Wednesday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 409

Yes, a day will come when the watchmen
will call out on Mount Ephraim:
“Rise up, let us go to Zion,
to the LORD, our God.”
Shout with joy for Jacob,
exult at the head of the nations;
proclaim your praise and say:
The LORD has delivered his people,
the remnant of Israel.

Many Old Testament verses look forward to the vindication of Israel. 

Indeed the Lord will vindicate his people,

   have compassion on his servants,

when he sees that their power is gone,

   neither bond nor free remaining. Deuteronomy 32.36

Someday the Lord will raise up that tiny country, caught between the powerful nations of Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon, and later ruled by Rome, and place it above all the nations of the world. Their routine oppression and cruel treatment of God's Elect will be exposed in all its shameful horror; and justice will finally be established as the least nation assumes its rightful place as head of all. On that day, the Elect will rejoice and give thanks to God as they laugh at the humiliation of their former enemies. 

There may be a touch of that in today's Gospel account of the Canaanite woman who appeals to Jesus for her daughter. It's not too much to suppose her ancestors oppressed the hill people who scratched out a living on the barren hills. The Book of Judges describes their routine raids: 

For it used to be that whenever the Israelites had completed sowing their crops, Midian, Amalek, and the Kedemites would come up, encamp against them, and lay waste the produce of the land as far as the outskirts of Gaza, leaving no sustenance in Israel, and no sheep, ox, or donkey. For they would come up with their livestock, and their tents would appear as thick as locusts. They would be too many to count when they came into the land to lay it waste. Israel was reduced to utter poverty by Midian, and so the Israelites cried out to the LORD. (Judges 6: 3-6)

Nor is it too much to suppose that this wrong was remembered centuries later. The victors write history; the losers remember it. We might hear in the disciples' words -- “Send her away, for she keeps calling out after us.” -- their satisfaction in her desperation. "Remember what they did to us!" This went on despite the fact that the world had changed; Roman taxation impoverished Jews and gentiles. 

The Gospel of Matthew images Jesus as the Teacher who is profoundly aware of God's kingdom and cannot be shaken by the threats of his enemies or the obtuseness of his disciples. He does not lose his self-assurance in Gethsemane or the several courts of the Sanhedrin, Herod, and Pontius Pilate. Nor would he indulge in mean-spirited treatment of unhappy gentiles. 

Nonetheless, perhaps out of respect for the Gospel of Saint Mark and to accentuate her fidelity, Saint Matthew retains the essential story of the Lord's words to the Canaanite woman. At first he patiently explains the situation to her, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” And then, as she persists, he says something which we might regard as politically incorrect. 

The Evangelist's focus is on her "great faith." She humbly receives his rebuke; she will not be put off. She persists. And that's the point of the story! If God seems indifferent to our prayers, we should still pray without ceasing.   

Matthew's account of the Roman centurion -- an unlikely supplicant if there ever was one -- also recalls a gentile's great faith, as Jesus remarks: “Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith."

The faith of gentiles in these stories reflects not only the dilemma facing the first century Church which was predominantly Jewish and rapidly becoming gentile. It also reminds insiders in the Church -- those who might consider themselves legacy Christians -- that they have no exclusive claim on the Lord except the faith they share with outsiders. 

No one owns God. Jesus will not be constrained or contained by anyone's expectations, neither Jew nor gentile nor Christian nor Catholic. Get over yourself!

True disciples of Jesus remember both their vindication and their shame. Saint Matthew plainly describes our betrayal, "Then all the disciples deserted him and fled." True faith does not forget that moment. Like our ancestors, we have sinned. And we are grateful to the Lord for the great compassion shown to the Canaanite woman.