Homily—20th Sunday in Ordinary Time -- August 16, 2020

 

 
 

Today’s readings speak of God’s absolute, all-encompassing, and inclusive love.  In the first reading Isaiah tells us, that God’s “house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”  The Psalm tells us that we should rejoice because God guides all the peoples of the earth and rules us everyone with justice and impartiality. 

 

The passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans, also addresses the inclusiveness of God.  At first glance, it might seem that Paul is telling the Roman gentiles that they (and we) only receive God’s mercy because the of the disobedience of the Jews.  But what Paul is saying would be better understood as, through God’s gift of free will, we have the choice to obey or to disobey God’s will.  Yet if we do disobey, God’s mercy and forgiveness are always available to all repentant hearts.  God is always calling us to return when we have strayed.  For as Paul writes, “the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.” 

 

God’s love, justice and mercy envelopes all people.  As people of faith, these are virtues we are meant to live by as well.  In today’s Gospel, Matthew shows us how, even Jesus had to grow in this regard.

 

In today’s passage from Matthew, at first Jesus ignores the Canaanite woman.  It’s like how we ignore panhandlers hoping they’ll just go away.  But the woman persists calling for help for her sick child.  Jesus ignores the disciple’s suggestion to “get rid of her” and responds to the woman saying, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”   Author Kathleen MacInnis Kichline[1] suggests that Jesus response to the woman reveals what is weighing so heavily on his heart.  He is as aggrieved for his people as she is for her child…. Nonetheless, his response addresses not her need but his own, not what she has come here for but what he has come here for, the question burning within his heart.  "It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” 

 

Jesus response is harsh and it calls us to remember that Jesus is also human like us in all things but sin.  Therefore, Jesus vision was limited because He was the product of his socialization just as we are products of ours.  Luke writes in chapter 2, verse 52, “Jesus increased in wisdom and age and in divine and human favour.”  Luke writes this as a closing to the story of finding 12-year old Jesus in the temple says,  This encounter with the Canaanite women is an example of a growth moment for Jesus. 

 

So, until the woman speaks again, out of desperation in her need and her love for her daughter, Jesus does not realize what she and He have in common.  She speaks out of her own pain but unknowingly addresses his.  “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table.”  And Jesus hears her.  She will gladly receive from him what his own people reject.  

 

I think it is with relief and gratitude that Jesus then answers her.  “O woman, great is your faith.”  You know that kind of relief when someone has really heard us, heard what we haven’t even known the words to form, has heard what we did not know to say?  He is happy here, happy to reply, “Let it be done for you as you wish.” 

 

How remarkable that Jesus can be changed by an encounter with the other.  There are many Gospel stories of how people are changed by an encounter with Jesus but in this story, we see a mutual transformation.  In this case, we can enter into the Gospel narrative in the persona of Jesus himself.  It is hopeful to consider that it is, ultimately, Christ-like to encounter another, a person different that us, who challenges our world view, and to be changed by that encounter—even if it takes us a while to get there. 

 

Please share your thoughts on an encounter with another that challenged and changed you?

 


[1] Kichline, Kathleen MacInnis (2014). “Canaanite Woman”. Retrieved from:  https://www.sistersinscripture.com/content/newsm/news?show=VIEW&a=50

 

 

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