I’m back from a few weeks of vacation, but as you might expect, I’ve been busier than normal this week as I’ve had to get caught up on the backlog of work from my time away.

I was planning on putting something together for this week, but when I looked back at the sermon I preached three years ago, it was still surprisingly relevant. So I’m reposting another sermon again this week. I hope you’ll be patient with me about that. I’m hoping that I’ll get back into a regular weekly rhythm by next weekend.

The surprising context of this week’s Gospel text from Mark isn’t the challenge that Jesus receives from the Syro-Phoenician woman, but who she, and her people are, in terms of their relationship to the Jewish people. Understanding this context makes this a much more important insight into the power of the Gospel than it appears to be at first glance in our 21st Century context.

As I said previously:

People on the margins seem to have a different relationship with God, with Jesus, and an ability to presume upon that relationship, than do the rich and the powerful and the well connected.

And Jesus is willing to have that special relationship trump any other aspect of who it is that is speaking to him.

You can see the previous post here.

You can view the sermon from that post directly here.