August 20, 2017
Good morning,
Welcome to the Blue Lake Presbyterian church.
The title to today’s message is “Perseverance”
I like to kick it off with something comical:
A burglar broke into a house one night. He shined his flashlight around, looking for valuables when he heard something in the dark say, ‘Jesus knows you’re here.’
He nearly jumped out of his skin, turned his flashlight off, and froze. When he heard nothing more, he shook his head and continued.
Just as he pulled out a Television so he could disconnect the wires, clear as a bell he heard ‘Jesus is watching you.’
Startled, he starting shining his light around frantically, looking for the source of that voice. Finally, in the corner of the room, his flashlight beam came to rest on a parrot.
‘Did you say that?’ he murmured at the parrot.
‘Yes’, the parrot said, then squawked, ‘I’m just trying to warn you, that he’s watching you.’
The burglar relaxed. ‘Warn me? Who are you?’
‘Moses,’ said the parrot.
‘Moses?’ the burglar laughed. ‘What silly people would name a bird Moses?’
The parrot replied:
‘The same people who would name a Rottweiler, Jesus.’
Walking around Blue Lake Friday night giving out some flowers, I sure encountered a lot of dogs. I can see why, it is great to have a dog as a pet.
I remember growing up in Holland, we had a poodle; we got him when he was a year old. The previous owner had a shoe shop, he had left that poor dog in the back of the shop in a store room, kept him there a little too long and at one point he found all the shoes scattered all over the floor… our family took this dog, but he never lost his wild habits, I remember as a child we had a lot of fun with that dog.
My wife loves dogs as well, years ago with got two Pomeranians, than we got a mud, followed by a German Shephard, and a few years ago she rescued a another Shephard from a bad home. Whenever my wife sees a dog in distress, she can’t help but rescue it. We now have four dogs, a small male Pomeranian dominating three large female dogs. Quite comical at times, but all four are spoiled rotten.
2000 years ago in the time of Jesus, dogs were far from being spoiled; those dogs weren’t pets like the ones we see today. Dogs in those days ate scraps, they were scavengers.
In Matthew 15, dog scrapes are a code word, for a test of faith, a test of perseverance, and that is what brings us to today reading in Matthew 15:21-28 which can we found in your pew bible at page ……………….
21Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22Just 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.” 23But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” 24He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” 25But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” 26He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” 27She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” 28Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.
On October 23 1983, 241 American service men were killed in a car bombing that destroyed the marine Barracks in Beirut Lebanon, that city that was laid to ruins during the civil war of the 70’s and 80’s. Just 24 miles south of Beirut (the same distance from Eureka to Trinidad) there is a town called Sidon and 20 miles farther south the town of Tyre.
These coastal towns were located in a region called Phoenicia and it was mainly inhabited by Canaanites. You may wonder what Canaanites are.
Canaanites are mentioned over 150 times in the Bible mostly in the Old Testament. They were wicked, idolatrous people, descendants from Canaan, the grandson of Noah. Canaanites were regarded as the lowest class in society at that time.
This bible text sure is a challenging one. Didn’t Jesus preach to love your neighbor as yourself in the Sermon of the Mount? At the surface, this seems to be a contradiction. First he ignores her all together, even though she yelled at him, so loud, it is unlikely that he couldn’t have heard her.
Then the disciples chime in, with their own bias towards Canaanites. Don’t listen to her; send her away, she keeps yelling at us. Then Jesus speaks, and proclaims these challenging words: I came to help the children of Israel.
I guess we heard this theme before in Matt 10:5 when Jesus directed his disciples to go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, 6but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
But the Canaanite woman doesn’t give up; she kneels before him and pleads: Lord help me. Then he replies, with words that we would not expect to hear, from the lips of Jesus: it is not fair, to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.
Wow, throw it to the dogs? Not give, or feed it to the dogs? No, for extra effect, he says: throw it to the dogs. How much more demeaning can it get? He frames his response, in such a way, that it truly makes you wonder if there is a typo in the Matthew’s recording, possibly the translators missed something. Mark7:24 records the same event, with the same mystifying response.
In his book “Brilliant on the basics”, author and business coach, Barry Gotlieb, cites the rules of selling. Here are the first three:
- Persistence breaks resistance
- The selling starts, when the answer is no.
- Ask for the sale
The Canaanite woman must have ripped a page, out of the same playbook, showing persistence and perseverance despite being ignored and rebuked.
When Jesus insinuated, that she didn’t deserve to be fed, with the bread of the Grace of God, she convinces Jesus, that her daughter needs help, using the premise that dogs need to eat as well, and they will eat the crumbs.
The culmination of this challenging text comes in the last sentence. After three rejections, Jesus says: woman, you have great faith, go and your daughter is healed.
This is such a powerful lesson for us all.
How often, do we go through times of trouble, through episodes of sorrow, through the “dark valley”? Do we cry out to the Lord for help, or do we feel it doesn’t help anyhow?
The other day, I was talking to a friend in need. I asked if he talked to the Lord. In other words did he pray and pour out his heart to our “Father in Heaven”? He replied, why would I? It doesn’t help anyhow.
In his book titled “prayer, our deepest longing” author Ronald Rolheiser writes: you must try to pray so that in your prayer, you open your self in such a way, that you are able to hear God say to you, I love you! These words, addressed to you by our Creator, are the most important words you will ever hear, because after you hear them, something will be right in your life, at a very deep level.
According to a study conducted by the Pew research center in 2014, 55 % of Americans pray daily, and more than three quarters pray on a regular basis.
When we pray, do we whisper? Are we meek and subdued, when we talk to the Lord? Or do we cry out, with passion and emotion, like the Canaanite woman, shouting out to the Lord?
Sometimes even when we cry out, nothing may happen for a while, just like the Canaanite woman. But that isn’t a reason to stop. If she would have walked away, after Jesus ignored her, it would have been the end of the story. Or better yet, no story at all.
But she didn’t walk away, even after Jesus rebuked her, and said he had more important things to do than deal with her problems, the Canaanite woman stuck with it , she persevered.
Rolheiser writes in his book, life, as we can all attest, is not without, its bitter frustrations and crushing heartaches, we live with pain, and unsolved tensions that can test the strongest faith and the stoutest heart.
None of us wants to live with life-long patience, predicated on the promise, that in the end, love and justice will prevail. We want love and justice, and consummation now, not in some distant future, and after a life time of heartache.
A Jewish saying puts it this way: God is never in a hurry. So we live, with a lot of impatience. Atheists and non-believers may say: enough is enough, but if in essence, they will no longer wait for God, than the opposite is true as well. Faith is just another way of saying, I will wait for God. If atheism is impatience, faith is patience.
Paul wrote in in Romans 12:12 be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, patient in prayer.
Let me illustrate this with an example: flower popularity and consumption continues to increase each year, however demand for bulbs, planted in people’s gardens continues to decline. Consumers are looking for instant gratification. See this bulb, right here, at the surface there is nothing exiting or attractive about this bulb.
However, when planted in soil, with water and nutrition and most importantly TIME, this will develop into these beautiful Lilies. But it takes time, patience and faith for this to happen.
Earlier the morning we heard the story of Joseph in Genesis 45. This is the reunification story with his brothers, the happy conclusion of a long road, full of trials and tribulations. Joseph was sold into slavery at age 17, thrown in prison for being falsely accused of a crime he never committed; he helped fellow prisoners with interpreting a dream, but and still spent 2 more years in prison.
Throughout it all, Joseph maintained his faith in God. He could have given up, but his faith and honesty and perseverance eventually paid off. By the grace of God, he became second in command in all of Egypt.
Paul wrote in Galatians 6:9 let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time, we will reap a harvest, if we do not give up.
As a young man, Walt Disney was fired from the Kansas City Star Newspaper, because his boss thought he lacked creativity. His first company failed. But he persevered.
When J.K. Rowling wrote her first Harry Potter book in 1995, it was rejected by twelve different publishers. Even Bloomsbury, the publisher that finally purchased Rowling’s manuscript, told her to “get a day job.” She did not give up.
Milton Hershey dropped out of school in the 4th grade and took an apprenticeship with a printer, got fired. He then became an apprentice to a candy-maker. Hershey started three unsuccessful candy companies, but ultimately he persevered.
Oprah Winfrey was fired from her television reporting job, because she was deemed not suitable for television. We know the rest of the story.
When I started in 1984, Sun Valley grew Iris in the spring only. Then we started growing Iris in greenhouses for winter flowering, but low light conditions and the wrong temperature treatment of the bulbs, caused significant flower abortion.
Other iris growers on the Central Coast grew Iris in winter outside, so we planted a field close to the ocean in Mckinleyville for winter production. That winter turned out to be one of the coldest in years, with plants covered in ice for weeks and not growing. Then in April it warmed up, and all the iris plantings came in together.
Years later, we grew some new varieties from Holland, called Jumbo Iris, but half the plants never flowered.
Despite all these difficulties we persevered, in 1984 Sun Valley was a small Iris grower among at least 60 Iris growers in California, today we grow and sell more Iris than all other Iris growers in America and Canada combined.
Abraham Lincoln failed in business 3 times, lost 7 campaigns for political office before becoming the 16th president of the United States,
The bible says in James 1:12 blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life, that the Lord has promised to those who love him.
Earlier this week I heard Joel Osteen give an analogy of a bow and arrow, the more you pull the arrow back the further it is going to shoot. Pull it back a little ways, no tension, no pressure, and it won’t go very far.
When seemingly things don’t go our way, we are being pulled back, it is not God trying to punish us, it is not because there is nothing good in our future.
God has allowed us, to be pulled back, because he is about to shoot us further than we ever imagined possible. Our destiny is much bigger than we realize.
The Canaanite woman, Joseph, Walt Disney, Lincoln, and Hershey, were pulled back with adversities but ultimately destiny exceeded their imagination.
You may think, you been handed a raw deal, a lousy job, a great disappointment, a bad break, another setback. When God shoots us out, he is going to make up for lost ground and for lost time.
Friends,
As we leave here this morning, let us be invigorated with the knowledge, that God loves us, he has a standing invitation for all of us to enter into his Kingdom,
He sent his son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for us.
Jesus said in john 14:6: I am the way, the truth and the life no one, comes to the Father, but through me.
There is no promise of an easy, trouble free road.
Jesus said in Matt 7:14 the gate is small and the path to eternal life is narrow.
This narrow road comes with trials and tribulations,
He said in John 14:1 don’t let your heart be troubled, believe in God, and believe in me also.
Accept Jesus into your heart, as Lord and Savior.
With, faith, perseverance and time, we rejoice, and can look forward, to the ultimate price, The Kingdom of Heaven.
Thank you,
God Bless you,
Amen
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