20th Sunday Ordinary Time Year A 20 August 2017
Deacon John William McMullen
Gospel: Matthew 15.21-28
Jesus
continues to go head to head with the religious authorities, the scribes and Pharisees, who are insistent upon telling Jesus how
he has got to focus on who’s in and who’s out, who’s clean and who’s unclean in
God’s eyes. So many voices shouting him
down when He calls for mercy and love.
So Jesus took his disciples on a retreat of sorts, a pilgrimage to a
location where he could get away from all the arguing. (No Twitter or Facebook
and no 24 hour news cycle).
He
leaves Jerusalem and goes north, through Samaria and Galilee and continues
north. He leaves the comfort of his home in Galilee, and crosses
over the border into the territory of Tyre and Sidon! Greek Syro-Phoenicia.
Jesus is not safe. He’s on the move.
The disciples did not want Jesus going
into the wrong neighborhoods or, God forbid, crossing any borders.
And that’s
when she showed up - A Canaanite woman of that district came and called out,
"Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is tormented by a
demon."
A Canaanite woman? The Canaanites were the bane of Israel’s
existence!
But, wait. In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus’ own genealogy mentions several
Canaanite women. One was Ruth. She married the Hebrew man Boaz. She then became the mother of Jesse, and
Jesse was the father of King David. So king David’s grandmother was a Canaanite
woman! Ah ha.
The woman says, “Have mercy on ME, but the concern is for
her daughter who is tormented by a demon.” How many mothers have children who
are tormented by various demons?
Where is Jesus in her desperation? He is silent. This does
not mean he doesn’t hear her. He just doesn’t speak. He doesn’t act. Not yet at
least.
* The disciples are annoyed by this woman’s prayer. “She’s
bothering us! Send her away! Dismiss her! She’s too loud! Just give her what
she wants to shut her up, then send her away! Was it because she was a
Canaanite woman? Racism? Sexism?
Jesus knew what his disciples were saying and what they
were thinking.
“She’s too much for us. She’s a mess. Why can’t she be respectable and be a good woman and just be
quiet and keep in her place. “Know your place, woman.” We can hear it.
She is disturbing their peace.
But she is calling on Jesus, not them.
Why is it so difficult for some people to allow women or
minorities to say what they feel and think and be heard in their own their
voice, without their words being distorted or ignored, and their personhood dismissed
altogether?
Think of this woman’s courage. I wonder how many other people
wanted to call out to Jesus, but didn’t have the courage.
We can hear the voices shouting her down. She’s from a different
religious tradition.
Send her away!
Pretty soon all the gentiles will
want to follow you and have a share in the kingdom of God.”
She’s a woman of color.
Where’s her husband anyway?
She’s got a demon possessed daughter.
Get her out of here!
Throw her out!
She didn’t send her daughter to Catholic school. She’s not
in our women’s bible study.
Why, she isn’t in our parish directory, and she certainly doesn’t
have collection envelopes.
Don’t let her kind in here, or else there will be others
who will want to come in.
Imagine this woman’s desperation.
She will do anything for her daughter.
She casts herself upon the mercy
of the Lord only to hear nothing.
But Jesus’ silence and his
disciples’ efforts to silence her did not deter her from calling upon the Lord.
Send her away.
Dismiss her.
But Jesus answers: “I was
only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
The woman then throws
herself down at Jesus’ feet: “Lord, Help Me!”
Jesus answers: “It is not right to
throw the food (bread) of the children to the dogs.”
The woman boldly replies: “Please, Lord, even the dogs eat
the scraps, the crumbs, that fall from the children’s table.”
And Jesus proclaims, “Woman,
great is your faith!”
She is humble and admits,
“Yes, I am a dog. I confess my guilt. I come from nothing.
But a crumb of your goodness can change my
daughter’s life!”
* I wonder if Jesus said, "It is not right to take
the food of the children and give it to the dogs" because that's what the
disciples were saying, so Jesus allows
his disciples to hear what prejudice sounds like.
The woman uses the dog metaphor to her
advantage. "...being so bold as to become Jesus' teacher, or at
least the disciple’s teacher.”
Did Jesus humble himself and allow her to
teach the disciples the nature of mercy?
Did Jesus think, “Well, I‘ve tried to
teach them. I’ll allow her to teach the boys a thing or two”?
Regardless,
the apostles received a lesson that they would remember for they take the
gospel message to the ends of the earth.
“Woman,
great is your faith!”
Jesus is
challenging all of us who are tempted to cling to a fearful, stingy faith.
Meanwhile the Woman is at the feet
of Jesus.
She has cast all of her cares upon
the Lord.
“Woman, great is your
faith!”
She reminds us of the Roman
soldier who came to Jesus and said, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should
enter under my roof, but only say the word and my son shall be healed” (Matthew
8.5-13; John 4.46-54).
When Jesus heard this, he
was amazed and said to those following him, “Amen, I say to you, in no one in
Israel have I found such faith. I say to you, many will come from the east and
the west, and will recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the banquet in the
kingdom of heaven…” And Jesus said to the centurion, “You may go; as you have
believed, let it be done for you.” And at that very hour [his] servant was
healed (Matt. 8.10-11, 13).
So Matthew’s gospel is
showing us that Gentile dogs are invited into the kingdom.
Were all like dogs. Aren’t
we. We depend totally upon our Master for our daily bread. Woof, woof!
The
woman is willing to humble herself, like a dog who eats the scraps, the crumbs
that fall from the Father’s table, but the crumbs of bread are bread. She desires
to be nourished with the same bread that the children of Abraham eat at the banquet
table of God, and these crumbs are a foreshadowing of the Eucharistic feast
that we will soon celebrate at this altar.
“Woman, great is your
faith!”
But let us reflect on the
silence that Jesus gave the woman’s request.
How do we deal with the silence of God?
But what of our own experience of silence when we pray?
Many of us know that anguish.
Many of us know what it is to
pray and pray and pray and hear nothing.
The silence of Jesus is
difficult. Many of us feel like Jesus does not hear us or at least is not
responding to us.
We pray: Lord, help me!
And some still hear the words from certain disciples: “Send
her away!”
She stands weeping in the rain at the corner of Vann and
Covert waiting for the bus to go to a job interview.
She receives communion with tears in her eyes, but then
slips away at the end of Mass, feeling ashamed or less than the beautiful
parishioners.
She has worn out the beads of her rosary from her constant
praying, wearied from weeping in prayer for her child who is addicted to drugs.
She is exhausted from praying for her husband who is lost in
pornography or to alcohol – or both.
Others pray as they go through a separation or a divorce;
others are experiencing terminal illness or unemployment.
Still others may have lost a friend over philosophical or
political differences;
or a relative may have joined the Ku Klux Klan.
But take heart.
Keep praying.
A loved one of so many tears will not be forgotten
– as long as we are at the feet of Jesus.
Lord,
help me.
Notes:
See the Collect for the 20th Sunday of Ordinary Time in the
previous Sacramentary that was in use from the 1970s until 2011 when it was
suppressed by the Promulgation of the Third Edition of the Roman Missal.
Almighty
God, ever-loving Father, your care extends beyond the boundaries of race and
nation to the hearts of all who live. May the wall, which prejudice raises
between us, crumble beneath the shadow of your outstretched arm.
