I want to begin this sermon by getting the Jesus problem out of the way. It appears in our gospel lesson this morning.

In every other encounter of Jesus with people who approach him, he displays compassion and concern. Not today. Jesus responds to the Caananite woman's appeal for healing with an exclusive, judgmental reply, I am sent to the lost sheep in the house of Israel. He follows this with these insulting words, It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to dogs.

Those of us who embrace the divinity of Jesus prefer to expunged this passage from the gospels. The offensive dialogue is not worthy of the Son of God. On the other hand, those who argue the full humanity of Jesus advocate for the passage's authenticity. To them, the passage proves Jesus was fully human, a wisdom teacher who can miss the point.

Both arguments miss the point. The writer of Matthew's gospel holds no intention to put Jesus' character on trial here. The passage this morning serves a larger purpose for the writer of the gospel. Matthew seeks to convince the Jewish Christian community of Jerusalem that Jesus possesses credibility as a Jew. At the same time Matthew writes this gospel to expand the mission of the church beyond Judaism.

This passage achieves both objectives. Jesus gives the woman traditional and orthodox Jewish answers at first, just like any Jewish teacher. In the end, Jesus recognizes the faith and goodness of the woman, and of people beyond the Jewish faith. Matthew seeks to motivate Jesus' Jewish disciples to share their gospel beyond the confines of Judaism.

The focus of this passage resides not on the character of Jesus but on the faith of this heathen woman, a hated Canaanite who displays a worshiping, struggling faith worthy of any good Jew.

Consider three aspects of this faith with me this morning. Note first her reverence for Jesus. The woman recognizes spiritual power when she sees it. She discerns correctly that Jesus possesses the power to heal. Despite all the rejection and insult, she never loses this reverence. She calls Jesus Lord, Son of David terms of reverence and devotion. Her words reveal a trusting and believing heart. Who knows how she received it. Perhaps through the stories people told of Jesus. Perhaps through the desperation that comes from having a demon-possessed daughter. Perhaps from being raised in a spiritual family. The reasons could go on and on. Whatever the source, this woman displays a reverent and worshipful spirit.

The reverence transcends race and culture. This woman, a Caananite, a bitter enemy of Jews, dispossessed of her homeland centuries before at the Exodus, transcends the national and cultural hostility. She willingly, worshipfully calls Jesus the Jewish Messianic name- Son of David.

I pray for this kind of reverence for myself. I touch it at moments in my life. Last month as moderator of the Potomac Association I was invited to participate in a revival at one of our African American churches. I had never attended a revival before. It was, to say the least, an experience of a life time. Passion and petition poured out from that gathering like Niagra. The love and devotion of people overflowed in tongues, in words of praise, in petitions for forgiveness. Previously I had thought of this kind of emotionalism as excessive. That night, however, a spirit of reverence overtook me. For a brief moment in my life spirit overcame unfamiliar cultural and racial expressions of faith. I left realizing we were all faithful people, having crossed a barrier to understanding. I remain grateful for the invitation and the experience..

I pray for that reverence in the world today. If only some Palestinian and some Jew could have the reverence of that Canaanite woman. There are, in fact, people in Palestine and Israel who try to demonstrate reverence. They remain hidden behind the violence of our headlines. They remain muted by the war rhetoric of terrorists, of Israel, and of the United States. I know them personally. I try to support them with prayer and advocacy.

Consider now a second aspects of the Caananite woman's faith. Call it persistence. Hostility does not discourage her. Insult does not stop her. She continues. She persists.

I pray for a persistent faith for myself. I carry a post-it on the steering wheel of my car. Here is how it reads; Wait patiently, ponder, pray, and say good words. You, I imagine, know why it is there. It seeks to be an antidote to the urge toward road rage. It constitutes a personal intent to carry prayer out beyond the walls of my study. It requires persistence, especially when I am cut off by some Highway Cowboy.

I pray for a persistent faith in the church today. The institutional church faces great strain in our day. The sex abuse scandals of the Catholic Church are not their exclusive possession. I have investigated several charges like that within our own denomination. It tests my faith- my faith in people, my faith in colleagues, my faith in leaders of the church. It also requires persistence- a persistent sense of justice, a persistent commitment to truth, a persistent desire to find healing and reconciliation. That persistence often requires walking by faith and not by sight.

I pray for persistent faith in our nation. After the events of September 11th, fear and doubt have risen within the body politic. The fear has tempted us to undercut democratic freedoms in the name of security. We threaten civil liberties through illegal detentions, through violations of privacy, through imprisonments without charge and illegal search and seizures. The very foundations which make this country great face political threat. We need persistence in embracing the values we have held dear and not let fear give victory to the enemy.

Finally, consider the woman's trust. She embodies the true definition of faith. We do not measure faith by adherence to doctrine. We do not measure faith by adherence to tradition. We do not measure faith by intellectual assent to propositions. This woman trust's ultimately in Jesus compassionate and loving heart. She has little evidence of it in this encounter but she trusts it.

She counts on it. She willingly humbles herself before him because she trusts his compassion.

At mid-life in my spiritual journey, I sought out a spiritual director to help me deepen my faith. He was a priest at the National Cathedral. Part of the direction involved taking a moral inventory of my life and confessing it to him. At the end of the session he said Gordon, you are a true spiritual warrior and you have successfully survived many spiritual obstacles in your life. You lack one thing- trust. I knew immediately what he meant. He meant that I had relied on my own strength, my own wits, and resources which were near depletion and that I needed to trust a loving, caring, compassionate God. That has been my journey ever since- one that has met with both success and defeat. But the successes have empowered me to live with struggle and to embrace persistence.

I want to end this sermon with the story of Laura Blumenthal, a former reporter at the Washington Post. She has recently written a book entitled Revenge. Over a decade ago a terrorist shot her father in the Old City of Jerusalem. The shooter left him alive but wounded. For ten years Laura plotted revenge. As a reporter she had access to world-wide information. She interviewed all sort of groups and individuals who plotted and executed revenge.

Armed with this information she deceived the family of the Palestinian who shot her father. She entered Jerusalem incognito, located the family, and befriended them. She deceitfully identified herself as a free-lancer who was seeking to understand the forces that bring about terror and revenge in people's lives. She lived with this family for a period of time and visited the son who shot her father. Israeli police had apprehended him and incarcerated him.

During this time she told stories of her family and of her father and heard their stories. She came to know them in a very intimate way through sharing their daily life.

It had a remarkable effect on the incarcerated youth. Here is part of a letter he wrote to Laura's father, who had survived his assassination attempt.

As in Jesus day, we find a Jew and a descendant of the Caananites living the truth of the gospel and defining for us our mission. Put simply it means nurture a reverent, persistent, trusting faith that allows us to worship a God of unconditional mercy and to transcend the limits of our own mind, our own culture, and our own traditions.