This is one of the more challenging Sundays of the year, and its texts all press toward the same difficult question: who is inside God’s people, and by what authority is the boundary drawn? The Gospel gives us the story of the Canaanite woman — a scene that has troubled Christian readers for centuries because Jesus appears, at first, to refuse her request and to compare her people to dogs. What she does with his answer, and what he does with hers, is one of the most striking moments in Matthew. We will handle the passage with care and honesty about how difficult it is. The Old Testament tracks lead toward the Gospel from complementary angles. Track One brings us the moment of reconciliation in Genesis — Joseph revealing himself to the brothers who sold him — paired with Psalm 133’s famous celebration of kindred living together in unity. Track Two brings us Isaiah’s expansive invitation to foreigners to join themselves to the Lord, paired with Psalm 67’s prayer for God’s blessing to reach all nations. The Epistle continues in Romans 11 with what may be Paul’s clearest word against the church’s later attempts to replace or displace Israel: God has not rejected his people, and the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For preachers continuing a series: the Matthew arc is now on the threshold of Peter’s great confession at Caesarea Philippi, which comes next week. But before Jesus arrives there, the Gospel takes him first through a challenging encounter with a Gentile woman who insists on being heard. The Readings Genesis 45:1–15 First Reading (Track One) — Joseph Reveals Himself Summary The Joseph story reaches its most tender turning point. Joseph has been elevated in Egypt. His brothers, driven by famine, have come to Egypt to buy grain, not knowing that the powerful Egyptian official standing in front of them is the brother they sold into slavery decades ago. Joseph has tested them, wept privately more than once, and now can hold back no longer. He sends the Egyptians away so that he can weep in private with his family. And then he tells them: I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. They are speechless with fear. He reassures them, kisses them, and weeps again. Key Ideas for Preaching * This scene has been prepared by pages of pain. The reconciliation does not happen quickly, and it does not happen because the brothers deserve it. Where in your congregation are people carrying the pain that comes before reconciliation, and how might this text steady them without pretending the timeline is short? * Joseph names what happened plainly — I am Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. He does not paper over the wrong. But he also does not turn the naming into a weapon. What does it look like to preach a reconciliation that tells the truth about what happened without weaponizing it? * Joseph’s theological interpretation — that God sent him ahead of the brothers to preserve life — has been misused throughout Christian history as a formula for “God used the bad thing for good.” Read within the story, it is Joseph’s hard-won meaning, offered to his brothers as a gift so they can live with what they did. Where in your congregation has “God used it for good” been forced on people prematurely, and how might Joseph’s own timing correct that? * The reconciliation happens through tears, not explanation. Joseph weeps three times in this scene. How might your sermon honor the role of grief in real reconciliation — the weeping that has to happen before the family can eat together again? Significant Cautions * “God sent me before you to preserve life” is Joseph’s interpretation of his own experience. It should not be handed to any suffering person as an explanation of what God is doing in their life. Joseph earned that meaning through years of hardship; no one else should have to earn a lecture on it. * The reconciliation is real but incomplete. The brothers remain afraid. Jacob will hear the news and be transformed. The years of harm have consequences that this scene does not undo. Do not preach reconciliation as if it erases the past. * The trafficking of Joseph, which we read about two weeks ago, is not made good by his elevation. Do not use his rise to soften the reality of what was done to him. Psalm 133 The Psalm (Track One) — How Very Good and Pleasant Summary One of the shortest psalms in the Bible, and one of the most quoted. How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity. The psalm reaches for two vivid images — oil running down Aaron’s head onto his beard and clothing, and dew falling on the mountains — to describe what such unity is like. The psalm closes with the observation that this is where the Lord commanded blessing. Photo courtesy of the Catholic Scot Key Ideas for Preaching * The psalm’s images are surprisingly bodily — oil on the head, running down the beard, falling on the collar; dew on mountains. Unity, for the psalmist, is something felt and touched, not just theorized. Where has your congregation reduced unity to an idea that can be agreed on, when the psalm imagines something more embodied? * Read alongside today’s Genesis reading, the psalm’s celebration of kindred in unity comes at the cost of what preceded it in Joseph’s story. Unity is real, and it is also the fruit of long, painful work. How might your sermon hold both together? Significant Cautions * Do not preach unity as the suppression of difference. The psalm celebrates kindred living together, not kindred pretending to be identical. * “Kindred” can be read narrowly — only our people, only our tribe. In light of today’s Isaiah and Matthew readings, the wider point of the day is that God’s kindred is larger than we thought. Isaiah 56:1, 6–8 First Reading (Track Two) — A House of Prayer for All Peoples Summary The prophet speaks a word from God that extends the covenant beyond the boundaries of ethnic Israel. The verses selected for today focus on foreigners who have joined themselves to the Lord — they are welcomed to the holy mountain, their offerings will be accepted, and God’s house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples. God declares plainly: I will gather still others besides those already gathered. (The verses between 1 and 6, not included in the reading, extend the same welcome to eunuchs — a striking expansion for its time.) Key Ideas for Preaching * The prophet is naming a widening of the people of God that many in the community would have resisted. Foreigners are welcomed. God’s house is a house of prayer for all peoples. Where in your congregation is this widening still contested, and how might Isaiah’s word speak to it? * The verses skipped by the lectionary include the equally striking welcome of eunuchs — people who could not have children and were, in the ancient world, excluded from full covenant standing. The wider prophetic vision includes people whose bodies and identities the community had already written off. What might it look like to name that omitted section in your sermon, so that its welcome is not left silent? * “I will gather still others besides those already gathered.” That is God’s own commitment to keep expanding the people. Where has your congregation quietly assumed that the gathering is complete? Significant Cautions * Do not use this text to bless or condemn any modern political program — the prophet is speaking about God’s covenant people, not about state immigration policy. * “House of prayer for all peoples” was quoted by Jesus in the temple. That connection is worth naming, but be careful not to use the connection to displace the original Jewish audience of the prophet. Psalm 67 The Psalm (Track Two) — Let All the Peoples Praise You Summary A short psalm that opens with the language of the priestly blessing — may God be gracious to us and bless us — but extends outward almost immediately. The whole point of God’s blessing on this people is that God’s saving power might be known among all nations. “Let all the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you.” The psalm closes with the harvest and God’s blessing reaching to the ends of the earth. Key Ideas for Preaching * The blessing on this people, in this psalm, is for the sake of all peoples. God’s grace does not stop with those who first receive it. Where has your congregation received God’s grace as if it were for their consumption, and how might this psalm turn it outward? * The refrain “let all the peoples praise you” is repeated for emphasis. It is not a decorative flourish; it is the psalm’s central conviction. What might your sermon do with the specific vision of every people praising God? Significant Cautions * Do not read “all the peoples” as a program for religious conquest. The psalm imagines every people praising God, not becoming absorbed into any one particular tradition. Romans 11:1–2a, 29–32 The Epistle — The Irrevocable Gifts Summary Paul asks the direct question: has God rejected his people, Israel? His answer is emphatic: by no means. He himself is a Jew, an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, and God has not rejected the people God foreknew. The lectionary jumps ahead to Paul’s summary: the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. All — Jews and Gentiles both — have been disobedient in various ways, and God has bound all to disobedience so that God may have mercy on all. Key Ideas for Preaching * Paul, a Jew writing to Gentile Christians, is at pains to insist that God has not abandoned Israel. In a Christian tradition that has too often taught the opposite, Paul’s word is worth reading slowly and letting land. What does it look like to preach this text in a way that names, and refuses, the church’s long anti-Jewish history? * “The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” That is one of the most beautifu
