Homily for the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 2014, Year A
The image is a familiar one:
one or more dogs begging while you are at table, ready to pounce on whatever
falls from the table, if not actively “demanding tribute,” as my brother’s
Chihuahua “Rosy” does. Cute, if you like that sort of thing.
But there is nothing cute
about the exchange between Jesus and the Canaanite woman in this Gospel. I once
read an author, bent on finding humor in the Bible, who claimed that this was
just a friendly little repartee, what Webster’s Dictionary describes as
“amusing and usually light sparring with words.” I couldn’t disagree more. The scene presented
here by Matthew is no game of wits!
Let me digress briefly with a
little trip down memory lane:
[Click on this link:] Kyrie
eleison from the Missa de Angelis
The point isn’t the music, the
Gregorian chant or any other classic settings. The point isn’t the Latin Mass
vs. English. It isn’t even that “Kyrie eleison” isn’t Latin at all, but Greek.
What is the point? It’s that
we find those very same Greek words in today’s Gospel, and the point is
especially what they mean.
The woman says “Eleison me
kyrie.” This is translated in the Lectionary as “Have pity on me, Lord,” but it
means equally well, “Have mercy on me, Lord.” Now leave out the middle word,
change the order and there you have it: Kyrie eleison—Lord, have mercy.
She knows that as a foreigner
she really has no claim on the one she calls “Son of David.” That doesn’t stop
her.
Maybe she’s stubborn by
nature. Maybe she’s had a hard life and is used to fighting for what she wants.
Personally, I think the simple answer is the best: she’s a mother. And even if
she has to accept being insulted by a famous teacher and healer, she accepts
it, for her daughter’s sake.
But there is another reason
why she doesn’t hold back. Jesus recognizes it, tests it, praises it, and
rewards it. It is her “great faith”! (This woman, by the way, is one of the two
foreigners I alluded to last week who are described as having “great” faith in
the Gospels.)
“My house shall be called a
house of prayer for all peoples,” we read in Isaiah. In this story we see a
partial fulfillment of that prophecy. It’s no longer about a place, much less a
single building situated in Jerusalem. It’s about Jesus and the community of
believers gathered around him. It’s about the universal Church.
It seems everyone knows people
who get in touch only when they need something. Often enough, however, that
describes our prayer. The Canaanite woman might never have approached Jesus if
her daughter hadn’t been sick. But in that moment, he saw her faith. and that
was all that mattered. The same great faith that brought her to him in tears
sent her back home to her daughter in grateful joy.
It is perfectly natural that
we come to the Lord in our need. As St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “What do you possess that you have not received?
But if you have received it, why are you boasting as if you did not receive it?”
When we look at ourselves, and
at our needs, and at what we actually deserve, and then we come to Jesus, what
are we if not beggars at the Lord’s table?
No wonder we cry “Lord, have mercy!” at the beginning of every Mass!
After that, however, reassured of his love, we are in a position to fulfill the
other line in Isaiah’s prophecy where God predicts, “I will make them joyful in
my house of prayer.”
Comments