20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Isaiah 56:1, 6-7; Romans 11:13-15, 29-32; Matthew 15: 21-28

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The story we hear today from Matthew’s Gospel
is also found in the Gospel of Mark,
where the woman is identified
simply as “Syro-Phonecian,”
that is, a Gentile or non-Jew.
But Matthew specifies that she is a Canaanite,
and so draws our attention
to that long and deep history of hatred.
between the Jews and the Canaanites.

The Canaanites were the people 
who occupied the land 
that God gave to the Israelites,
and it was only after long years of bloody conflict
that the Israelites had come to possess that land.
And even then the Canaanites remained
a constant threat to the purity 
of Israel’s exclusive devotion to their one God, 
tempting the Israelites to worship 
the many gods of Canaan.
Of course, from the Canaanite perspective
the Israelites were invaders 
who had taken their land 
and destroyed their cities
and killed their people.
Such hatreds do not die quiet deaths,

and centuries of uneasy coexistence
had not lessened the enmity between
Canaanites and Jews.

All of which makes it surprising
that this Canaanite woman
would not only ask for help
from a Jewish holy man,
but would cry out to him 
as “Son of David”—
David, the Israelite king 
who had taken the city of Jebus
from the Canaanites
and renamed it “Jerusalem,”
the City of David.
What must the name of their conqueror
have felt like in her mouth?
How bitter must it have tasted?
And what hope could she have had
that a Jewish title of honor
on the lips of a Canaanite
might sway this holy man to help her?
What desperation could have led her
to such a seemingly futile act of border-crossing,
to step out of her place as a Canaanite
and into the world of the hated Jews?

Well, as much as she might 
have hated the Jews, 
she also loved her daughter,
and her daughter was in trouble.
Her daughter was not simply in trouble,
but was tormented by a demon,
captive to an evil spiritual power
and beyond human help,
beyond even the help of the gods of Canaan.
Her mother’s love led this woman
to think impossible thoughts:
perhaps the God of her enemies
could do what her gods could not. 
Her mother’s love led her 
to an impossible place:
the borderline between her world
and the world of her hated enemies.
Her mother’s love led her
to an impossible action:
to step across that border
and speak the language of her enemy—
“Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David!”

The reception she received was really 
pretty much what a Canaanite might expect.
The holy man’s disciples 
asked him to send her away, 
back across the border 
she had crossed in her desperation.
The holy man himself said 
everything one might expect 
from one of the Canaanites’ ancient enemies.
His concern was not with her
but solely with his own people:
“I was sent only to the lost sheep
of the house of Israel.”
Precious resources should not 
be wasted on foreigners,
and particularly not on the hated Canaanites:
“It is not right to take the food of the children
and throw it to the dogs.”
Nothing he said gave hope
that anything she said
could break through the wall 
that separated their two peoples.

Yet her love for her daughter
pressed her forward in a desperate act of faith:
“Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps
that fall from the table of their masters.”
Perhaps, just perhaps, 
this man was not her enemy;
perhaps, just perhaps,
he could be her savior.
Impossible thoughts,
in an impossible place,
give birth to an impossible act:
an act of faith in the God of her enemies,
an act of faith in the God of Israel.
And he says to her impossible words: 
“O woman, great is your faith!
Let it be done for you as you wish.”

The Gospels are full of miracles:
feedings of multitudes and walking on water,
healings of the sick and the calming of storms—
impossible things that so dazzle us 
that we might miss the quiet miracle
of this woman led by God’s grace
across the border of ancient hatreds
into the unknown country of faith.
The desperate love for her daughter
that pushed her forward
was no mere natural love,
but was God’s grace already at work in her,
awakening what seemed an impossible faith.
This is the great work of God,
which tears down walls of hatred,
which crossed borders of enmity;
which conquers fear and unbelief.

This miracle is given to us as well.
God’s grace can lead us across borders 
of hatred, fear, and resentment;
God’s Spirit can reconcile us to God 
and with one another;
God’s love can bind us into one body,
living stones that together form 
a house of prayer for all peoples.
We too find mercy unmerited 
and healing undeserved. 
May God have pity on us and bless us;
may he let his face shine upon us,
and may God, who is merciful,
have mercy on us all.

20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Isaiah 56:1, 6-7; Romans 11:13-15, 29-32; Matthew 15:21-28

She called out to him from afar,
using a term that was alien to her
but seemed to mean a lot to the Jews:
“Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David!
My daughter is tormented by a demon.”
He ignored her;
nevertheless, she persisted.
He made clear that the salvation he brought
was not for her kind, but only for the Jews;
nevertheless, she persisted.
He compared her to a dog,
begging for food that was not hers;
nevertheless, she persisted.
She persisted because persistence
was the only tool she had,
the only weapon in her arsenal.
A Canaanite and a woman,
she was doubly disadvantaged,
by her race and by her sex,
in approaching a Jewish holy man
to beg a cure for her daughter.
She had no leverage,
no angle to work,
just sheer stubborn persistence,
and a capacity to absorb pain and insult,
and a deep, deep love for her child,
who was suffering so much.
And, seeing her persistence, Jesus said,
“O woman, great is your faith!
Let it be done for you as you wish.”

The unnamed Canaanite woman
joins the ranks of persistent women
who stories are told in the Gospels:
the woman with the hemorrhage
who, after years of medical abuse,
pressed through the crowd
to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment;
the sinful woman who,
despite shame and rebuke from bystanders,
bathed the feet of Jesus with her tears
until she heard the words,
“Your sins are forgiven”;
the widow in Jesus’ parable
who, through resolute nagging,
won justice from an unjust judge;
perhaps above all, Mary of Nazareth,
who persisted in faith:
from a most unexpected pregnancy,
through the suffering of her son’s cross,
to the joy of the resurrection.
Of course, in the Gospels and throughout scripture,
it is not only women who are persistent—
certainly a prophet like Jeremiah is a model of tenacity—
but in the ancient world in which Jesus lived
the near complete powerlessness of most women
made persistence a particularly important
skill for them to have,
a capacity to carry on
in the face of rejection and setback.

But the kind of persistence shown by the Canaanite woman,
shown by the woman with the hemorrhage
and the sinful woman at Jesus’ feet,
shown by the nagging widow and Mary at the cross—
such persistence is something that all Christians need to have.
For the road to God’s kingdom is long and difficult;
and if we are to follow the way of Jesus,
we cannot walk it
burdened by the baggage of worldly power
that might win for us quick and painless solutions.
God plays a long game,
and we must too,
for our goal is nothing less
than God’s reign of love,
which calls for us to live lives
of persistent faithfulness.

The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.,
in a sermon entitled “Loving Your Enemies,”
spoke of how, in struggling against racial segregation,
it was important not to relinquish what he called
“our privilege and our obligation to love.”
He continued, “While abhorring segregation,
we shall love the segregationist.
This is the only way to create the beloved community.”
This sort of love calls for persistence.
Addressing his segregationist opponents,
he said, “Throw us in jail,
and we shall still love you….
But be ye assured
that we will wear you down
by our capacity to suffer.
One day we shall win freedom,
but not only for ourselves.
We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience
that we shall win you in the process,
and our victory will be a double victory.”
To defeat your enemies, not by destroying them,
but by making them your friends
is a long, slow process of persistence—
a struggle to act out of love
and not out of hatred.
For us too, these are days that call us to persistence.
From the ongoing struggle for racial justice,
to advocating for the sanctity of human life
from conception to natural death,
to building a community that welcomes the stranger
and cares for its weakest members,
to enduring the trials of a global pandemic,
our times confront us with challenges
that cannot be remedied by hatred and violence,
though many are tempted by such remedies.
We Christians have a lesson
to teach the world about persistence.
We should be the ones who can show the world
that persistence is more than simply
white knuckling it through a crisis.
We should be the ones who can show the world
that persistence is the fruit of the Holy Spirit,
something brought about in us
by the grace of a loving God.
We should be the ones who can show the world
the beauty of persistence that springs,
not from confidence in our own power,
but from our confidence is the power of God.

Remember the Canaanite woman:
confronted with seeming rejection by Jesus,
she did not grow angry or lash out,
but resolutely acted out of love for her daughter
and her faith that Jesus could heal her.
In commending her faith,
Jesus commends her persistence
and calls us to emulate her.
So in facing the many challenges
that beset us in these days
let us act with persistent, grace-filled love,
let us walk with Christ
the long, hard road to the Kingdom,
trusting that God will bring to completion
the good work that he has begun in us.
And may God have mercy on us all.

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Isaiah 56:1, 6-7; Romans 11:13-15, 29-32; Matthew 15:21-28

In today’s Gospel we hear the surprising exchange
between Jesus and the Canaanite woman
who asks him to heal her daughter.
What surprises us is Jesus’ seeming reluctance to help the woman
because she is not among the “lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
At first he ignores her request,
and then he compares her to a dog
who is not worthy to eat the bread of the children of Israel.
The woman does not blink at this insult,
but cleverly turns the tables,
saying that even dogs
get to eat the scraps that fall to the floor.
Jesus then changes his tune—
saying, “O woman, great is your faith!”—
and heals her daughter.

Early Christian and Medieval interpreters of this story
generally thought that Jesus
intended to help the woman all along,
but initially resisted to her request
so that she could show to his disciples
the depth of the faith she possessed.
Writing in the fourth century, St. John Chrysostom said,
“Jesus did not want the great virtue in this woman to be hidden.
He did not speak these words to insult her, but to call her forth,
and to reveal the treasure contained in her”
(Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew 52).
It may come as no surprise to some of you
that I think that the early Christian and Medieval interpreters
are on to something in at least this regard:
Matthew does not offer this story as a learning moment for Jesus
but as a learning moment for his disciples and for us.

The disciples learn through this exchange
that even though Jesus has indeed been sent
“to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,”
God’s gift and call to faith are not restricted
to any one people, any one group.
Even those whom they considered outsiders
could possess great faith—
faith, indeed, greater than their own.
Isaiah prophesied that the foreigners
who love and serve the LORD
would be brought by God to the holy mount Zion,
to offer prayer and sacrifice in God’s Temple,
which “will be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”
Jesus initially stresses the woman’s outsider status
only to make more striking the praise he lavishes on her faith:
as if to say that the time of universal reconciliation
foretold by Isaiah
was now arriving in the healing power
available to all through Jesus.

Jesus’ exchange with the woman also teaches us,
who are his disciples today,
that we are to be a community
in which racial, ethnic,
and other human divisions
are overcome and reconciled.
The Church is, as the Second Vatican Council taught,
to be a sacrament—a sign and cause—
of the unity of the human race;
it should be a house of prayer for all peoples.
The nations should be able to look at us and see
what a world reconciled and restored to God looks like.

We do not, unfortunately, need any help to see
what an unreconciled, unrestored world looks like.
We see the attacks on religious minorities in Iraq
by the forces of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or ISIS.
We see the other places that have been in the news this week,
in which religious, ethnic, and racial differences
have led to violence:
between Israeli and Palestinian in Gaza,
between black and white in Ferguson Missouri.
And then there are the places
that may have slipped from our sight in recent days:
Afghanistan, Egypt, Central America, Syria, Nigeria, Sudan, Ukraine.
We have seen what occurs when one group of people looks at another
and says, “you are dogs, unworthy of God’s love and healing”
and are blind to the possibility of great faith
in those who are other,
those who are different.
In the midst of this violence, we,
as individuals and as a community,
have been entrusted by Christ
with the ministry of reconciliation.

But what can we do
in the midst of such conflict and division?
How do we begin to exercise our ministry of reconciliation—
we who, ourselves, so often think
in terms of “us” and “them,”
we who, ourselves, often need
so desperately to be reconciled?
Perhaps at least a first step
would be to invite into our hearts through prayer
all those situations of conflict, hatred, and division;
asking God’s peace to descend
not only on those we see as innocent victims
but also on those we see as the sources of conflict and hatred.

Pope Francis has asked that we pray today
for Christians in Iraq
who have been driven from their homes
and in some cases killed.
As many of you have undoubtedly seen in news reports,
the homes of Christians in northern Iraq
have been marked by the ISIS militants
with the Arabic letter nūn,
which stands for Nasara,
which is the term in the Qur’an for Christians,
the followers of Jesus of Nazareth;
and these Christians have been faced
with the choice of converting to Islam
or abandoning their homes and belongings
and fleeing their cities.
Most have chosen to cling to their faith
and abandon everything else.
These people need our prayers,
as do the other persecuted religious minorities in Iraq
who have also been forced to flee their homes,
and face starvation and death.
But for the true seeds of reconciliation
to take root in our hearts,
we must also pray
for the enemies of our fellow Christians in Iraq:
those who seem to have no interest in reconciliation,
those who have committed acts of unspeakable brutality,
those who are most in need of the peace of Christ.
Our hearts must become houses of prayer for all peoples.

But this kind of prayer is hard;
to respond with love in the face of insult and injury
requires faith as great as that of the Canaanite woman.
But it is such faith, such prayer,
that will, by God’s grace, truly mark us as Nasara:
followers of Jesus of Nazareth.