20th Sunday of the Year, August 20, 2023

 
“Woman, your faith is great! May it be done for you as you wish”

Let us, therefore, ask the good Lord in this Holy Mass to help our unbelief and strengthen our faith in Him who alone can help us when others fail us. Happy Sunday!

DOCTRINE AND FAITH

(Isaiah 56,1.6-7; Psalm 66 (67); Romans 11,13-15.29-32; Matt 15,21-28; 20th Sunday of the Year, August 20, 2023)

“My house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples” (Isaiah 56,7). This affirmation must have sounded disconcerting, even scandalous, to the ears of a Jew, who experienced progressive separations in the temple. There was space to which everyone could enter, then only men, then the circumcised, up to the Holy of Holies, which only the high priest could enter, on Yom Kippur, once a year.

Now, God announces a day when his house will be open to all. If Isaiah's text could baffle the Jews, Jesus' attitude surprises Christians, not used to seeing such harsh attitudes in the Lord as those he assumes towards this foreign woman of the Gospel reading, who asks nothing for herself, but intercedes on behalf of her sick daughter. Not only is this woman a stranger to Jesus, but Jesus is also a stranger to her. Relations between their people were tense, hostile and of great enmity. Yet, this woman addresses Jesus with the typical language of faith. On her lips there are two titles proper to a messianic faith: "Lord, son of David" (Matt 15,22).

Furthermore, her first plea is marked by liturgical language: "Pity me": it is the kyrie eleison of the liturgy. But, to these invocations for help so imbued with faith, Jesus responds harshly. However, the woman was not discouraged and "began to shout". In Greek language, in which the gospel was written, the imperfect tense connotes an action that started in the past, extends over time and even perdures in the present. This woman shouted and continued to shout, with great insistence, until she said: "It is true, Lord, and yet the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table" (Matt 15,27). “It's true”: the woman recognizes her own difference, she does not protest, she does not rebel, she does not expect to be treated on a par with the children of Israel, she does not claim an equality that she knows she does not possess. She is very humble. She submits in obedience to God's will, without questioning it or making demands. She adds however (and here is the turning point of her great faith) that "the little dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." It is as if she said: it is true, I am not one of her children, and I accept it; yet God's will, his mercy, is not only for children, it also reaches those who are not children. This attitude resembles Paul’s idea about God (as is seen from what he writes to the Romans) who wishes "to be merciful to all" (Romans 11,32). Here is the great intuition of this woman's faith: while recognizing her own difference, she knows herself; she is welcomed by the blessing of the Father which reaches out to her: the crumbs "fall from the table of their masters". This verb (falling from) describes the superabundance of God's bread, which is for everyone. The woman, therefore, recognizes her own difference, but she knows that she is, in any case, already included in the Father's mercy. She stays in, not out.

The symbol of bread, we must not forget, evokes the manna which, in the traditions of the Exodus was given by God not in an equal way, but according to the need of each one: “He who had taken the most had not too much; he who had taken the least was not lacking” (Exodus 16,18).  God satisfies everyone, though he uses different measures. God does not make us all the same and indistinct; of course, he does not discriminate, but he loves each one in a personal way. His mercy does not level us and does not make us uniform; he discerns, and knows the difference between persons, between believer and unbeliever, between the righteous and the sinner. However, with respect for each one's differences, we are all included in the Father's mercy, and his bread reaches each one in its overabundance, even if in different ways. This is what the woman intuits, and Jesus can only admire her faith: “Woman, your faith is great! May it be done for you as you wish” (Matt 15,28). Behind this impersonal verb ("let it happen”) we must recognize God's action. The Greek text is stronger, because the verb "will" resounds in it: the Father do to you as you wish! According to your will! We are used to praying in the Our Father: "Your will be done", Jesus here turns the perspective upside down: may the Father do your will! And Jesus can say it, because he recognizes in this woman's will the very manifestation of the Father's will. He unites with it. This foreigner, precisely in the humility of her faith, has an extraordinary intuition: she knows what God's will is and conforms to it to the point of making it become her own will! And Jesus (whom Matthew presents as the one who answers; the verb "to answer" resounds four times in the Greek text in verses 23.24.26.28) now can only answer and obey the word of this woman, because in it he recognizes the manifestation of the very will of the Father.

This account is a strong appeal for our faith. It asks us not only to welcome the stranger into the evangelical logic of love; it demands more! It demands that we recognize in him or her the manifestation of God's will which calls our lives to conversion. + John I Okoye

(graphics by Chukwubike)