Wine Before Breakfast

Much depends on dinner.

Anyone at Wine Before Breakfast last week might remember that phrase. I must have said it a dozen times in my sermon, which is not bad for a ten minute homily.

Much depends on dinner, and it still depends on dinner as we come to WBB on Shrove Tuesday. Except, of course, we are talking about breakfast, not dinner.

And this week we meet a striking, and perhaps painful, irony.

You see in our reading from Matthew this week we meet two stories, both of which concern food.

First, there is a woman oddly identified as a Canaanite who asks Jesus for the healing of her daughter who is tormented by a demon. I’ll let Sara explain what is odd about that identification, but I’m struck by the culinary imagery in the story.

When Jesus rather rudely tells this “Canaanite” woman that he isn’t about to throw the food of the children to the dogs, she replies, “yes, but even the dogs get the crumbs from the table.”

Dogs get the crumbs.

This seems to catch Jesus short and he says that this woman has faith and her daughter is healed.

Dogs get crumbs from the table, and this Tuesday is International Woman’s Day.

Dogs get crumbs from the table, and this Tuesday is Shrove Tuesday when we eat a feast of rich and sweet foods at Wine Before Breakfast.

But the story goes on. It seems that once Jesus has healed this “Canaanite” woman’s daughter, once he lets her have the crumbs from the table, he gets even more generous.

I don’t know, but for some reason once this “Canaanite” confronts Jesus about the scope of his Kingdom, he starts healing all kinds of Gentile folk and then comes something that is a heck of a lot more than some crumbs from the table. Another feast in the wilderness. This time with 4000 folk (plus women and children!) at the party.

From crumbs to feast.

That’s where our story goes this week.

The feast needs food. Sweet food and rich food. Please clean out the cupboards and do some baking for the community.

So we move from crumbs to feast,
but then we also move from feast to crumbs.

That’s where we go this week. From the feast of Shrove Tuesday to the fasting and crumbs of Lent.

All “Canaanites” are welcome.

Wine Before Breakfast
Tuesday @ 7.22am
Wycliffe Chapel

Sara DeMoor is preaching,
Chris Dow is our Liturgist,
David Neelands will start the feast with wine and bread,
and the bandhood will likely sing a U2 song.