Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, August 16, 2026
There are two kinds of tired. There is the first kind, which is when you just need to go to bed. You have been running around in the hot sun or studying for a test or crouching over your desk at work, and you just need a good night's sleep. And then there is the second kind of tired, one that we might call weariness. You are a new parent. You are up night after night for weeks or months trying to calm your screaming child. You are someone who is in and out of doctor's appointments and hospital appointments, trying to figure out a diagnosis, trying to sift through paperwork, trying to be seen and heard. You are a parent with the kid's calendar taped to the kitchen fridge, so busy that sometimes you're unable to look into the eyes of your spouse or check within yourself. You are weary from grief. How it hovers, how it depletes you. You are weary from studying for finals, for physics, and the Great Wall and the square root of something. Don't ask me. And that kind of weariness does not get resolved by a good night's sleep. It sits above the eyebrows for some of us. It shows up below the eyes. For some of us, it sits heavy on our chest. It makes our limbs heavy.
That's the kind of weariness that the son of David has today. Jesus has been so busy pouring out his compassion and mercy on all kinds of kinds, especially those on the fringes of society. Paralytics and demon-possessed men and women who have been bleeding for 12 years when no one would help them. And people with leprosy, and it seems for him that no one is beyond healing. He has come for the last and the least and the lost. But the people of God don't have ears to hear. They are throwing this man out of towns. They are arguing with him about the law when it is so clear that he has come to fulfill it. Even his own disciples barely understand what he's up to. Just last week, Peter sank into the sea from disbelief that Jesus is who he says he is.
So today we find this weary man traveling to Tyre and Sidon with the disciples. Not just traveling to any district, but this is a Gentile district. This is foreign territory. These are not Israelite cities. But what's funny is that folks outside of Israelite cities seem to recognize the son of God more than those who he came to save first. Amen. But Jesus is never afraid of putting himself in uncomfortable situations in foreign places. But in these districts, his disciples, they kind of have their ears perked up. They have their eyes shifting around. They are a little more nervous as they cross over into Gentile territory where they are looking at those people. Y'all know about those people. Weary and raw, dejected and rejected. Jesus meets this Canaanite woman. Somebody give me a name for her. Sarah. Jesus meets Sarah. Not only does he meet her, but immediately Sarah starts shouting. Imagine they are in this district that they are not familiar with. And a foreign woman, an outcast, someone who is different from them ethnically, shouts at them. They would have been pretty spooked. And here is what she says. Help me. Have mercy on me, son of David. My daughter is tormented by a demon.
Take a second and imagine the urgency in this woman's voice. We have a lot of mamas here today, or a lot of mother figures. And so there is nothing you wouldn't do for your kid, even if it meant approaching a group that hasn't really been considering you on its mercy tour. But just 10 chapters ago, Jesus preached something called the Sermon on the Mount. And he said, "Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive." Y'all better wake up. I'm not done here. They will receive mercy. Sarah has heard whispers of this, traveling from town to town, about this man who preached mercy. And so surely if she crosses her fingers and reaches out, it could be for her, too.
And she is met with silence. Not a word from the man who has been walking around while people grasp his cloak, trip him in the streets, grab onto the fringes of his clothes, begging to be healed. Silence and maybe a weariness.
And his disciples jump in. Send her away. She keeps shouting after us. Get rid of her. Like a starving mom in Palestine, yelling for food for her babies. Like a weary mom in the emergency room pleading with the staff to help her and her kid. Like a desperate father begging for mercy so that ICE doesn't snatch his own son. But they look at her with fear and they look at her with disgust and they find her annoying.
And Jesus finally talks to her. I was only sent to help the lost sheep of Israel.
Is this the Jesus you know? This isn't the Jesus I know. But somehow in the Gospel of Matthew, we're able to say, "This man calmed storms." And this man needed a dose of mercy. This man ate with tax collectors and sinners. This man crawled into caves with crazy people. This man walked on water. This man set the table. And somehow he forgot an extra placemat today. He forgot to pull up a chair. And nevertheless, she persists. Kneeling at his feet, she pleads, "Lord, help me."
This woman is not giving up until her daughter is healed. Y'all remember when Jacob wrestled with the angel and he said, "I'm not letting go until you bless me." Y'all remember when Hagar fled into the wilderness with her son and she looked at God and said, "You will not let me look upon the death of my son. Bless me." That same tenacity, that same persistence is what we see in Sarah, the Canaanite woman, today.
He said, "I'm so sorry. It's not fair to take the food from the children and throw it to the dogs."
The dogs, a derogatory word used for Gentiles. That's pretty rude. But he is tired. He's just been on a particular mission. God has said, "Jews first and Gentiles later." In other words, the good news is not quite ready for Gentiles. Okay? Not yet. There's only so much mercy to go around. This is the same man who just fed 5,000 with an overflow of abundance, reminding us that there is a myth of scarcity that we better not buy into. And yet, he's got a mercy shortage. And nevertheless, she persists. And not only does she respond, and I kind of imagine it in like a quippy manner where she's using his own language with him, she says, "I understand what you're saying. I agree with you. But even the dogs eat the crumbs from the master's table. Even the dogs, Jesus."
As priest Jennifer Wickerly writes, she takes Jesus's nasty words and she transforms them. She takes that belittling label dog and she puts the label right in front of Jesus. She says, "I'm not waiting until Easter. I'm not waiting until the resurrection. It also applies to me. You will extend your mercy to me right now."
She is not going to wait for the people of God to wake up. She wants her blessing, the blessing that God eventually intends anyway. So why not right now?
And what follows? It may even surprise Jesus. Sometimes our own generosity and abundance might sneak up on us and we're like, "All right, I'm pretty good." He holds his hands and a surplus of mercy pours out. Bread that spills over for the 5,000 and the children. And yes, Sarah, the Canaanite woman. Woman, great is your faith. Let it be done for you as you wish. Thank you for the reminder. And her daughter was healed instantly. Somebody say instantly.
You know what happens next? I'm not going to make Noah the intern come back and keep reading. Now he goes up to a mountain, and the disciples, instead of sending the people who need healing away, they bring these people to Jesus's feet and he heals them all. And listen to what it says in Matthew 16. The crowd was amazed at what they saw. The mute speaking, the maimed whole, the lame walking, the blind seeing. Imagine that. That maybe the faith of this Canaanite woman sped up the mercy that was already intended for all of God's people. Because y'all read the last part of Matthew, right? When Jesus commissions his disciples, he says, "Go and make believers of all people." I wonder if he learned some of that from Sarah. Not some, but all. Not some, but all.
And so today on kickoff Sunday, we're kind of dusting off our Bibles and we're kicking off. We're trying to do a little spiritual inventory and ask ourselves at Vine Street Christian Church, is the table set for some or is it set for all? Truly, because let me tell you something, and this is true for me. It is tempting to limit the gospel and the good news for who I want it to go to. It is tempting to limit God's mercy to just the people who agree with me, who look like me, who vote like me, who worship like me. But y'all, Jesus's mission is so clear, perhaps more so because a Canaanite woman woke him up one day. He says, "Set the table for not some, but all. Set the table for the people who vote like you. Set the table for the people who don't. Set the table for the people who forget to vote. Set the table for the men and women on death row, the people who faithfully visit them, the lawmakers who approve their execution, the protesters who don't support it and the counterprotesters who do, the correctional officers who have to look at it. Set the table for babies who can't yet speak for themselves and for our older folks who are teaching us how to slow down a little bit and our young people who sprint through the hallways. Set the table for your closest colleague, the one that you can make eye contact with in a staff meeting and kind of roll your eyes together, and the colleague who annoys you to no end. You better not say me. Set the table for the boss who is so attentive to you. And set the table for the one who still doesn't get your name right. Set the table for the people marching in glee at the pride parade. And for the people holding up signs that say sinners. And for the people who aren't ready to be there yet. Set the table for single moms shouting for their kids to be healed. And set the table for the people working at corporations who don't want them to. Set the table for your grumpy uncle, for your self-obsessed aunt, for your overbearing dad, for your anxious mom, for your weird cousin, for your annoying sibling. You set the table for them. Set the table for your spouse who is late to dinner again. And set the table for the guy standing at the 440 intersection right now whose stares you ignore, whose motives that you don't trust. And set the table for yourself, that your mercy is limited. Set the table for the abused and the abusers, for the perpetrators and the victims, for the rich and the poor and the hungry and the filled and the hoarders and the sharers and the friends and the strangers and the Christians and the atheists. Not some, but all. No one. No one is too broken or too foreign or too different or too damaged to have a chair pulled up for them at Christ's table. No one.
And when we pull up that extra chair, when we shift in our pews at the thought of those people sitting next to us here, that that is when the real work of the gospel begins. That's when we kick it off. When the abundance falls out of our hands. Bread for the kids, bread for the dogs, bread for everybody.
Endless mercy. Endless mercy. It began with a Canaanite woman named Sarah. A woman who wouldn't take no for an answer. And the son of God who wasn't too ashamed to change his mind.
Who ended this book commissioning all.
So, we got to pull up an extra chair, especially for the ones crying out, "Help me."
And there we will find the uncomfortable, stretchy, subversive, merciful kingdom of God that is never just for some, but for all.
Amen.