NOTICE TO ON-DEMAND WORSHIPPERS
In order to expedite posting the worship services here on our website, we are reducing the transcript to just the scriptures used and the message. Union Grove UMC in partnership with Southland Books & Cafe, began holding Second Sunday Community Church in January 2023. Second Sunday Community Church takes place at 3 p.m. ET the second Sunday of every month, meets in-person at The Bird & The Book, and is also live-streamed on Facebook. Holy Communion is offered at every Second Sunday service. If you are worshipping on Second Sundays online whether during the live-cast or through on-demand viewing, you are encouraged to have bread and juice or wine available as you watch the service and to participate in communion just as if you are present with us.
SCRIPTURE READINGS
God, open us to hear and receive your scriptures today as you would have us hear them, understand them as you would have us understand them, and to act upon them as you would have us act upon them.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Matthew 15:10-28 (NRSVUE):
Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.”
Then the disciples approached and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?”
He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted.
Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.”
But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.”
Then he said, “Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”
Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon.
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.”
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.”
He 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.”
She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”
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 scriptures of God for the People of God.
Thanks be to God.
MESSAGE – It’s Heart-Related
Rev. Val
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing to you, O Lord, my rock, and my redeemer, and may you see fit to use me as a vessel from which you pour out your Divine Word.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Last night at a little before 5 pm Pacific Time, the life of 66-year-old Laura Carelton of the Lake Arrowhead area in the San Bernadino Mountains ended.
Laurie was at one of her two clothing boutiques, Mag.pi, when a man walked in and, after hurling slurs at her about the LGBTQ community, for which she was a staunch and loyal ally, and the PRIDE flag flying outside her store where she worked very hard to make a welcoming and safe space for everyone, pulled out a gun and shot her.
“But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”
Just this past week, two young white men killed a black man who had been minding his own business, who had done nothing to them, who begged them for his life. When the police asked them why they killed him, they said it was “because they thought he was homeless.
“But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”
Just this past week, a member of the local community, a former member of Union Grove who had not attended in … and I’m quoting them … “twenty-plus years” came into the sanctuary as we were gathering for a business meeting and proceeded to tell us we were sinners because we accept, affirm, and include the LGBTQ community in our church family.
“But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”
Jesus spoke this passage after the Pharisees rebuked him and his disciples because they ate without washing their hands first.
Jesus spoke this passage to teach both his disciples and the Pharisees a lesson … a lesson many of us still need to learn. And it annoyed Jesus enough that he and his disciples left town … left Jerusalem, the center of the Jewish world, and traveled to two Gentile towns.
While there in those towns, while sharing a meal with his disciples, a Canaanite woman … a Gentile came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.”
And he ignored her! Jesus ignored the woman! His disciples said, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.”
To his disciples, he said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
But the woman was determined, even bold, and came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.”
This time, looking down at her, he said, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”
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 author of Matthew tied these two stories of Christ together. Granted, they happened sequentially, but … it’s 104 miles from Jerusalem to Tyre and another 20 miles further to Sidon. In that day and age traveling on foot, a lot could happen, at least some of which would most likely be memorable. It’s hard to imagine they walked that far and met no one.
But the author of Matthew left most of the journey out and followed the rebuke of the Pharisees with this story about the Canaanite woman. Why?
In trying to imagine how things might have unfolded, I think I might have an idea, so let’s go on that road trip with Jesus and the disciples.
They wouldn’t necessarily have walked bunched in a tight group. More likely, they would have been spaced further apart, walking in groups of two or three, some in front of him, some behind, talking within their groups as they went. We don’t know the ages of all the disciples, nor how fit they might have been, so some might have walked more slowly than others, causing them to lag back a bit further. Some might have been carrying supplies and that may have slowed them down a bit. So, like I said, they wouldn’t have been walking in a rugby scrum. They most likely were scattered along the roadway, talking amongst themselves as they walked.
Can you imagine what the disciples might have been talking about? I can!
“Pssst … Peter! Did you see him put those busybody pharisees in their place? Boy, he told them off didn’t he?”
Softly spoken accounts of what happened would have been shared back and forth, the tale growing a bit as they told and retold how their master, their teacher defended them to the pharisees.
And, being Jesus, he most likely would have heard most of what was being said.
By the time the incident with the Canaanite woman takes place, I imagine he’s pretty sure the disciples missed the point of the incident with the pharisees. And when they asked him to send her away because she was shouting at them, I’m pretty sure he was certain they missed the point.
So, he did what Jesus does. He taught the lesson again, this time making the woman his “sermon illustration.”
The Pharisees had believed and accused the disciples of “defiling” the meal because they hadn’t washed their hands, because they were unclean therefore unworthy of sharing the meal, of sitting at the same table. Their goal had been to see the disciples sent away for such a horrific sacrilege.
The disciples wanted Jesus to send the woman away for disturbing their meal, for shouting at them, for drawing attention to them. He’d scolded the pharisees for shouting at them, so they expected Jesus to treat this gentile woman the same way.
Now imagine that next response from Jesus: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” I can imagine the look on his face when he said it … that look a parent gives a child when delivering one of those “it’s not okay for them but it’s okay for you?” type lessons.
The woman persists, kneels down, and begs him to help her. Imagine, now, he turns to look at her and that next statement is delivered, not with the parental raised eyebrow look, but with that look we almost always see when we picture him looking down at us … that pure, unconditional love as he, in a much gentler tone says, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
To the pharisees, anyone unclean, anyone they considered unworthy, was no better than a dog. To the pharisees, the disciples were no better than dogs when they ate without washing their hands first.
I think this lesson was for his disciples … a reminder about doing unto others. They couldn’t have appreciated the disparaging remarks of those pharisees and whatever embarrassment it might have caused them to be called out that way at that meal. And yet here they were, treating the Canaanite woman the same way they’d been treated. Send her away!
She delivered the moral of the story for him, didn’t she? Even dogs get the crumbs that fall from the master’s table. No one goes hungry. Everyone feeds from the bread of life, even if it is just crumbs gleaned here and there.
What had come out of the hearts of the pharisees back in Jerusalem was not light and love and kindness, but darkness. What was coming out of the hearts of the disciples was not light and love and kindness, but darkness.
What came out of the heart of the man who shot Laurie Carelton and the two young white men who killed the black man was not light or love or kindness, but darkness and evil intention. What came out of the heart of the person who stopped by the church this past week was not light and love and kindness but a darkness that is so pervasive in this country right now it is visible … tangible … cloyingly heavy … infecting almost every aspect of our society and culture from pulpit to podium to judicial bench to council, house, and senate chambers.
What came out of those four hearts is being perpetuated, being spread like the COVID virus. It’s being carried around like soldiers shouldering weapons of war. And its soldiers are being emboldened, empowered by people in positions like mine as pastors of churches, by political candidates and leaders, and by media personalities and social media “influencers” more concerned about their ratings than the impact their statements make on We the People.
That’s why it is important that we stand our ground and stay strong and committed to walk in The Way, in the footsteps of Christ. To do our best to not waiver or wobble, and to reach out and grab one another’s hands if we start to fall.
“Teacher, what is the greatest commandment?
To love the lord, your God with all your hearts and all your mind and all your strength. And the second is like it. To love one another as you are loved. On these two commandments hang all the laws and all the prophets.”
For seventeen hundred years, Christianity has been reverting back to the legalism of those first century Temple leaders, justifying some of this world’s greatest atrocities in the process … things like “Manifest Destiny” and “just war.” Things like “slavery.”
For seventeen hundred years, Christianity has become more and more “whitewashed,” white washing Jesus, all the saints, and even the angelic host in the process. People of color, people of other faiths, people who live or love differently, have been expected and even forced over those centuries to capitulate and assimilate.
For seventeen hundred years, Christianity has been failing to teach the lessons Christ taught until most “Christian churches” focus 100% of their “Jesus lesson” on solely his suffering, crucifixion, and resurrection … on his sacrifice for all of us that somehow gets translated into his sacrifice for an exclusive version of us and everyone else be damned.
The world is in the state its in, not because of anything God has done. The world is in the state its in because of everything man has done, especially Christian men doing it in the name of God.
God doesn’t give babies cancer, doesn’t rain illness and financial disaster on us because of our transgressions, doesn’t send fires and floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes on us because we’re a democratic state or we treat “others” as equals. AIDS was not a punishment for being gay.
Books, rainbow flags, drag shows, accurate history, respecting pronouns and gender identities, allowing people of other faiths or in same sex marriages to adopt and share their lives and hearts with children is not grooming or indoctrinating or impacting in any way children or the “traditional family.” If anything, respecting those things would teach us all to better respect one another.
God gave us free will. God gave us the ability to choose from right and wrong. We can each and all choose to be light and love and kindness or we can choose to practice darkness and evil intentions. Too many of us are choosing the darkness and far too many of us are still choosing that darkness and trying to say we’re doing so in God’s name.
But not here. Not at Union Grove. Not right now. Here, we will continue to learn all of Christ’s lessons, continue to do our utmost best to walk in The Way he taught us, to be “little Christs,” to love one another and yes … even to love those who don’t love us back.
Here we will continue to “love people into relationship with one another and, in doing so, in relationship with God, with Christ, and with the Spirit.”
Here we will speak truth to power even when our knees want to buckle and when our voices shake. Here we will call on the Spirit to guide and lead us as she has been since we began building a new beloved community at the Church in the Grove that the old community abandoned.
Here we will work to build the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Here we will acknowledge that the kingdom is at hand, the kingdom is within us. Here we will welcome all God’s children because here we acknowledge that all are created in the image of God.
Here we will stand our ground because our ground is the solid rock of Christ. On Christ the solid rock we stand. All other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand.
And all God’s children said, “Amen!”
Credits:
- Unless listed below, all works cited within the text above.
Copyright Disclaimer: Under §107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for educational purposes. No copyright infringement is intended. All rights belong to their respective owners.
If you are able, please consider making an offering or paying your tithes through our secure online service provided by Tithe.ly. It’s safe. It’s free. It will help us continue ministry at Union Grove. Just visit https://give.tithe.ly/?formId=65149a30-5d42-11ee-90fc-1260ab546d11 and follow the instruction for making your offering. You may be prompted to create an account with them. There is no fee for the account or for making your offering through Tithe.ly.
If you are not comfortable using a debit or credit card online, you can mail your offerings/tithes to:
Union Grove UMC
1151 Lane Drive
Friendsville, TN 37737
Please be sure to make your checks payable to "Union Grove UMC Friendsville".
Please note that 100% of offerings received during or from Second Sunday Community of Faith gatherings are redistributed to relevant community and national organizations. If you are making an offering after viewing a Second Sunday gathering, please designate "Second Sunday" (from the drop down menu on Tithe.ly or on the Memo line of your check) so we can ensure your offering is distributed accordingly.
For more information on how our offering receipts are used and our designated funds, please visit "For Those Who Are Able" on the menu bar at the top or bottom of this page.
