The youth of St. John's, fresh from their summer occupations and distractions, gathered tonight for their first weekly meeting of the school year under the loving supervision of our chaplain and youth leader, Patti Peebles, and adult volunteers Daphne Berry, Kathleen Driscoll and Eric Sherman, Dina Kubba, and Paul and Paula Reza. (For fear of scaring them off, I'll preserve the anonymity of the wonderful couple we're hoping to recruit to join them.)Once a month I have the inestimable blessing of presiding at what we call (well, I call) a Yoot Euch -- a service of Holy Eucharist -- using a paten and chalice Patti and the young people made last year during a visit to Color Me Mine. Tonight we talked about the Syrophoenician (or Canaanite or, not to put too fine a point on it, Palestinian) woman, whose plea on behalf of her daughter Jesus first appears to spurn since she's a Gentile rather than a Jew. When she argues that even the dogs under the master's table usually end up cadging some scraps, Jesus relents, impressed not so much by her faith as her irreducible logic. God obviously cares for all his people, does he not? You don't have to ask the St. John's kids twice.
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