Sunday is the 3rd Sunday of Kingdomtide, & which we at Covenant will observe as Back-To-Church Sunday. Back-To-Church started as a time annually when local churches invite family, friends and neighbors to join them in worship. Often because many had been away from regular church attendance during the summer months.

          The assigned scripture this Sunday includes a couple of healings of Jesus. One resulted from Jesus’ encounter with a Greek (Syrophoenician) woman in what many call “the only argument Jesus lost.” It wasn’t really an argument but a moment in which an immigrant woman demonstrated that the power of her faith lies that moved Jesus to heal her daughter.

          It may come as a shock to most Christians today, but we would do better to use this woman as a model of faith even more than the disciples. Like her, most of us are not connected to Jesus by race or ethnicity. And as we saw too often the disciples then & those claiming to follow Christ today are too blinded by our social & religious prejudices to help folks know that their lives matter to God and should also matter to us.

          As I rethink this event, I doubt Jesus words were meant to be a put down to the woman. Besides that, her compassion for her daughter ran too deep to care even if she was insulted. Perhaps we should see the words of Jesus as a reprimand to the disciples – and us – when we allow our politics and religious agendas to blind us to compassion.

          Join us on this Back-to-Church Sunday, in person if you can, or by Zoom, Facebook Livestream or YouTube. My sermon is “Your Life Matters to God and Me” based on “Mark 7:24-37.” Also, please join us for our Picnic Lunch that will immediately follow worship.