August 16, 2026 "Moving Like the Wind"

12th Sunday after Pentecost

Isaiah 56:1, 6-8

Psalm 67

Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32

Matthew 15:10-28

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,

 grace and peace to you

 from the one whose house is for all peoples. Amen

Somewhere along the way in school

I seem to remember learning

that wind is created by air moving from high pressure to low pressure,

now I went and looked it up

and while that is true

 there’s a little more to it than just the pressure,

 heat from the sun also plays a role

according to sciencing.com “As the Sun unevenly heats the surface of the Earth, air rises and sinks, resulting in high and low regions of air pressure. As air rises, the pressure lowers and surrounding air moves in to replace it, causing wind.” (https://www.sciencing.com/winds-formed-5145233/)

It is, as are many things in nature,

a cycle,

 hot air rises, cool air rushes in to fill the gap,

is heated, rises and so on. 

I was thinking about this,

not because of our lovely Nebraska weather

 but because I sense a similar pattern of movement,

 a cycle even,

 across our lessons

but instead of the movement being from high to low

 it is from in to out.

 Over and over again

 God expands the people of God

 by moving from the inside to the outside,

or from insiders to outsiders,

and when one group has turned from outsider to insiders

God moves another group in.

We heard in our first reading

God through the prophet calling to the people

 (the Israelites, the insiders)

 to continue in justice

for soon salvation will come,

and that God will include in that salvation

“the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord”

God is clear that the goal

 is that “my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”

 and then God reminds the people of Israel

 that they have been outcasts at various points

 and that God has continually gathered them to the Lord,

 and God intends to do this for others

“Thus says the Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel: I will gather others to them besides those already gathered.”

God moving from inside to out

In our gospel

 Jesus and the disciples

are reckoning with this movement of God,

the pharisees see Jesus as an outsider

because he doesn’t follow the purity laws

 that the pharisees use to distinguish those on the inside

 from those on the outside,

while Jesus has a broader perspective,

 is broadening the perspective

 “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 that is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions…these are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”

Jesus is not in the ‘you are what you eat’ camp

 but rather teaches ‘your actions reveal your heart’

And then there’s Jesus’ conversation with the Canaanite woman

and we’ll get into the particulars more in a little bit

but suffice it to say,

 it ends with Jesus healing the woman’s daughter

 and commending her great faith,

Jesus including her in the salvation

 that she was historically on the outside of.

 God moving from inside to out

 In Romans Paul is addressing the questions

 that arise from this expansive movement of God,

 how do the old insiders, the Jews

 make room for the old outsider, the gentiles,

to be part of the community

 do they have to act exactly like the old insiders

or are new ways allowed?

Much like the cold air rushing in to replace the hot air

that then heats up itself before moving on,

 so too does it take some time for the new people

 the former outsiders

to be incorporated into the community,

it changes the pressure

 and communities struggle to adjust,

 and God is with them in the struggle

even as God keeps widening the community

God moving from inside to out.

Again and again we see this movement

especially if we look to the clearest revelation of God, Jesus

 who when he comes still starts with the insiders

and brings them along with him,

 includes them,

as he expands the followers of God.

The whole book of Matthew

 is an example of this,

 from how he writes it seems like Matthew

 is writing his gospel in a way to help a community of insiders

come to terms with God’s expansion of the community.

Jesus in Matthew is very Jewish

and Matthew is very careful to show how the Jewish Jesus

fulfills the scriptures concerning the promised messiah

and yet the examples of faith in the book of Matthew

come from outsiders,

starting from the very beginning,

 the first people to believe in Jesus?

The magi from the east

that follow the star.

They are definitely not Jewish,

yet they recognize Jesus for who he is

 and honor him,

unlike the established insiders, Herod and all Jerusalem

who are afraid at the reported birth of the supposed messiah.

The disciples are in a slightly better situation,

 they have dropped everything to follow Jesus

taking part in his mission and proclamation,

 but again and again

they do or say something

 and Jesus looks at them and sighs and says

 ‘oh you of little faith’

the two times Jesus commends someone for having ‘great faith’

 those he commends are gentiles,

first the Roman Centurion who comes asking for healing for his servant,

 and second, the Canaanite woman from our gospel today. 

That doesn’t mean that Jesus gives up on the disciples,

the insiders of the movement,

rather he invests even more time in teaching them,

 showing them the expansion of the community

and their role in it is from God

and it seems like that is what Jesus is doing

with his conversation with the Canaanite women.

The first clue is that this is a teaching encounter

 is that Jesus crosses over into the district of Tyre and Sidon,

he has intentionally placed himself in the territory of the outsiders

and brought his disciples with him,

 they were bound to encounter non-Israelites

and soon enough they do,

 the Canaanite mother comes shouting for mercy,

and Jesus waits until the disciples respond,

and their response? “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.”

and Jesus answers them,

the disciples, not the woman yet,

and his answer mirrors what the disciples are thinking:

 “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

  and when the woman approaches him,

again he answers as the disciples would have him answer

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

but the woman’s clever response

 reveals the narrowness of that thinking

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

 and Jesus commends her great faith

 and heals her daughter.

God moving from inside to out.

 It was not the Canaanite woman’s ancestry that mattered

but her persistent faith

expressed at the feet of Jesus

 in front of the insiders who would send her away.

 This is who Jesus praises as an example of faith

Includes in the community

and

Jesus keeps teaching the disciples,

they may not fully understand yet

but they are still important

as it will be the stumbling bumbling disciples

who go with him to Jerusalem and the cross

 and when the women come to tell them

 that Jesus has been raised from the dead

and they are to go to Galilee,

they will go,

 and there Jesus will give them

 what we now call the Great Commission saying “All Authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

 God moving from inside to out,

and when they hesitate at Pentecost,

the Spirit will come

with a sound like the rush of a violent wind

 and will push them out

 speaking a multitude of languages,

 because God’s house,

God’s kingdom is for all peoples. Amen