Quality Improvement

Quality Improvement Jody Winston August 14, 2005

Sermon Grace and peace are gifts for you from God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.1 The 1893 World’s Fair introduced many new items into the world and their legacy lives on even today. Our Pledge of Allegiance was written to dedicate the fairgrounds. It is estimated that close to 27.5 million people attended the fair and they ate many new foods such as Cream of Wheat, Cracker Jacks, diet drinks, and hamburgers. One of the lesser-known benefits of the fair is that every house in the United States with electricity is safer. A young engineer from Boston noticed the fair’s electrical use and decided that it could be made less dangerous. One year later, the engineer founded the non-profit agency now known as Underwriters Laboratories or UL to bring that vision into reality. UL is responsible for testing just about every electrical item in your house. UL tests the wire in your walls, the light switches that control your lights, and the light sockets themselves. The goal behind all of this testing is safety. The idea that testing can be used to improve a product is not limited to the electrical industry. Chefs test their recipes to see if the food they create can stand up to the rigors of a restaurant. Software engineers test their code to insure that the program will run correctly. The last shuttle flight by Discovery was one giant test. NASA wanted to see if they correctly identified how foam fell off the shuttle and if they knew how to fix damaged tiles in orbit. Today, Jesus shows us another type of testing. His action in the Gospel reading illustrates for us how He tests both the disciples and the Canaanite woman 1

Romans 1:7, 1 Corinthians 1:3, 2 Corinthians 1:2, Galatians 1:3, Ephesians 1:2, Philippians 1:2, 2 Thessalonians 1:2, Philemon 1:3.

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so that they will understand their relationships. Another way to look at it is to recall Ford’s testing motto, “Quality is job 1.” Using this motto as the bases of an analogy, Jesus’s testing motto would be, “Quality improvement.” because Jesus is concerned with improving our releationships with God and each other until we are just like God.2 As we review today’s miracle, we will soon see that the disciples fail the test miserably while the woman passes with flying colors. The first test happens when the woman, who should not know God at all because of her race, continually shouts out her prayer to Jesus and He does not answer her.3 Her response to this test is to continue to shout out for mercy.4 Because she never looses her focus on Jesus, we know that the Christ is her most important relationship. Since she is crying out for her daughter, we know that she loves others. Both of these answers show us of her love for God and her love for others. The disciples’ response to the woman’s shouting is their fist test.5 They answer incorrectly when they ask Jesus to send the woman away. The correct answer would have been to recall the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus commanded everyone to love their enemies and to pray for them.6 Therefore, the disciples should have joined with the woman and prayed for her sick daughter. Their response shows us that they do not love others as God has commanded everyone. The disciples’ second test is to respond to Christ’s assertion that He has only been sent to Israel.7 We would hope that the disciples would remember the words of the prophet Isaiah who told us of a day in which everyone will be taken into the Lord’s mountain.8 How the offerings of all will be acceptable to God and how everyone will be happy in the Lord’s house of prayer.9 Instead of praying that this day be fulfilled in their sight, the disciples remain silent. Their action tells us they are not ready yet to love everyone. The second test for the woman happens after she hears that Jesus was only sent to the house of Israel. Even though she does know the Sermon on the Mount or Isaiah, she still asks the Lord to help her. This action also tells us of her love. 2

Matthew 5:48. Matthew 15:22-23. 4 Matthew 15:23. 5 Matthew 15:23. 6 Matthew 5:43-46. 7 Matthew 15:24. 8 Isaiah 56:8. 9 Isaiah 56:7. 3

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The woman’s third test occurs when Jesus tells her that bread should not be taken from children.10 The Canaanite woman continues to show her love for others by not asking for the food but instead only asking for what falls to the ground. Her answer once again shows us that she loves others. Since Jesus tells us that the woman faith is great, I think that it would be good for all of us to hear once again her answers to the test because in all of these actions the woman shows her love for God and for her daughter. • When God does not answer right away, keep shouting your request for mercy. • When God does not tell you want you want to hear, ask for help. • When God challenges your plea, ask for grace. It seems to me that there are three ways how we fail to improve the quality of our relationships with God and our neighbor. Our first failure is that we are afraid to pray. For some of us, we think that God does not hear our prayers, so we never bother to pray. For others of us, we are afraid of the answer that we might receive. We might hear, “No.” or “Not now.” so we do not pray at all. Both of these attitudes make it difficult to have a relationship with God because we have stopped talking to God. Our second problem is that our actions often seem to be more like the disciples. Too often, we do not pray for our enemies. Because we hate them, we feel that they deserve their station in life. Who cares if their children die? Jesus however has called us to love our enemies in thought, word, and deed.11 Until we talk to our enemies, we cannot improve our relationships. As Lutherans, we believe that God saves us and nothing that we do gives us any access to God or God’s mercy. So, many of us assume that we need to do nothing at all. Doing nothing will not improve a relationship and this is not what we are called by God to do. We should instead realize that we have lots of time on our hands because God has done everything needed to save us. We now can devote all of our time and our energy to improving our relationships. We also need to realize that because of our sin and the evil we have all done, not every choice in our lives is a test from God. Sometimes we might be presented with two evil choices. This is the situation that Dietrich Bonhoeffer found himself 10 11

Matthew 15:27. Matthew 5:48.

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in during World War II. He could either stand by while Adolf Hitler killed innocent people or Bonhoeffer could help kill Hitler. Both of these actions are sinful since they both cause someone’s death either directly or indirectly. Even in this situation, God calls us to love God and our neighbor so we must decide for the lesser evil. Lutherans calls this action “sinning boldly” because we know that our choice will be a sin but we trust that there is nothing that can seperate us from God’s love.12 Luther explains this apparent paradox in the following manner. God knows the true situation of the world because God created it. Despite our sin and the sin of others, God sent His Son onto the world to save His creation. God also knows that we might be called to make difficult if not terrible decisions during our lives. Even if we are so fortunate to never have to make these hard choices, we all will sin in one way or another. We will not always love God nor will we always love our fellow human. When we are faced with these types of decisions, pray over the decision and make the best possible choice. Remember that God came to save people like us, sinners. We are not to recall our sin but instead we are to remember Christ’s victory over sin, death, and the power of the devil. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. One day we too will join Jesus in glory. There will be righteousness in this new land because we will live with God. For some of us who think of tests in the terms of passing and failing, the idea of using a test to improve a product’s quality might seem to be a new idea. But in reality, the concept of working on weakness while praising strengths is a not a new idea at all. This is the exact approach that Jesus took in today’s miracle. He tested both the Canaanite woman and the disciples. The woman always stayed in dialog with God about her daughter. The Canaanite passed the test because she loved God and she also loved her sick child. The disciples failed the test since they would not pray for their enemies nor would they pray for the day of the prophet. We all can learn something from this story. The disciples taught us what not to do. The woman taught us how to pray by asking God for mercy, help, and grace. Be like the woman and ask for healing, “The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” 12

LW 48:281-282.

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