Blessed assurance Jesus is mine

Sunday 16^th August – Trinity 10 (Proper 15)

Isaiah 56:1, 6-8. A giant olive branch to all the foreigners and outsiders offering inclusion and salvation to them even while they are not part of the “chosen people” of Israel. “For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations”. That this was written at all presupposes that there were many foreigners living in Jerusalem at this time (Just after the return from exile in about 515BC ) and disputes amongst the Jews as to whether they could be included in their religious and community life. Isaiah says yes and one of the main requirements for followers of God’s ways, recognising that the covenant with Israel was ultimately for the whole of mankind (Israel was to be a light to the gentiles – Isaiah 42:6 and quoted in Luke 2:32), was to maintain Justice

Romans 11: 1-2a, 29-32. Paul continues to wrestle with the position of Jewish people by reminding people that he himself is a Jew. In the intervening passages (omitted in our lectionary) Paul warns Christians against any sense of having replaced the Jews by noting that we have rather been “grafted in” to the Israelite people (v. 17). The covenant made with Israel is irrevocable, but God’s grace is boundless.

Matthew 15: (10-20),21-28. The longer version of this lection includes the accusation that the pharisees are “blind guides” and that what defiles a person is not unclean foods but unclean hearts. The main lection continues the day’s theme of inclusion in God’s salvation with the story of the Canaanite woman (Mark calls her a Syrophoenician). It is not impossible that Jesus used the term “dogs” to refer to gentiles, as he was fully human so his outlook and sympathies would be conditioned by his Jewishness. What can’t be translated of course is his tone of voice or demeanour, and the smart reply from the woman suggests that she was far from taking offense.   We the reader of this gospel are invited to join with Jesus and cross the barriers of race and culture.

In all my years of being a Christian I have yet to hear anyone worry about whether they were included in God’s salvation because they weren’t Jewish.

I have heard a few people wonder aloud where God’s revelation of himself in Christ leaves Judaism. These and other questions were live issues for Paul and the early church.

Questions of inclusion and exclusion take different forms at various times in various cultures but the most common question that I have encountered is people who think God’s action in Christ doesn’t include them because they think they are “unworthy”.

Note, it is not God excluding them but they exclude themselves because they have a very low opinion of themselves.

We can address that dilemma of two levels.

On the one hand, in Christian terms they are absolutely right. They are not worthy by their own merits but then no human being is or ever has been.

It is axiomatic that we are all sinners. All unworthy. That God pours out his love and grace on all people anyway is a source of gratitude. Grace is known as “Amazing” for just that reason.

In that famous hymn, former slave trader John Newton describes himself as a Wretch, but a wretch who had been saved by the amazing grace of God. That same John Newton later became an Anglican clergyman.

None of us deserve to be saved by who we are in the world’s eyes or what we’ve done but we are all the grateful recipients of God’s love poured out onto all flesh. We are all repentant sinners.

But also, and our society encourages this, is that people are continually grading and comparing themselves against other people and believing that other people deserve salvation more than them because of their upbringing, social position, religious conviction, education, how intelligent they may be or what job they do.

A lot of people have an inferiority complex because they grade themselves unfavourably against other people.

But let us look at the Golden rule that Jesus said was the fulfilment of all the law and the prophets.

The first is Love God which is simple enough.

The second is Love your neighbour as you love yourself.

That implies that you can only have the capacity to love others as much as you love and accept yourself. Another way of putting it is that you love others as you love yourself not love others instead of yourself.

This entails a uniquely Christian shift in emphasis in the way you understand yourself. How you look through God’s eyes.

When you became a Christian, in John’s famous prologue, he writes,

“But to all that received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, by God’s will. (John 1:10)

Your status in this world is not determined by class, race, education or anything else for that matter.

Your human identity appropriated by faith is a child of God. Loved as a child, cared for as a child, disciplined as a child, saved because you are a child of God.

Nothing can exclude or disqualify you from the love of God in Christ Jesus.