SPEAKER_00: There's a woman in the gospel today who asks Jesus for something and gets it.
SPEAKER_00: But almost everything about the story says she should not have gotten it.
SPEAKER_00: She's not a disciple.
SPEAKER_00: She's not an Israelite.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, Matthew calls her a Canaanite.
SPEAKER_00: That's an ancient word.
SPEAKER_00: It's a loaded word.
SPEAKER_00: A word carrying centuries of hostility and division.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew wants us to understand immediately that she is an outsider.
SPEAKER_00: She's on the wrong side of the border.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, at the end of the gospel, Jesus will say something about her that he says almost about no one.
SPEAKER_00: Woman, great is your faith.
SPEAKER_00: So I want you to know what happens between these two sentences.
SPEAKER_00: Because I suspect almost everyone who walked into this church today is carrying something.
SPEAKER_00: A marriage, a child, a diagnosis, financial problems, family difficulties, a loneliness nobody knows about, a temptation that you keep fighting, someone you love who is slipping away, a prayer you've prayed so many times that you are beginning to wonder whether God is listening anymore.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where this gospel begins.
SPEAKER_00: She cries out, Have pity on me, Lord, son of David, my daughter is tormented, tormented by a demon.
SPEAKER_00: And then comes perhaps the hardest sentence in the gospel, but Jesus did not say a word in answer to her.
SPEAKER_00: Silence.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you know exactly what that feels like.
SPEAKER_00: You've prayed, you go to mass, you've lit candles, you say a rosary, you've asked other people to pray for you, and nothing has changed.
SPEAKER_00: But here's a detail I do not want you to miss.
SPEAKER_00: Where is Jesus when all of this is happening?
SPEAKER_00: Well, Matthew tells us that Jesus has withdrawn to the region of Tyre and Sidon.
SPEAKER_00: That's not Israel.
SPEAKER_00: That's her country.
SPEAKER_00: Before this woman ever went looking for Jesus, Jesus had already crossed the border towards her.
SPEAKER_00: Before she said a word to Jesus, he had already made the journey towards her.
SPEAKER_00: He did not answer her immediately with his mouth, but he had already answered her with his feet.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe somebody walked into this church today needing to hear exactly that.
SPEAKER_00: God's silence does not mean God's absence.
SPEAKER_00: The fact that you cannot see what God is doing does not mean that God is is that God is doing nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes God is already moving towards us while we're still crying out, God, where are you?
SPEAKER_00: Do not confuse silence with absence.
SPEAKER_00: Do not confuse delay with abandonment.
SPEAKER_00: And do not walk away from God because He's not answering according to your timetable.
SPEAKER_00: This woman doesn't.
SPEAKER_00: She stays right there.
SPEAKER_00: She keeps asking.
SPEAKER_00: She kneels before him.
SPEAKER_00: And finally comes a difficult image about the children and the dogs.
SPEAKER_00: She answers, please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.
SPEAKER_00: What an extraordinary answer.
SPEAKER_00: She's essentially saying, Lord, I am not here because I deserve anything from you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm here because I believe there's enough goodness in you for me.
SPEAKER_00: That's faith.
SPEAKER_00: Pride approaches God with a resume.
SPEAKER_00: Faith approaches God with empty hands.
SPEAKER_00: Pride will say, Look at everything that I've done.
SPEAKER_00: I've been good.
SPEAKER_00: I go to mass.
SPEAKER_00: I say my prayers.
SPEAKER_00: You owe me.
SPEAKER_00: Faith says, Lord, I have nothing to bargain with.
SPEAKER_00: I simply trust you.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus looks at this outsider and says, Oh woman, great is your faith.
SPEAKER_00: But then there's another detail in this gospel that matters, especially this weekend.
SPEAKER_00: You see, she's not praying for herself, she's praying for her daughter.
SPEAKER_00: She says, My daughter is tormented.
SPEAKER_00: Her daughter is somewhere else.
SPEAKER_00: She's not standing there next to her.
SPEAKER_00: And this weekend, as school begins, some of you know exactly what that feels like.
SPEAKER_00: We've been welcoming back our college students at the UM campus.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are sending your children and grandchildren back to school.
SPEAKER_00: Some are leaving for college or have already left for college.
SPEAKER_00: And there are places they're going that you cannot follow them.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot sit in every classroom.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot walk into every dorm room.
SPEAKER_00: You can't choose their friends for them.
SPEAKER_00: You can't protect them from every heartbreak.
SPEAKER_00: You can't see every struggle.
SPEAKER_00: You can't fight every battle for them.
SPEAKER_00: But I want you to listen carefully to what happens in the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: The daughter never comes to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus never enters her house.
SPEAKER_00: The mother does.
SPEAKER_00: And Matthew tells us her daughter was healed from that very hour.
SPEAKER_00: The mother's prayer reached a place the mother herself could not reach.
SPEAKER_00: That's intercession.
SPEAKER_00: Your prayer can enter rooms you cannot.
SPEAKER_00: Your prayer can enter a classroom.
SPEAKER_00: Your prayer can enter into a dormitory.
SPEAKER_00: Your prayer can enter into a hospital room.
SPEAKER_00: Your prayer can enter into a troubled family, a troubled marriage, an addiction, loneliness, confusion.
SPEAKER_00: The places where somebody you love is struggling and you can't fix it.
SPEAKER_00: Places that you can't physically get to, God can.
SPEAKER_00: So pray for them.
SPEAKER_00: But pray for them by name.
SPEAKER_00: And keep praying.
SPEAKER_00: Because sooner or later every Christian reaches a moment when they have to decide, well, what do I actually believe about God?
SPEAKER_00: Not when everything is going well, not when my prayers are answered, not when the diagnosis comes back clear, not when my children are doing beautifully and the future looks beautiful, the future looks bright.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, when Jesus is silent, when you prayed and nothing has changed, when the person still died, when the marriage still ended, when the child still walked away, when the door is closed, when you did everything you knew what to do, and heaven still seemed quiet.
SPEAKER_00: So what do you do then?
SPEAKER_00: That's where faith begins to cost something.
SPEAKER_00: This woman could have walked away.
SPEAKER_00: She could have decided, well, apparently I don't matter to him.
SPEAKER_00: I'm an outsider.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, what does she do?
SPEAKER_00: She moves in closer.
SPEAKER_00: And if you remember nothing else from this homily, remember this.
SPEAKER_00: When God seems silent, move closer.
SPEAKER_00: Do not disappear.
SPEAKER_00: Do not stop praying.
SPEAKER_00: Do not stop coming to Mass.
SPEAKER_00: Do not decide that because you cannot understand God, you cannot trust God.
SPEAKER_00: Move closer.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity was never a promise that if you believe hard enough, nothing terrible will happen to you.
SPEAKER_00: No, look at the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity is the promise that when the terrible things happen, you don't face them alone.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe somebody here needs to make a decision today.
SPEAKER_00: You've been standing at a distance from God for too long.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're angry with God.
SPEAKER_00: Disappointed.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're carrying a sin.
SPEAKER_00: You have not been able to surrender.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe everybody around you thinks you're fine and you know that you're not.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've spent years trying to control something that only God can carry.
SPEAKER_00: Enough.
SPEAKER_00: Give it to him today.
SPEAKER_00: Not when your life gets better or altogether, today.
SPEAKER_00: Because here is the great surprise of this gospel.
SPEAKER_00: We began with a woman desperately searching for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But before she ever started looking for him, Jesus had already crossed the border towards her.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe that's you in the story.
SPEAKER_00: You think you came to Mass today looking for God.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps God brought you here because He's been looking for you.
SPEAKER_00: In a few moments you will walk down that aisle.
SPEAKER_00: Do not do it on autopilot.
SPEAKER_00: Do not receive communion.
SPEAKER_00: Return to your pew and leave exactly the same person who walked through those doors this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Bring him the thing that you cannot fix, the wound that you cannot heal, the sin that you cannot defeat, the person that you cannot save, the prayer he has not answered, bring it again.
SPEAKER_00: She came asking for crumbs.
SPEAKER_00: You're being offered Christ Himself.
SPEAKER_00: She begged him to come near.
SPEAKER_00: He's about to be placed into your hands.
SPEAKER_00: He crossed the border, but he's entered your world.
SPEAKER_00: He has come all the way to this altar.
SPEAKER_00: The question is no longer whether Jesus will come to you.
SPEAKER_00: He will come to you.
SPEAKER_00: He has already come to you.
SPEAKER_00: The question is, will you stay with him?
SPEAKER_00: Will you stay when the prayer is not answered?
SPEAKER_00: Will you stay when you don't understand?
SPEAKER_00: Will you stay when life does not turn out the way you planned?
SPEAKER_00: Will you stay when following Christ will cost you something?
SPEAKER_00: Because anybody can believe when a miracle comes.
SPEAKER_00: Faith is staying when Jesus is all you have.
SPEAKER_00: That woman came looking for a miracle, but she shows us something greater.
SPEAKER_00: She would not leave Jesus, no matter what.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe that's the decision that you need to make today.
SPEAKER_00: Not Jesus, give me what I need, grant me what I need, I will then believe in you.
SPEAKER_00: Not that, but maybe Jesus, whether you answer me today or 10 years down the road, whether I understand what you're doing in my life or nothing at all, whether you grant me this miracle I'm begging for or asking for, I'm not going to leave you.
SPEAKER_00: Because I have finally understood something.
SPEAKER_00: I do not just need what you can give me, I need all of you.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.