Following in the footsteps of Jesus

August 20, 2017

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 118

IS 56:1, 6-7

PS 67:2-3, 5, 6, 8

ROM 11:13-15, 29-32

MT 15:21-28

Jesus has just had a heated exchange with the Pharisees and Scribes about the nature of sin.  He talks about how that it is not what you put in your mouth or touch that makes you unclean, but rather what is inside.  Your motives.  Your actions.  Then he does a most remarkable thing.  He journeys into the very land of those who the Pharisees and Scribes would say is the most unclean of the unclean.  A woman there begins to call after him.  In this time period and especially in this situation it must have been awkward for the disciples.  They knew that everyone was watching, and even though Jesus had just told them about cleanliness, they were still uncomfortable that this woman was walking along behind them shouting and drawing attention to them.

It’s really hard sometimes to break out of the mold.  We learn things as we grow up that we don’t even realize affect the way we think and act today.  There is a large vein of that going on right now in the United States.  When tension happens on the political stage the truth of who someone is will come out.  We see men and women fighting for things we would never have assumed they even cared about.  We also see people spreading half truths and lies in order to get their agenda pushed to the front.  The disciples should have been the first to realize that Jesus did indeed reach out to Gentiles from time to time, yet they fell back to their upbringing.  The situation, one that Jesus had just told them would not make them dirty, was one they did not want to be part of.

Jesus then interacts with the women.   Not only has he crossed the first line of proper behavior for a Jew by entering a Gentile land, now here he is speaking to a Gentile woman in public!   It doesn’t say that she is with other women, or that her husband or family is present.  She is alone begging for her daughter's life.  Jesus should not have spoken to her.  She would have been seen as not just a gentile, but one who didn’t know how to behave like a “woman.”  That is hard for us to imagine in the US in 2017.   However, even today in other countries, women are treated as second class citizens that have no rights and would be beaten for speaking to a strange man in public.   Yet, here we are in America fighting over Confederate statues while in other countries abuse men and women in ways that we have never experienced or imagined.

Then Jesus does something that seems so harsh, doesn’t it?  He calls her a dog.  Even today that would be harsh, back then it was even almost a racial slur.  She wasn’t a Jew.  The word has the connotation of a little dog, a puppy.  How would you react in this situation?  Most of us would grow angry.  We’d stomp off in a hurry.   How dare anyone call us a dog?  How does this foreign woman respond to the rude vocalization of this Jewish rabbi traveling through her homeland?  Humility.  She doesn’t fight the label.  She approaches Jesus with the realization that yes, she is not worthy.   She does not deserve anything he has to give.  Then she talks about what it means to be a puppy in her Master’s house.

Catechism of the Catholic Church 2610 Just as Jesus prays to the Father and gives thanks before receiving his gifts, so he teaches us filial boldness: "Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you receive it, and you will." Such is the power of prayer and of faith that does not doubt: "all things are possible to him who believes." Jesus is as saddened by the "lack of faith" of his own neighbors and the "little faith" of his own disciples as he is struck with admiration at the great faith of the Roman centurion and the Canaanite woman.

All of us know how much a puppy is loved.  How the oohs and aahs happen when someone brings about a very young animal.  We give them treats.  We feed them under the table little pieces of food when nobody's watching.  We pet them with our toes throughout dinner and curl up with them on the floor to watch movies.   Sometimes we treat them even better than the other people in our lives.  She had faith that God loved her.   That he would reach out to her like a pet under the table.  Giving the scraps that the others refused to eat.  This was a reality of the situation with the Pharisees and the Scribes.   Most of them had refused the meal entirely.   That means the dinner was still on the table with no one to eat it.   My friend just posted a picture of her puppy eyeing her perogies and wanting to eat them.  That’s an image of this very moment.

St. Paul reminds us that God loved us so much that when the people he had chosen refused to sit down to the meal, God invited the rest of us to dinner.  Unlike pets, God chose to simply make us sons and daughters.  We don’t have to beg for scraps because we get the entirety of the meal.  All 7 courses as it were.  Then a few moments later in this chapter, Jesus takes the meal and he multiplies it to feed thousands.  That’s the beautiful thing about love, isn’t it?  We don’t have to worry about only loving one or two people because the more we love... The more love we have to go around.   Unlike thermodynamics, in the spiritual realm the more we use the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the more they are lavished on us.

In this world of hatred, it’s even more important for us as Catholics to remember that every single person is invited to that table.   It doesn’t matter if you are democrat, republican or independent.   An atheist, Jew, Christian or Hindu.  God came to offer his salvation to every single one of us.  Why then do we evangelize?  Because we need to get dressed for the wedding.  That’s the entire purpose of the Church.  I truly believe that the Catholic Church teaches the fullness of faith.  If it did not?  I would not have become Catholic.  In another parable, Jesus talks about a man who shows up not dressed for the wedding and he is thrown out of the banquet.  I want to help as many people as I can get dressed and at the same time make sure my clothes are pressed and ready.

Every one of us has been “delivered to disobedience.”   That is we have all sinned.  We have all missed the mark.  Thomas Merton described it as this:

"Sin is the refusal of spiritual life, the rejection of the inner order and peace that come from our union with the divine will. In a word, sin is the refusal of God’s will and of his love. It is not only a refusal to“do” this or that thing willed by God, or a determination to do what he forbids. It is more radically a refusal to be what we are, a rejection of our mysterious, contingent, spiritual reality hidden in the very mystery of God. Sin is our refusal to be what we were created to be—sons of God, images of God. Ultimately sin, while seeming to be an assertion of freedom, is a flight from the freedom and the responsibility of divine sonship." - Life & Holiness, Thomas Merton

That’s what I believe the purpose of the Church is.  Not to give you a set of rules and regulations to make you sad and morose.  Rather a set of spiritual guidelines that help you figure out who you were created to be.   To know what it means to be made in the image of God.  To be invited to the table to join in the wedding feast of the Lamb.  I want everyone to experience that.  I want to grow into that man, slowly and steadily.   I want to keep working on my ‘outfit’ until it is fit for the wedding of the King of the Universe.  Yes, I know I can’t earn a ticket to the dinner because Jesus did that for me on the cross… but the scripture is clear that I need to put on my suit, I need to fill up my lamp, I need work on entering that straight and narrow gate that only Christ has opened for me.

So who is with me?  We are all called to be Saints.   That’s impossible without Christ in our life.  I had a man say to me today “who needs Church, I’m an atheist and I do plenty of good works.”   Good for you! We need more people like that!  The thing is as G.K. Chesterton said: “I don't need a church to tell me I'm wrong where I already know I'm wrong; I need a Church to tell me I'm wrong where I think I'm right.”   Yes, you know when you do good works.  You often know when you do bad things.  The question is, are some of the things you think are good actually bad?   If I went off all the things I “feel” there are a great many things out there I’d probably enjoy that aren’t good for my spiritual life, my family, or my vocation.  

So I look the to the Church.  I look to the Sacraments.   I sit down at the table as often as I can to receive Jesus himself to help me grow into the son that I am created to be, the image of God that I have been designed to radiate... And then I set out to help others do the same.  I want them to experience the same joy and fullness of life that I get to experience when I live for Christ.   Then I work the best I can that I too may emulate Christ in my life that others may see him through me.  That’s the goal of being a Christian.   To be a Saint means just that, to become as much like Christ as we can that we are transformed into the person God created us to be.  Joyful, loving, happy, and content… even in the worst of circumstances.  Let’s do this!