When I was Vice-Provost of the Anglican Cathedral in Edinburgh, I lived the closest to the Cathedral and so a lot of needy people found their way to my door. Many of these were genuine people but it was often difficult to know who was and who wasn’t.

We had a rule that no money was ever given. Rather important in a city that was renowned for drug addicts and alcoholics.  Instead, I gave food and practical help. It was always better to play by the rules.  Giving food was not always welcome. On one occasion I made some rather wholesome cheese sandwiches for someone only to have them physically thrown back into my face. He was really after money for alcohol.  Once, however,  when the rules demanded I played it by the rules,  instinct told me to do it differently.

It was late one night when the doorbell rang and, being Edinburgh, I responded via the intercom.  A voice on the other side told me that he wanted to give himself up.  My mind did somersaults. Was this a murderer or some criminal on the run.  I really mustn’t open the door.  But, against my better judgement, I opened the door and a young man stood there, very dejected and tearful.  It turned out that he was a member of the Royal Air Force who had gone absent without leave because he was grieving for his dead mother.  I did what the rules said I mustn’t do and invited him in. Though very disturbed he told me his story.  

I started making telephone calls – first to the military police who didn’t answer the phone and then to his base which was some distance away in Fife.  The Flight Officer who took my call was new to the job so he had to look up the rule book about what to do.  When he phoned back he asked me if they could do something unusual. Instead of involving the military police, could members of his own unit come for him.  By this time it was well into the early hours and I calculated they would take another 2 hours to reach me.  In the end I agreed and sometime around 3am the man’s own Flight Sergeant arrived and took him away.  I learned later that by not involving the military police I had saved the man from a charge which would have dismissed him from the service – and that he was now fully recovered and was fine. 

At Christmas that year I received an unusual Christmas card showing a fighter plane. Inside was the inscription – Thank you for looking after one of our own.  Despite its distinct lack of Christmas imagery it was one of the nicest Christmas cards I have ever received.  That incident remains a reminder to me that it isn’t always best to play by the rules, safe though that may be. Sometimes you have to trust your judgement and do something different.

Had Jesus played by the rules when he encountered the Canaanite woman in today’s Gospel, he would have turned his back on her and her need – and, initially that was what he tried to do.  He firmly believed at that time that his mission was to Israel and she belonged to the Gentile race.  The encounter happened in the non-Jewish area of Tyre and Sidon – one of the rare occasions when Jesus strayed from his home territory.  The rules he had set himself meant that he should ignore her needs and even when she shouted to him, he turned a deaf ear. His disciples told him to send her away.  She was being a thorough nuisance.  When Jesus did speak  it was to remind his disciples of his rule that his work was about saving the people of Israel. When the woman  persisted he seemed rather cruel because he told her that it wasn’t fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.   In our Lord’s time dogs were not the nice domestic pets they are today but wild, scavenging creatures who roamed around in packs. For Jews telling someone they were a dog was an insult – usually reserved for Gentiles

We may express surprise at this response of Jesus which seems so out of character but we must remember that things are not always what they seem as far as He is concerned. It is always wisest to wait until he reveals his meaning before we jump to conclusions. There is an ulterior motive at work here!  It was revealed when the woman responded to his seeming taunt – Yes Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs from under their master’s table.

Jesus could never resist a feisty woman – remember the encounter with the woman at the well in Samaria.  Her deep seated need for healing for her daughter wouldn’t allow him to get away with fobbing her off with rules of engagement. She went straight for his heart and, instantly, she won it over.  He broke his own rule as his instinct had told him he would.  He granted her the healing she desperately desired and in doing so he paid testimony to her faith - and faith she most certainly had because she knew only He could help her.  In a sense she got the crumb she referred to and in so doing she opened a chink in the mission of Jesus that would, in the early Church become a floodgate.  The mission of Christ became open to non-Jews and for that we can be truly thankful.

In this encounter we can see the Inclusivity of Christ’s message for all people. All can be saved – even Gentiles; even those who seem to be outside the pale; even those who don’t seem to conform to the nice images we might have of who can be Christians.  When faith is present then salvation is assured is the universal message of the Gospel and that this is so is demonstrated in the meeting between Jesus and the Canaanite woman.  The ulterior motive for our Lord’s initial response is that he used this moment to widen his Gospel net.  How wide is that net? As wide as God’s love – as wide as Christ’s compassionate heart.  The Gospel includes all – it excludes none except those who choose to be excluded.

I fear, however,  that sometimes the Church fails to grasp this message.  Post-Lambeth the Anglican Communion still seems to be polarised.  This polarisation is partly about rules – who can be included, who must be excluded – but it is also about whether we can set boundaries to the Gospel or the Church. 

In all this,  the Church of England is in a doubly difficult position because alone of al Churches in the Anglican Communion it is a National, State Church with responsibilities towards the Nation which are not required of other Anglican churches.  Whilst on the one hand we might want tighten our rules of engagement – making it easier for people to understand just what our stance is on all manner of issues – on the other we have to leave room for a few crumbs under the table. 

Post Lambeth, secular journals as august as The Economist are calling for the Church of England to be disestablished. There is a feeling that were that to happen there would be a freedom for the Church to have firmer rules and a clearer Gospel.  There is some truth in this but even The Economist recognizes that Establishment means that our doors remain open to all-comers and that the inclusiveness of our welcome means that Jesus is for everyone – and that is itself clear from the Gospel and the part of it we heard this morning.  Also, our place in the Nation allows us to stand for a public space for all faiths.

In a multi-cultural, multi-faith Society, the Church of England has a unique role in keeping the door open for the Gospel to influence Parliament, Society and National morality.  We might well agree that there are things that are wrong about the morality of our nation – who could deny that on a day after two more teenagers have been killed by stabbing - but to turn aside from having any influence on shaping Society’s behaviour is hardly the best way to promote the Gospel. Having a part in developing the Nation’s conscience is much more likely to change our Society and to bring Christian values to bear upon it.  Our influence is already eroding because of the growth of Secularism – the Government is not entirely happy, for example, with our place in Education and there is a movement against faith Schools.  This trend, however, is not something we should embrace lightly by becoming a sect alongside other sects.

Being the Established Church brings responsibility but it also brings opportunity.  I think of the many great Social movements for change that Church of England people and organizations have brought about - the promotion of family values through the Mothers’ Union; the care of children in need by the Children's Society; the work of Hospital, Prison and School Chaplains; the youth work; concern for the homeless; the ministry of healing; work-based chaplaincy – formerly the Industrial Mission; the care of Seafarers; working with local Councils and Parliamentary Committees on social change and developing the understanding of people with influence in building a society in which all matter;  work with the deaf, the blind, the disabled; the work of individual Church of England people in bettering the lot of minority groups and the oppressed and underprivileged.  Add to this the opportunities we have through the rites of passage ministry of baptism; marriage and bereavement – and there are some here today who have come into contact with the Gospel through just such a ministry.  This is just the tip of the iceberg and it is not a picture  of a Church in decline. Perhaps it’s time we celebrate what we are doing rather than becoming obsessed with negativity.

The Church of England at its best is a Church which welcomes people irrespective of social position, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, financial standing; age and so on.

It has an Open Door- as this Church has throughout the week – with corners to weep in, celebrate in, be still in, and feel at home in and loved in come what may.  It is an untidy church in many ways with, yes, unresolved issues and tensions at times. It sometimes feel less like an Ideal Home and much more one of those houses you visit which are a bit scruffy – but in those places it’s often possible to look under the table and find a few crumbs.   And with those crumbs it can feed a person’s faith and in that faith to discover an Inclusive Jesus Christ who heals and saves and most of all, embraces with love.

I’d much rather be in a church like that than one which is so perfect you daren’t even sit down in case you break something   - not least a few man-made rules.