the table?

There is not a sinner in this room or in this world for whom Christ did not die. He died for me, and he died for you, and he died for them.

Every single person is part of that family. If we cannot see Christ in the people around us, maybe we can at least learn to treat them all as the people for whom he gave his life.

How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity, like the dew of the mount where God ordained the blessing: life forevermore.