11 PENTECOST - PROPER XV - A
- 17 MATTHEW 15. 21-28
Today’s gospel stands in
contrast to last week’s not only in terms of faith but also in terms of the
scene. In last week’s gospel Jesus chides Peter, his chosen disciple, for his “little
faith” when he lost focus and began to sink into the Sea of Galilee.
Peter and the other disciples
who were present had just witnessed Jesus’ feeding of the 5000. The
multiplication of the loaves and fishes was an impressive demonstration of
Christ’ power over nature. However, it would appear that his miraculous powers
in feeding so many with so little had done nothing to increase the faith of his
chosen.
Today’s scene is much different. Not only is
it on dry land, but in a foreign land. The area is North of Palestine on the
Mediterranean coast in present day Lebanon. Jesus and his disciples have
retreated to the district of Tyre, and Sidon, after His having refuted the
scribes and Pharisees’ teaching concerning ritual purity. For his efforts, they
rejected Him.
The population of the district, at the time
of Jesus, was composed of predominantly Gentiles who were descendants of the
ancient Canaanite people. They were the original inhabitants of the land, but
were eventually subdued by the Israelites upon Israel entering the Promised
Land.
Here Jesus is confronted by a Gentile woman
who persists in her having him heal her daughter. At first, he ignores her.
Then the disciples rebuke her. Then Jesus says that he was not sent to her,
implying her race and her people. Nevertheless, she throws herself at his feet
and asks for his help.
She knows her place and only
asks for the “crumbs that fall from the children’s table.” Jesus is impressed
and proclaims her faith as being “great,” and for that, her daughter is healed
instantly.
Hatred, prejudice and racism
have once again raised their ugly heads here in our own country. Racial
identity continues to be one of the great moral and cultural issues of the day
not only here but also throughout the world. It was no different in Jesus’ day.
The Roman occupiers despised
the Jews in Palestine however; they tolerated them and their religious leaders
as long as they helped maintain the status quo. The Jews, likewise despised the
Romans as well as those they deemed to be “outsiders,” namely the Gentiles and
non-believers.
Jesus came along and through
his preaching and teaching challenged all hatred, all social distinctions, all
prejudice. “Come unto me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden and I will
give you rest.” “God so loved the world,” St. John writes, “that He gave His
only begotten Son, to the end that all who believe in him should not perish,
but have everlasting life.” All Jesus said may come to Him. All St. John writes
who believe in Him will be saved.
Therefore, when we read today’s
gospel we find it to be a bit disturbing. It looks as though from the beginning
that Jesus is refusing to help someone in need just because she is from the
wrong race. It all seems so strange. What is going on here?
Matthew makes it clear that Jesus’ mission is
not to those outside Israel. This woman is a Gentile. Christ came first to the
lost sheep of the house of Israel. They were and are God’s chosen people.
Something we modern day Christians sometimes forget.
God chose them to be the
promise-bearers through whom His Word, and the new life, would be brought to
the rest of the world. Jesus came to fulfill the Law, not abolish it. He came
to fulfill the purpose for which this people existed in the first place.
If God’s new life were to
come to the world, it would come through Israel. That is why Israel had to hear
the message first. That is why Jesus limited his work almost entirely to the
Jewish people. Jesus inaugurated God‘s kingdom representing the fullness of it,
and yet not yet.
But as we see in our reading
of the gospels there are occurrences when the future keeps breaking into the
present, as it does in today’s passage. The Canaanite woman cannot wait for the
great commission to be carried out (Mt. 28.19). She presses Jesus to make it
happen now. She has faith he can heal her daughter.
She addresses him with the
Jewish Messianic title “Son of David.” She understands that God’s chosen people
are to be the promise-bearers and that she is not one of them. However, she
insists on her point, that if this is true, God’s Messiah will ultimately bring
blessings to the whole world. That even the “little dogs” will share in those
blessings.
Jesus is both moved and
impressed by her “great” faith, especially in light of his having recently been
rejected by the “faithless” Pharisees and scribes. The woman’s faith broke
through the waiting period, the time when Jesus would come to Jerusalem as
Israel’s Messiah be killed and raised again, and then send his followers out
into all the world. The disciples and perhaps Jesus himself are not yet ready
for Calvary. However, this foreign woman, this outsider, is already insisting
on Easter.
To be a Christian in today’s
world calls for us to not only focus on Jesus but also his teachings and the
commandments of God. The challenge that faces us, in light of recent events that
have magnified the prejudice and hate that continues to permeate our society,
is nothing less than our putting into practice the first and great commandment
- to love God, and our neighbor as our self.
To love one’s neighbor as
oneself is based on the belief that all human beings are created in the image
of God and thus are equal, irrespective of race and color. That Jesus Christ
died for all, so that all might live through him. There is no limit, then, to
the Church’s mission. It is to be extended to wherever it encounters faith.
Our God is a God of Love and
not hate, and by His grace, we can put His commandments and the teachings of
Christ into practice by being faithful in following the blessed steps of his
most holy life. With God’s help we can put love into action within actual
societies, where people from very different backgrounds and cultures can live
together in peace and harmony. To do so is to reflect the true image of the
kingdom of God.
This we might have imagined
would one day be fulfilled in a distant future, but it is something that needs
to be claimed in the present with a prayer and a faith, like that of the
Canaanite woman, that refuses to be put off. AMEN+
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