Thoughts on the 11th Sunday after Trinity (26th August 2026)
Isaiah 56.1, 6–8; Psalm 67; Romans 11.1–2a, 29–32; Matthew 15.[10–20] 21–28
And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, all who keep the sabbath, and do not profane it, and hold fast my covenant - these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt-offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. (Isaiah 56:6-7)
Isaiah is talking about us.
We are suckers for a good box-set but this one is a box-set with a difference. It’s a multi-season series about the life of Jesus and it’s beautifully done.
Getting deep into a story is a great experience and then there’s that curious feeling of being somewhat bereft or even homesick when it ends. Do you know what I mean by that? It can also happen when you finish a really good book; it’s as though you have been inhabiting a wonderful world in your imagination and living IN the story so that when it ends you have to transition back to the ordinary day-to-day, and that can be a come-down.
Anyway a recent episode featured that dramatic scene where Jesus cleanses the Temple. If you remember, in the last week of Jesus’ life after he has ridden in to Jerusalem on a donkey he goes to the Temple and fashions a whip out of cord and turns over the tables of the money changers and those selling animals for sacrifice.
While he’s doing it he quotes from our first reading. This is what he says: “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”
It’s pretty clear that Jesus was denouncing the corruption and the greed that had infiltrated the activities of the temple but he is making a very specific point here, and to understand that you need an understanding of the layout of the temple.
The trading and the money changing was happening in an area called the Court of the Gentiles. It was an area of the temple which was open to non-Jews. Anyone, regardless of nationality or ritual status, could walk, talk, pray or gather there. It was effectively the access point for the whole world to come and encounter the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.
You see, we (the Gentiles) were never an afterthought. He always wanted us. That was always his plan.
Right back in Genesis 12:3, God tells Abraham, all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. In Isaiah 49:6: God calls Israel his servant and says that they are to be a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.
There’s a Psalm appointed for today that says this: God be gracious to us and bless us, and make his face to shine upon us, That your way may be known upon earth, your saving power among all nations… O let the nations rejoice and be glad, for you will judge the peoples righteously and govern the nations upon earth (Psalm 67:1-4).
There are lots of references like it, so we should be left in no doubt that by calling Israel into a special covenant with himself, God intended to call the whole world into a covenant relationship.
From the beginning of Jesus’ ministry he seems to have been very vocal on the fact that us Gentiles have always been capable of the kind of faith that opens the door to God’s mercy and love.
At his first sermon in the synagogue at Nazareth he enraged his listeners by pointing to a time in Israel’s history when God worked miracles for Gentiles because there was no faith in Israel: I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed – only Naaman the Syrian (Luke 4:25-27).
His Jewish listeners were so enraged at this that they drove him out of the synagogue and tried to throw him off a cliff!
There are further occasions in Jesus’ ministry when he singles out gentiles and mentions their great faith.
On one occasion a Roman Centurion comes an asks Jesus to heal his servant with such conviction that Jesus says: Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 8:10-11).
After Jesus heals 10 lepers and the only person to come back and thank him is a Samaritan leper Jesus says to the crowd, Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner? (Luke 17:18).
And another good example comes from our Gospel reading today.
Jesus is teaching on purity because the Pharisees have just complained that he and his disciples don’t wash their hands before eating ‘according to the tradition of the elders’. So he makes the point that what matters is purity of heart rather than ritual purity by the washing of hands and other ceremonial practices.
He elaborates for his disciples: Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.
Spot the irony here because the Pharisees obsess over minor, man-made ritual observances like handwashing, while actively plotting to break the highest commandments and bear false witness against Jesus and murder him!
It’s kind of Jesus’ point isn’t it? …out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.
And then we have a wonderful example of something coming out of the mouth a Gentile woman and it gives Jesus, and us, a glimpse of the purity of her heart.
The dialogue is great. Jesus effectively says, ‘Sorry Mrs Canaanite but miracles are the food reserved for the Children of Israel and it’s not right to give them to the dogs!’ She replies, ‘Ah OK. Well, given that I am a dog (to my mind there are worse things to be – dogs are affectionate, loyal and brave) let me sniff around under the table and take some of the crumbs that fall off it!’
It’s charming isn’t it, and utterly disarming! Jesus seems to have no choice in the face of such wisdom, such humility and such faith. He says, Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.
So there’s a clear theme through our readings today and it’s something like this: To be a child of Abraham; a true Israelite; an adopted child of God, is not to be a member of an ethnicity or a tribe or a religion or a denomination.
The entry into a relationship with God and into the genuine community of faith is not about whether or not we are circumcised and wash our hands before eating.
St Paul makes the point beautifully in Romans 2 when he says, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart.
And it’s Jesus in the Beatitudes who says, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Matthew 5:8).
So there’s a challenge for us here today, in case we become like those Jesus criticised for their complacency.
If the washing of hands before eating so you can show the world you’re a Jew wasn’t enough why would the washing of baptism when we are a baby be enough?
If membership of the Jewish race and of a Jewish tribe wasn’t enough why would membership of the Christian Church and the Anglican tribe be enough?
We need to attend to our hearts and one of the ways we do this is by paying attention to our thoughts and to what comes out of our mouths.
As the Book of Proverbs teaches us: Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. Keep your mouth free of perversity; keep corrupt talk far from your lips. Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you. Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways. Do not turn to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil. (Proverbs 4:23-27)
Let us pray.
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