I have a friend who lives on a farm in the hills of southwestern Virginia, and a few weeks ago she sent me pictures of a beautiful old maple tree that broke in a storm, its giant arm bent and stretched over the grass and onto the porch. We both were grieving that tree – she who had lived next to it for years, and I who have never seen it in person.
And a few days later, she sent a message saying there were two fawns under the broken tree, seeking shelter under the massive broken branch, and feasting on the maple leaves – two young deer that were practically on her front porch, taking advantage of the unexpected hospitality of a beautiful old tree knocked down by a storm. She just let go, my friend said about the tree. A tree that let go of the ground, let go of her roots and became transformed into something else. A house, and a feast – shelter and nourishment – for deer.
Of course, I’m thinking – the parable of the mustard seed! Which we were listening to and talking about a few weeks ago as we were moving through the parables, as ways of catching a vision of the kingdom of heaven – the kingdom of heaven is like kudzu, or dandelions – like the similarly stubborn, overwhelming, persistent mustard seed that grows into a tree (or at least a really big shrub) that shelters birds and beasts in its branches.
But of course, the mustard seed was our reading a few weeks ago, so I’m thinking maybe I’ve missed my chance at least this time around for comparing the kingdom of heaven to a maple tree whose branches have broken, and it becomes something new, something that protects and shelters the vulnerable. Maybe I’m a few weeks too late. But it did get me thinking.
Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David, says the mother in this morning’s Gospel. Have mercy.
Yesterday, while on my way to Fincastle, Va. to attend the ordination of a new deacon in our diocese and in the Episcopal Church, I heard a story on NPR about a Certified Nursing Assistant, a CNA, who works in Boston. Her name is Marie, and she is one of the 300,000 Haitians who lost Temporary Protective Status, or TPS, this month. Marie. The reporter points out that Marie is working in a branch of the health care industry where it is hard to find CNAs and hard to keep them. Usually, they work in one place for an average of two years – it is hard work. Marie has been working at this nursing home for 12 years. She is loved and respected. But as of this month, her work and her home, what she’s poured her life into for the past 12 years, have become uncertain. Every week, every day could be her last one on the job, a job she cares deeply about. At some point, she could be told to leave her home, her friends and this country.
The reporter followed Marie for several days as she took care of her patients, including the elderly woman who does not want to be moved from her bed to a chair by anyone else except Marie. Working with a family to help them help their father with bathing.
Many of the people who work at the nursing home are from Haiti. When they received word earlier this month that TPS had been terminated, the staff met one evening to process the difficult news. Marie reached out to comfort and reassure coworkers whose future was suddenly uncertain and scary. They didn’t know that she was in the same situation. She didn’t say anything – she just kept taking care of others.
Marie’s story, and the stories of 300,000 other Haitians living in the United States, hits close to home spiritually. Trinity, our church, and a number of other churches in our convocation are part of the Virginia Haiti Collaborative, which has supported an Episcopal school in Haiti, its teachers, its families and its students, for well over than a decade. We have not been able to visit for a number of years because it’s too dangerous because of political uprisings and gang violence. The NPR report said it is probably more dangerous now than it was when Marie left.
Have mercy on them, Lord, Son of David. Have mercy.
So I was thinking about, what is this thread that ties all of our gospel readings over this last month or so together. The stories and parables describing the kingdom of God – they are all about mercy. The mustard seed growing into a tree that shelters any creature that comes by; five loaves and two fishes feeding thousands of hungry people; Jesus walking on water and Peter are trying to walk on water to meet him and failing and Jesus lifting him out of his fear – and now this morning. A woman coming to Jesus, asking for mercy. Marie, showing compassion to others in her own fear, and the maple tree, broken but sheltering and feeding young creatures even so – they are all connected to this morning’s story and the story we’ve been hearing for weeks – the persistence of the merciful mustard seed is still sending its roots and branches out through these last few weeks. Mercy calls us in so many places and so many voices.
It’s a difficult story this morning. So, this woman who comes to Jesus. She is loud and she will not be ignored. Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David. Despite all the compassion Jesus has been showing to those who come to them for healing and help, the disciples are annoyed. This woman’s daughter is hurting, tormented. She is not only suffering in body but in mind and spirit – she is possessed by a demon – there is something within her that should not be there, that is dark and destructive. The woman persists. Heal my daughter. I know you can do this. Listen to me. Even Jesus, by this point, seems annoyed. I was only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, he says.
And yet: she comes and kneels before him.
Think about the physicality of that gesture. This woman, who is following them, shouting, determined to save her daughter, her child, sinks to her knees in front of Jesus. Kneeling is not only an act of submission. Her words and her questions, her insistence, her argument make her physical position one of strength, not weakness. She persists. She challenges Jesus, even when he says that she is not worthy of the food he gives to others. Yes, Lord, she says. Yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.
Lord, have mercy.
Once again, a woman speaks sense. And Jesus hears her. Martin Luther preached about this 500 years ago, writing that “She catches Christ with his own words. He compares her to a dog, she concedes it, and asks nothing more than that he let her be a dog, as he himself judged her to be. Where will Christ now take refuge? He is caught.”
More recently, theologian Amy-Jill Levine writes that Jesus, in this story, “grows in wisdom.” He practices, in a deeper way, what he’s been preaching – that God’s love is for everyone, that, as Isaiah tells us today, God’s house is a house of prayer for all people.
Lord have mercy.
Mercy. It is a word that has entered our national consciousness and conscience, our civic as well as our religious discourse over the last few years. During yesterday’s ordination to the diaconate, we were reminded that “At all times, your life and teaching are to show Christ’s people that in serving the helpless they are serving Christ himself.” In helping those who ask for mercy, we are serving Christ himself. Mercy is showing kindness, hospitality, compassion for those who are suffering and those who are vulnerable.
Bishop Marianne Budde, in her now-famous sermon on mercy, reminds us that “Our God teaches that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land.” We all know suffering and vulnerability – all of us are in need of God’s love and mercy, in need of healing and safe shelter and solid ground and food to eat and comfort in grief and purpose in life.
I used to think of mercy as being what a warrior or a king might give someone that they had conquered – they ask have mercy on me. Spare my life. Put away your sword. Don’t condemn me to prison or to death.
But the stories of these last weeks, and the stories in our news show us that mercy is about more than that. The kingdom of heaven, that thing we’ve been talking about for weeks, is built on mercy. Mercy is about all of us – the loud Canaanite woman, the demon-possessed girl, Marie and 300,000 people from Haiti, the neighbors that we see on the sidewalks and serve lunch every day, the deer seeking shelter under a fallen maple tree. Even now, mercy is sometimes about sparing or saving a person’s life.
In receiving mercy, we are called to show mercy. In receiving compassion, we are called to show compassion. Mercy is about seeing Jesus in one another, about living and loving as Jesus did, and that is the kingdom of heaven. Amen.
