The Episcopal Church is full of tradition. This congregation, this sanctuary, our Prayer Book – are all soaked with tradition. We don’t like to mess with the things that we find comfortable. You’ve all heard versions of the joke, “How many Episcopalians does it take to change a light bulb?” “Three. One to change the light bulb, one to hold the ladder, and one to say how much they liked the old one better.” (Or, how dare you change that light bulb! My grandmother gave that light bulb to the church!) Our traditions do more than distinguish us from other Christians. Our traditions help us make sense of our world. They help us to remember connections between us and across generations. They help to define us and to describe how we belong here.

         They are also often invisible to us. We take them for granted. We think that everyone knows how to worship here. We think everyone knows how things work. If we are one of the few who don’t know, we’re embarrassed to ask.

         Jesus has a run in with the Pharisees over tradition. They wondered why Jesus did not instruct his disciples on the proper rituals of hand washing and purification. These rules had been passed down as oral tradition in order to know how to obey the written law. If a person was scrupulous in obeying the traditions, then they could be assured that they had kept the written law.

         We look on this and we are trained to reject the legalism we think we see. If we look at ourselves a little more closely, we might be able to see the legalists that are in us. We have unconscious rules for behaving in public and for raising our children. There are unspoken rules of driving on the highway (don’t drive slow in the fast lane!) We often don’t see these until we meet someone from another culture who questions what we do. Europeans wonder why Americans shower everyday. Are we dirty?

         Jesus shares his frustration with the Pharisees, and maybe his culture, in how they would fuss over the details and miss the important actions. For Jesus, it’s not how a person washes his or her hands that makes them pure. Purity is from the heart. It’s not what we eat or how we cleanse ourselves before we eat that makes us “clean”. Jesus reminds the disciples that it is what comes out of the heart that shows how pure we are.

         In the very next scene, a Canaanite woman interrupts Jesus and the disciples. She is begging, screaming for Jesus that he might heal her daughter. The disciples want her to shut up. The tell Jesus to make her go away. Jesus’ remark is very harsh. He is sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. Where is the love for all the world? What’s going on here? Many scripture commentators reflect that Jesus is showing his human side. He changes his mind about something. People find comfort in this because it’s heartening to know that God is not rigid or legalistic. Jesus bends to accept the faith of another.

         Another way to reflect on this is that Jesus is testing her. He may also be testing the disciples. In other words, Jesus says something harsh. He speaks legalistic rules in order to see if anyone will challenge the status quo. In the end, it is the foreign woman who shows faith and challenges Jesus to give the crumbs to the dogs.

         I think we must be careful when we look at scripture with our concerns and assume that the original context is the same as ours. We have been wrestling for generations with church rules. We have argued about the ordination of women, the prayer book, a new hymnbook, and more recently the ordination and marriage of homosexuals. We are looking for proof texts about inclusion. We want to see Jesus being flexible so we can feel more comfortable about being flexible. I heartily agree with the perspective that we cannot know the mind of God and we should not proscribe what God must do. I believe we are more free in our faith than we let ourselves be.

         I also think that this text is not about the flexibility of Jesus. This is not a text we should use to prove a point about how God isn’t rigid. Jesus is giving us the opportunity to see our own legalism. We adopt our own set of standards around who belongs and how we should behave. Jesus reminds us to look in the heart and not at how a person dresses or how they comport themselves. Jesus gives us the opportunity to see the faith of another person before we make judgments about whom they are or what they have to offer.

         Everyone says, “We want the church to grow.” In my experience, we say that we welcome the stranger, but in practice we want to fill the church only with people who are just like us. If we honestly want to welcome the stranger, then we have to allow ourselves to be comfortable with people who are strange to us. The gift Jesus gives us is that we can receive the surprising gifts that they have to offer. They can help us grow more faithful by discovering new ways to express our faith.

         In the gospel this morning, the Pharisees are blind guides and the disciples are unwelcoming and heartless towards the stranger. Even Jesus seems to dismiss her. It is the hated foreigner who displays great faith towards Jesus. It is the Canaanite woman who is blessed and who is a blessing to others.

         We are anxious about the future. Our natural tendency is to follow patterns from the path and to surround ourselves with familiar faces and familiar plans. Maybe we should embrace the freedom that is offered to us. We don’t really know what God wants from us at any moment. We are free to discover what it is. We are also free to invite the stranger among us. Not only might we discover new ways to be faithful, we may also be blessed by their gifts.