Homily for the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time, A

“Have mercy.” In Deuteronomy 7,  God explicitly tells the Israelites to "show no mercy.” Yet here is a Canaanite begging for just what her people were denied. 

I am away this weekend.

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Transcript

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew. 

At that time, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, 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."

But Jesus did not say a word in answer to her.

Jesus' disciples came and asked him, Send her away, for she keeps calling out after us.
He said in reply, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But the woman came and did Jesus' homage, saying, "Lord, help me." He said in reply, "It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs." She said, "Please, Lord, For even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters."

Then Jesus said to her in reply, "O woman, great is your faith. Let it be done for you as you wish." And the woman's daughter was healed from that hour.

The Gospel of the Lord.

Jesus is moving toward the region of Tyre and Sidon, which is Gentile territory. A woman from that region comes out to him. Matthew calls her a Canaanite, but there would not have been Canaanites in the land for several hundred years. In Deuteronomy, the Canaanites are those people God commands the Israelites to exterminate. Jesus, Israel's Messiah, traveling in Gentile territory, encounters this member of a condemned people. "Have mercy on me, Lord, son of David. My daughter is tormented by a demon." 

"Have mercy." In Deuteronomy 7, God explicitly tells the Israelites to "show no mercy." Yet here is a Canaanite begging for just what her people were denied.

What's a good Jewish boy to do?

But Jesus must also have known today's first reading, Isaiah chapter 56. "The foreigners who join themselves to the Lord I will bring to my holy mountain, for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples."

How do we know which path to follow?

Matthew has given us some clues. Ancient Jewish genealogies typically listed only men. Matthew includes four women, two Canaanite women, Tamar and Rahab, who prove more righteous than the Israelite men they encounter. Their stories anticipate today's gospel. Another Canaanite woman will succeed in her goals, another Jewish man will respect her concerns and honor her wishes.

The Magi are foreigners who come to worship the newborn king. Their journey shows that the message of Jesus is for the whole world.

When Jesus first sent his disciples out on mission, he gave them these instructions. "Go nowhere among the Gentiles, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." By the time Matthew's Gospel is written, however, the church has a mission to the Gentiles. At the end of the gospel, the risen Christ gives the disciples a new command. "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations."

Could it be that Matthew is teaching his community that just as Jesus was able to understand his ministry in a more inclusive way, even of the hated ancestral enemy of his people, the church, too, has to make the same transition?

Two Sundays ago, Jesus was in the wilderness with thousands of people gathered around him. The disciples looked at the crowd and said, "send the crowds away." "They need not go away," Jesus responded. "You give them something to eat." The disciples saw scarcity. Jesus revealed abundance. Now, one chapter later, the disciples find themselves in a similar situation. A person is in need who does not appear to belong, and their response is the same. "Send her away." 

Jesus says, "it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." This is where the story turns. Dogs were not allowed inside a Jewish house. In order to feed dogs with the bread of the children, you'd have to take the bread off the table, walk to the door, open it, and throw it outside.

But in Gentile houses, the dogs were allowed inside. If they wanted to feed the dogs with the bread of the children, all they had to do was reach down with the leftovers.

So she says, "yes, Lord" Notice she changes his title and literally turns the table on him. "Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table." In calling him "Lord," she reminds Jesus of his universal outreach. If Jesus will live within that identity, he will see that she is not outside the house. She is inside his house. She may not be a child at the table, but she is one who is eager for any food that Jesus has to offer. "I'm already in the house, Lord," she is saying. "just notice me." 

Jack Shea suggests that the great faith of the Canaanite woman is that she is a tiger. "She is unified by her mission. She has a demon-afflicted child, and if this Jewish Messiah can help, he is going to. Little things such as ethnic diversity and hatred will not stand in the way." 

I remember when I was in sixth or seventh grade, a family in the parish lost their house in a fire. I didn't know them, but my mother did. Mom brought their clothes to our house and laundered them. That simple act of charity left a lasting impression on me. Isn't it often the case that when disaster strikes, we forget about the things that separate us and immediately reach out to the person in need? Jesus praises this instinctive response in Matthew 25, "for I was hungry, and you gave me food. I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger, and you welcomed me."

There's a song from the 1949 musical South Pacific, "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught," which reminds us that racial hatred and fear are not inborn, but are instead learned behaviors, drummed into children from a very young age. The good news is that the boundaries we've been so carefully taught are not the boundaries of God's kingdom. The kingdom is always larger than our fears, our prejudices, and our assumptions about who belongs.