I will gather others to them besides those already gathered. (Isaiah 56:8)
Pic: Bazzi Rahib, Ilyas Basim Khuri. The Canaanite Woman asks for healing for her daughter, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55922 [retrieved 19 August, 2023]
(Year A: 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 20thAugust, 2023)
READINGS
The second part of this Sunday’s Gospel story presents a challenge. We find ourselves with Jesus in what would have been considered as a foreign place among foreign people. Remember that in the running order of Matthew’s 15th chapter we have just read about an argument between Jesus and some Pharisees and Scribes who were taking issue about the Law including ritual cleansing practices.
Now, in the district of tyre and Sidon a Canaanite, a foreigner, came forward and ‘started shouting’ at Jesus, a Jew, in search of help. Why would a devout Jew respond to a foreigner for help? Was Jesus trying out the patience and trust of others around him by deliberately not answering this Canaanite (in other words ignoring her)? Even then, he provided, according to Matthew, what might be considered an abrupt and rude response by declaring ‘it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs’. If ever Jesus might be accused of political incorrectness and ethno-religious discrimination here was a prime example! (Canaanites would have been regarded, generally, in Jewish society as a sinful and godless race to be shunned if not exterminated).
But, the Canaanite persisted and, this time, on her knees. She had a daughter who was seriously ill. And mothers, as we all know, will go to any length when it comes to their children – child or adult. We may note that the woman persisted without being presumptuous. She did not presume that Jesus would perform a miracle. And, she did not argue with his blunt parable about giving food to the ‘dogs’. She used the parable to continue pleading by suggesting that even the dogs can eat the crumbs that fall from the masters’ table. How often do we see an honesty and realism in those outside our comfort circles including those who are cut off from our fellowship or networks.
To be cut off is to be alienated from someone or something. It may also involve a cutting off from oneself – one’s own inner being, needs and concerns. Ultimately, a state of being cut off may involve a cutting off from awareness of a loving God who watches over us every moment of our lives.
Writing to the Christians at Rome, Paul, the Apostle to the gentiles, looks with great compassion and also great hope for his own people – the Jewish people, the chosen people destined to be the first to be saved except that many of them missed the opportunity. However, ‘the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable’ (Romans 11:29). There is always a firm hope that even when we are cut off and alienated for whatever reasons God is waiting, calling, inviting and active in our lives. In a well known passage from the prophecy of Isaiah we are reminded that ‘my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.’ (Isaiah 56:7). In other words, God’s house is for everyone and not just the chosen, or the exclusively invited.
The Canaanite mother displays three qualities: lots of faith, lots of humility laced with a sense of humour and lots of persistence. Faith and humility are the winning formula time and time again in the gospel not least when they are displayed directly by foreigners or outcasts such as the thief on the cross or the Roman centurion who pleaded for his servant.
Another assertive woman has been the mother of Jesus – the first disciple of the Lord. She declared the greatness of God her saviour in the Magnificat. She continues to plead for the disciples with motherly care. If faith coupled with humility can move mountains then we are witnesses to the power of God at work in intercessory prayer.
We can thank the persistence of mothers for a lot of things in our lives. The story of the foreign woman who persisted out of love for her sick daughter is a reminder that we, too, are both the object of the faith-full persistence of others as well as the subjects of faith who never give up on the mercy of God.
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