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Sunday 16 August 2026 Trinity 11, Twentieth in Ordinary Time, Proper 15
Broken bread
Isaiah 56:1, 6-8; Matthew 15:21-28
Context: An open-air Eucharistic service held in green space, with a mixture of ages. Fresh bread is used at communion, and congregation members serve one another. The sermon may be read by a young person
Aim: To see Jesus as the bread of life broken for all
It was in a space like this where my mother met Jesus. Her knees damp from the dew that clung to the blades of grass between the scrub land. Her voice hoarse as she regaled her hard-won miracle when she returned home, full of faith, to find me sitting, dressed and in my right mind.
She had hastily left the house this morning, bread still in the oven, with voices of our neighbours ringing in her ears, as she heard a miracle worker was in our land. ‘Demon daughter’ they called me. Possessed. She had tried everything to rid me of my spell and still no amulet, sorcerer or ritual ever healed me. Nothing medicinal or herbal could release me from my torment. And yet today, in her desperation and in her weak and fragile faith, she had heard of this Jewish miracle worker, Jesus, and she ran to him for me.
It hadn’t always been this way. As a child I played games and worried very little. But when I became a woman, there were periods where I blacked out. I sensed my mother at my side, wishing, hoping, praying that my eyes rolling, and my mouth foaming and my hands grasping would quickly subside. And yet my episodes became more violent, more sustained.
It was often the smell of my mother’s fresh bread that brought me to my senses. She bought her grain from the market in the port which was imported from Israel. From a people ethnically, economically and religiously foreign. Our gods and our culture were a threat to the Jewish people. Their land was deemed to be clean and ours unclean. And yet in our pagan home my mother was enchanted by the snatched whispers of the Jewish man Jesus. As she pounded the grain grown in fertile Galilean soil, she told me of Jesus the child, Emmanuel, she breathed, God with us. As she kneaded the soft dough combining oil, its olives grown in the sun-warmed groves of Judah, she told me of Jesus the teacher, blessing the poor in spirit. Us, she promised. As she bent low into the blistering heat of the oven reaching for our golden sustenance, she told tales of half-heard stories of Jesus sharing food in abundance, and that we would one day share in the banquet at the table.
I’m not sure how my mother knew to call him Lord, but she met him at the edge lands as he had crossed the border. As an immigrant woman, she knew that she shouldn’t be there, that she shouldn’t speak to him. But something possessed her. She threw herself in front of him and his chosen men and begged him to help me, crying for him to take pity on her. But Jesus was on foreign land with a foreign people, and he met her with silence. Stony silence which lasted an eternity. The men with Jesus the healer urged him to send my mother away. She shouldn’t have been there, she knew that, but she was desperate.
The first words from this holy man in this foreign land told her that her people were not the ones he had come for. That our people were not chosen. Beloved even. How could he have said that to her, as she cried at his feet? My mother crept forward to him and begged again for help. He then uttered words that didn’t feel like they belonged in his mouth. ‘It’s not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’
So much for ‘blessed are the poor in spirit’! And yet, she stubbornly chose to believe that he was still Emmanuel, God with her. With all that dogged faith, she hurled her question back to him and shouted of crumbs. Bread. How can he be content when anyone goes hungry at his table?
In the presence of my foreign mother, Jesus the healer released me from the torture I endured and commended her great faith. He made room for us at the table. The table, which was widened, lengthened, and deepened to seat every hungry family under heaven.
And at his table, bread is broken, and wine is poured, and we are called to take and eat in remembrance of him.
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Issue 202: The Dynamics of Worship
