The Ecclesiastes passage sounds countercultural doesn't
it? It sounds, in fact, like the
Beatitudes. Solomon is telling us to not
set our store by the things of the world.
Better to go into the house of mourning rather than the house of
feasting? We need to keep the end in
mind in all things. That doesn't mean we
are to be miserable, like Macbeth in the soliloquy after the death of Lady
Macbeth, "Life's but a walking
shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is
heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying
nothing." If our life finds its
meaning here than this is true, but looking to the end for Christians means
something a good deal more, it means eternity.
We take this world for what it is, busted, broken, fallen and tragic,
but we tell of a renewed world that is to come for those who believe. We mourn now but only for what might have
been but for sin. Rejoicing will be
forever.
Matthew describes the woman as a Canaanite, one of the
peoples who were driven out of the Land by the Israelites. Jesus engages her in uncomfortable dialogue
to say the least. Her faith is such and
her love for her daughter so great that she is unconcerned what Jesus may say
about her or her people in order to get Him to act on her behalf. When He says, "It is not right to take
the children's bread and throw it to the dogs", it surely gave great
offense, but she will not be dissuaded from continuing her plea. She is both brazen and humble at once, wiling
to suffer any insult in order to see her child healed. I had a seminary professor who suggested that
Jesus was merely vocalizing the prejudices of the disciples and causing them
discomfort by doing so in this exchange.
Certainly, some struggled with prejudice against Gentiles greatly and
yet there are several times when the faith of Gentiles is on display in the
Gospel. Why do you think Matthew thought
it important to preserve this awkward dialogue?
Apparently Paul's initial time in Galatia was due to a
problem with his eyes and not by design.
(As he points to their willingness to have gouged out their eyes and
given them to him, I would assume the problem was in those organs.) After Paul shared the Gospel with them
others, those who would force the church to adopt more Jewish practices in order
to be fully Christian, have come and the church has welcomed them as though
Paul were wrong in spite of the fact that he had nothing to gain by his
message. His heart is broken that these
who have loved him have now rejected the message he preached. We have a propensity to turn relationship
into religion. We like to have a club
that has its own conformity rules, it gives us comfort.
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