Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Sometimes
we can come across Scriptural passages that are difficult to understand. I think today is one of those
passages. This account of Jesus
doesn’t seem to jive with the mental picture most of us have of Jesus. This is why, when we read the Scriptures,
we should always have some sort of guide with us, whether it’s a book, a
website, or a person.
Because
it looks today like Jesus is being mean at best, and at worst, racist! Why won’t Jesus heal the woman’s
daughter who is tormented by a demon?
Is it just because she is Canaanite? Didn’t Jesus come to free captives, especially those who
were entrapped by the Devil? Our
first reading from the Book of Isaiah seems to say that anyone who tries to
follow God will be welcomed, and the sacrifices they make will be acceptable to
him.
One way
to approach this passage is to take the Thomas Jefferson approach. He was a Deist, that is, he believed in
God, but not a personal God. He
believed God just set the world in motion and is now letting it run its course,
without any personal involvement.
So, when he came to any miracles (a very
personal involvement by God to suspend the laws of nature), he just eliminated
them from the Bible. It made his
life much easier. But, such a
view, of course, treats the Scriptures as just another old piece of literature,
and not as Divinely Inspired.
Treating the Scriptures as if we can pick and choose which parts we like
makes us the masters of God’s revelation, rather than the recipients.
So, if
we’re going to be recipients of what God is telling us, how do we deal with
this passage? How do we deal with,
“‘It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the
dogs’”? Well, let’s start by
actually looking at the whole passage.
Yes, the woman is a Canaanite.
This means she is a pagan.
She does not believe in the true God, but worships many false gods. She is not part of the Chosen People,
Israel. She also truly has a
daughter who is possessed by a demon.
This is not very surprising, because when we deal with false gods, we’re
often times dealing with demons.
That’s still true today.
When we mess around with astrology, tarot cards, Ouija boards, and false
gods, we’re opening ourselves up to demonic activity.
But look
at what Jesus says. He doesn’t
actually say no. When the
disciples want Jesus to send her away, He replies that he was sent “‘only to
the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’”
She continues to plead for help.
The Lord has what sounds like a very cutting line, “‘It is not right to
take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.’” Things sound pretty bad. But then the woman pleads still more,
“‘Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of
their masters.’” And then Jesus
seems to do a 180: “‘O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’” Jesus wasn’t trying to put her down, or
deny her daughter freedom from the Evil One. Instead, He was searching out her faith. He was trying to see if she was just
coming to Him because he had done some pretty amazing things, like any other
wonder worker, or if she truly had faith that He was Lord.
Of
course, we should ask ourselves: who do I believe Jesus is? Spoiler alert: Jesus will ask his
disciples the same question next Sunday.
But we should start soul searching now. Do we have faith in Jesus? Or is Jesus just another wonder worker in our life? Is He one of many gurus? Who do we go to more for guidance in
our life decisions: Jesus, our horoscope, our yoga instructor, or any other
false gods we set up in our life?
It’s
probably not news when I tell you that, in the United States, only 25-30% of
baptized Catholics attend Mass on a regular basis. I know you’ve experienced that in our own parish. I’m personally happy so many of you are
here today. I’m not happy because
it means that we’ll make our budget for our weekly collection (though I hope
that happens and it does make my life easier). I’m not happy because our numbers may be getting better than
the national average. I’m happy
that you’re here today because it means you have an opportunity to encounter
Jesus in the Word of God and in His Body and Blood, and that encounter will
help strengthen your faith. Why do
Catholics feel attending Mass each Sunday is optional? There are a lot of reasons: an
unpopular priest; music not to their taste; boring homilies. But at the heart of them stands the
reason that Jesus is just one among many.
The conviction that Jesus is Lord is absent from their lives. Jesus is more like Santa Claus: if
we’ve been good, He gives us what we want. If not, we go to Hell.
We want good things, so we come to Mass, to extort the blessings of God
in a religious quid pro quo. But if Jesus is not Lord, then it is a
waste of time to come to Mass.
Only if Jesus is God–the way we figure out how to live–does coming back
each Sunday make sense.
C.S.
Lewis puts it this way in his book, Mere
Christianity:
A man who was merely
a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral
teacher. He would either be a
lunatic–on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg–or else he would
be the Devil of Hell. You must
make your choice. Either this man
was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can
spit at him and kill him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him
Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being
a great human teacher.
Maybe, right now, you’re
thinking that Jesus is just one great
moral teacher, like Confucius, Buddha, Socrates, or Gandhi. Right now, Jesus is searching out your
faith. And the good news is that
Jesus wants to help you have faith that He is Lord. By coming here, you at least have the chance to affirm that
Jesus is Lord, and you want to form your life around Him. By coming here today you can make your
own the prayer of the father who came to Jesus: “‘I do believe; help my unbelief!’”
And if you have faith, not just because you’ve been a good boy or girl, Jesus
wants to heal you, to strengthen you, to bless you, and to stand with you, even
in life’s difficulties. Let us
proclaim, with our hearts and our lips and our lives, that Jesus is Lord, to
the glory of God the Father.