The Rev. Canon Leonard Hamlin: Our Hope As It Was Their Hope

I invite you to join me in a word of prayer. Almighty, we come once again, gathered together in this place and in sacred places. Lord, we ask now that you would once again bless us, cover us, keep us, unite us, but most of all, fill us for the places you are preparing to send us. This we ask in your wonderful name. Amen. You may be seated.

Once again, I am privileged, humbled, and grateful, for this day and in particular this moment of gathering, for this moment to be in and to share in this worship experience. I have always and continue to look forward to that moment, that moment of gathering together as believers. When we’re able to experience something unique that we often refer to and identify as ‘corporate worship’. My tradition, I probably have always heard it ‘when all of God’s children get together. What a time, what a time, what a time’. 

Here this experience that we are sharing in, what a gift we have when we experience worship. The acclaimed author Richard Foster in his notable publication, Celebration of Discipline wrote, “As worship begins in holy expectancy, it ends in holy obedience. Holy obedience saves worship from becoming an opiate, an escape from the pressing needs of modern life”. As we look around and look out on the landscape of life, whether from our seats here in the cathedral or whether those who are seated and joining us across the digital and technological highways, there are a great quantity of concerns that, if we’re really honest, all of us wish we could escape from. And truth is, in coming in here we have not gathered in order that we might just run away from what is going on in the world, but so that we might have strength to deal with what is taking place in the world. Think about it for a moment. The economic concerns, the political divides, the ecological catastrophes, the extreme weather occurrences, the health concerns, the recurring injustice and the still ever-present triple evils that Dr. Martin Luther King talked about many years ago: racism, excessive materialism and militarism. Here we are still dealing with issues and if we’re honest, all of us would want to run away from those, to escape from those, to not have to deal with those. 

While we may have a certain level of desire to escape from these realities though, many are here and joining from across the world and in gathering in other places. They have come together because there is this strange and mysterious aspect that operates in our lives that we identify as faith. In the biblical description and definition, we find and know faith is to be the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. But there are so many great claims made that rest upon this characteristic of faith. There are so many others who make these claims that they have faith, possess faith. Look at my faith. I am at the same time when I hear people talk about faith and the conversation about faith raises up, I hear at the same time Jesus asking his disciples in a difficult moment, “Where is your faith?” 

It is the kind of question that challenges not only the measure of our faith, but the location of our faith as well. In a world where online gambling, the proliferations of sports wagering, Mega Millions and even Powerball billions have become so prevalent. I have greater appreciation for the French philosopher Blaise Pascal’s metaphor on faith, when he stated, ‘Faith is a wager placed against heavy odds”. And there are many of us who are here today who when we are looking at our faith, it is not because the odds were in our favor that we decided to trust Jesus. It was not because the things were adding up and we could see our return immediately that we said, “I’ll give him my faith”. But it was a risk and a wager to say here, “Against the odds that I see, I trust you”. This New Testament passage from Matthew that is placed before us, moves us through two scenes and encounters that invite us to wrestle with the measure and placement of our own faith today. 

It is a passage that has been the focus of discussion throughout numerous years and generations. If you were listening to the gospel that was read, you have heard it time and time again. It has been debated, analyzed, and reviewed by so many. But here Jesus calls together in the beginning of our reading this morning, he calls together a crowd in an attempt to open their eyes, and to shift their focus from religious dietary habits, rules and regulations, and what goes into their mouth, to a position of understanding and focus about what comes out of their mouth and revealing the condition of their heart. Because those who are listening in that day and maybe even in this day, we’re often sometimes bound to habits that have spiritually blinded us as it did them, to the real issues of life. So much so that Jesus cautioned those who are listening in that day, and we’re cautioned today about the spirituality, about being spiritually blind and about the spiritually blind guides of the blind. By Jesus saying to them, “If one blind person guides another, both will fall into the pit”. Every time I hear that, I’m reminded of a preacher and pastor who would also caution many of us in ministry to remember that even though in the land of the blind, remember the one-eyed man can be king.

When we think about this, the scenes of this gospel and in the gospel that was read moved quickly as Jesus travels into a certain region and district identified as Tyre and Sidon, he is met by a woman of that region, until the encounter rises to a level where we hear Jesus speaking to someone who has come to him in need. His words ring loudly, his words ring clearly as we hear Jesus say to this person in need, “Great is your faith”. I wish I could stand here and say that I’ve always been in a position to where Jesus may be looking at me and say, “Great is your faith”. But I know that I’ve had my moments where I needed to strengthen my faith. I know I’ve had moments where I was struggling with my faith. And you don’t have to really identify yourself, but I know I’ve got company in here today. Where you have struggled to say, “There is a bright side somewhere”. You struggle to be able to say, “I know the Lord will make a way somehow”. You struggle to be able to say, “We will get to the other side”. Here Jesus says to this individual, “Great is your faith”. It is not just any person but a particular person. It is not just any person or particular person, but a woman. Just as we heard last week, I don’t want to make too much of this, but I would be falling short if I did not give effort to making enough of it. 

Today it might not immediately stand out, but in that time and in this occurrence, this woman was part of and the representative in this text of the marginalized, the disinherited, the disallowed and the disavowed. This woman does not appear to come to Jesus with any notable reputation or authority. This woman comes to Jesus just as she is. She lacks social position apparently, and status, as she is seen by the crowd as an outsider. She is not just a woman, but there is an intentional identification of her being a Canaanite woman. I could put so much and make here relation to so many identifications, how we label each other by where we come from, the color of our skin, our jobs, our employment, but this is intentional to say this Canaanite woman. She is not given a name, but we are provided her condition. We do not know her. Yet for many we do know her. She is the mother of a child who is in need. This tormented child has produced a grief-stricken parent. We do not know her. Yet many of us do know her. Anyone who is a parent or guardian or has had any room in your heart for a child may say on one hand, “I don’t know her”. But because of her troubles, her burdens, her experience, her tears at night, the burdens on her back, the worry about the generation coming behind her, you are able to say, “I do know her”. 

This Canaanite woman comes, as the text records, shouting. She does not come quietly. She does not come in the form that many would have preferred, but she comes making noise. And I remind you today, the Bible and the text is a noisy book. Some often wonder why I get so excited when I’m preaching, because I see noise, I hear noise. There’s noise all around me, and there’s noise even in this text. She comes shouting, “Have mercy on me!” Truth is, you don’t have to expose yourself, but in spirit, there is some in here crying out right now: Lord, have mercy on me. Lord, I’m struggling with this situation, Lord, I’m dealing with this situation. You are crying out. I can’t hear you in your voice, but I know in spirit or whether online I’m looking out on this world that is filled with confusion, racism, materialism, excessive materialism and militarism. Lord have mercy on us. 

If you have never lived on the margins, never been labeled as an outsider, it is difficult to understand the need or the desire in certain moments to raise your voice. To raise your voice in an effort just to be recognized, just to be seen, and sometimes just to be heard. An outsider trying to sit at the table, an outsider trying to be part of what’s going on, an outsider just to be accepted as a child of God. Here in my youth, I was always shaken by Ralph Ellison’s words penned in his critically acclaimed novel, The Invisible Man, as he expressed what it means to be an African-American in a world hostile to the rights of minority. And we can even take this further when he says, “I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids, and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.” 

This Canaanite woman is shouting and left to feel as if she has been rejected by the disciples and unheard by Jesus. And there have been times I have wondered, “God, are you listening? God, do you hear me? God, are you paying attention to what I’m going through? God, are you walking with me? God, am I walking with you?” This Canaanite woman, she is feeling rejected by the disciples and unheard by Jesus. This Canaanite woman knows that there were those that did not want to be bothered by her as she continued her march toward Jesus. A march that evolved into her protest crying, “Son of David have mercy on me”. Her march, which turned into a protest, against the situations and systemic issues that were taking place then. “Lord have mercy on me”.

The scene is troubling, and also uneasy, because it is his disciples, the followers of Jesus that preferred this woman would shut up and just go away. It is his disciples who are really standing in the way. His disciples who are not making room for the needy. His disciples who are not giving room and inviting her to get closer to Jesus. They were willing to look over the needy. They were willing to look over the marginalized, the ostracized, and the excluded. They were willing to push to the margins rather than pull others who need him closer. This Canaanite woman stands her ground, raises her voice and continues to press her case. This Canaanite woman recognizes something about this man named Jesus, and in return, Jesus recognizes something about this Canaanite woman. In this moment of exchange between them, the labels that had defined them began to become less important in light of the humanity and divinity that connected them. This Canaanite woman starts out by crying, “Lord, son of David”, but the closer she came, it caused her to adjust her posture. She assumes a posture of reverence and a posture familiar for worship as she takes a knee. And in other translations it’s clear as it says, she began to worship him. She enters this text as a Canaanite woman, an outsider by culture, by tradition, but because she has seen something in Jesus, the divinity of Jesus begins to reach beyond the walls that have divided humanity. She makes her case, which such faith that Jesus responds by characterizing her faith as “great faith” as she wrestled with her circumstance and her condition.

We are called today to wrestle and look at our own condition. I remind many of you that six days from now a crowd will gather on the Washington Mall. Six days from now that crowd will gather once again at the Lincoln Memorial marking 60 years since another generation gathered for the March on Washington in 1963. We’ve come a long way, but we still have a long way to go. They will gather raising their voices about man’s inhumanity to man. They will gather raising voices about the progress we still need to make. They will gather raising their voices and some will call it protest, but sometimes we just need to be heard and sometimes things need to be seen. There were many voices crying out on that day, who were crying out for justice, equality, freedom, and for a nation to live up to its aspirations set forward in the words powerfully written in its founding documents.

Yet in spite of those that did not want to hear, I remind you that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood firm in his faith, stood there at the steps of the Memorial 60 years ago. 60 years ago and he stood firm representing many who had great faith, not just in a nation, but great faith that we could be a people united. We as children of God and children of our creator would be able to look past the visions and walk in unity. He stood on that day with great faith and once again, that crowd will gather, declaring with faith that they refuse to believe, and I refuse to believe as King said, that the bank of justice is bankrupt and refusing to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. While there will be voices there, there should be voices everywhere saying that, “I’ve got great faith in who we are and what we can be”. 

While there will be voices there, there ought to be voices here saying that there is great faith that we will rise above these issues. We will be able to change the tide that runs downhill and be able to here let all of this tide as justice rolls down. Here I still have great faith in a God who made us, a Savior who raised us, a Spirit who is present with us. That standing firm in this present day and we’re standing firm for the generations in every day. While we remember Dr. King’s words, let us remember that one day every valley shall be exalted. Every hill and mountain shall be made low. The rough places will be made plain and the crooked places will be made straight. Here when we think of this today and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together. And this is still our hope as it was their hope. 

This is still my hope and I hope it’s your hope, that here as Dr. King returned to the south, he said, “With this faith, we will be able to hew out of a mountain of despair, a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we’ll be able to work together, pray together, struggle together, go to jail together, stand up for freedom together, knowing that one day we will all be free.” Let us not forget the words of those whose shoulders we stand on as they live, as they struggled, as they cried out, as they sang. But I in particular remember growing up in my own church at the start of many services where they put on those bell sleeves, stoles and robes. They lined up with all that was dressed up and the choir would sing out. “We’ve come this far by faith, leaning on the Lord, trusting in his holy word. He has never failed us yet”. But then it would rise and there would be some great joy where they would say, “Oh, can’t turn around. Can’t turn around. We’ve come this far by faith”.