August_14

Every three years, on the 20^th Sunday in ordinary time and every third year would be the A year of readings, every priest or deacon would have to confront this gospel and it’s difficult, isn’t it? It’s hard to hear. All week, I’ve been talking to Father Joshua and it’s, “What do you think?” “I don’t know. What do you think?” I said on Tuesday, “What are you going to do?” He said, “I don’t know. What are you going to do?” Wednesday, Thursday, Friday…

By the way, we took Father Joshua to his first baseball game. It went twelve innings. We got back from Albuquerque after 1:00 in the morning. The next day he was speaking to another African priest from

Uganda

, who is also in the

United States

right now. I overheard the conversation. Father Joshua said, “I went to a game I did not understand.” Then there was a pause and he said, “I don’t know who won. I don’t even know who played.” But he sat there patiently for four hours, bless his heart. He said, “We Africans are very patient.” He’s going to stick with the game he knows--soccer.

Let’s get back to the gospel. This is a hard gospel. You heard it. Jesus goes to the north of

Israel

into Phoenician territory, the Tyre-Sidon area which is still Tyre and Sidon today. A Canaanite woman, a Phoenician confronts Jesus and says, “Cure my daughter.” He ignores her but she persists. The disciples give their answer again, “Send her away.” She persists and Jesus says to her, “I’ve come to save the people of

Israel

, not you people. It’s not right for me to give the bread of the family to a dog.”

That’s what he said to her. In researching this, there are several explanations that let Jesus off the hook. One is that he answered a proverb with a proverb. It was a little repartee of witty people. Another is that he used the word that the Jews would use for a pet dog. I think all Semites to this day don’t like dogs and I think that’s their major problem. How could you not like a black Lab? Dogs, even today, in the Middle East, are scavengers and they’re kind of nasty creatures. But Jesus did not use the word for dog. He used the word for a pet dog, a lap dog. So, they say, “Well, you see, it’s a term of endearment.”

Others say, “Well, he was using, ‘We don’t give the food to the dogs.’ tongue-in-cheek, with a wink, like ‘you rascal you’.” Yet, others say he was testing her faith. First, by ignoring her and secondly, by rejecting her with harsh words. “Well, I don’t know.” Maybe those scholars are right. But I think Jesus said what he meant and meant what he said, as harsh as those words were. Remember he was speaking as a Jew. He was known as Rabbi. The Jews did not like these Canaanite-Phoenicians. No different from today with Palestinians and Jews.

Several years ago, I saw a Sixty Minutes show on the boundary between Jews and Palestinians and I’d listen to the Jewish side and I’d go, “They’re wrong.” Then I’d listen to the Palestinian side and I’d say, “They’re wrong.” I mean there is real hatred there, isn’t there? There sure is. And in Jesus’ time, it was there also.

Religious orthodox Jews just didn’t like Samaritans and Palestinians and Phoenicians and Canaanites. So when he spoke to her that way, I think he was being true to his Jewish roots. He was being a true Rabbi. He expressed the reality of the relationship between Jews and non-Jews. The Jewish historian Josephus even called these Canaanites, “the worst of the worst”. Jesus was blunt but I think he was blunt to make a point, that there is a boundary between me and you. There is a boundary between Jews and Canaanites. Then he crossed the boundary. But first he acknowledged and recognized it. He didn’t make-believe the woman was his long lost friend or his sister. He acknowledged the deep seated antipathy between the races, and then he reconciled it. The Jews were the chosen people and Jesus in his mission extended God’s favor to all people. It had been hinted at as we heard from the first reading in Isaiah and in other prophets. But for the most part, the Jews theologically believe themselves and only themselves, as God’s people. Of course, Jesus extended that love of God to all people and thus to us.

I think we can learn an important lesson from Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman. The lesson is simply that boundaries must be recognized honestly before they can be dismantled. Reconciliation between peoples, between husbands and wives, between nations, reconciliation comes not from a false claim of peace or a false claim of unity or a feel-good Rodney King-like ‘can’t we all just get along?’ Reconciliation is hard work and it comes from a realistic understanding of boundaries, differences, and problems and the willingness to work through and reconcile them.

That’s true in medicine. If you have a medical problem you want to find out what the cause is. You don’t want to treat just the symptoms. You want to find out what the underlying cause of the symptoms. You may treat the symptoms with medication or therapy to ameliorate them but you want to find out what’s really causing them. You wouldn’t care for a doctor who told you, “Just feel good about yourself. Just go home make believe all is well and all will be well.” It doesn’t work that way. It’s like that in politics also. I love the bumper sticker, ‘If you want peace work for justice.’ War and conflict are not the root causes. They’re the symptoms of the cause. The root cause of these things is inevitably injustice. Until the injustice can be rectified, whatever it may be, war and conflict are simply symptoms. We need to look even beyond those terrible tragic things to the real causes of conflict.

This is really true in marriage. Last week I met with a woman who has been married twelve years and she has four children. She had a few problems she wanted to talk to me about. I spent about an hour with her. The problem wasn’t her husband which is very unusual. She had other problems. Her husband came up several times in our conversation and towards the end of our time together, I said to her, “You must have a really good marriage.” I could tell she really loved him. She looked at me kind of surprised and she said, “We’ve been married twelve years and we’ve had more bad times than good. We each brought a lot of baggage into our marriage and we have been fighting for twelve years. We fight and make-up but we never get to the real problem. We waltz around whatever it is and we forgive each other until the next time which will come soon, very soon.” She said, and I wrote this down because it paraphrases fairly close to what she said, “Recently, we decided that we’re going to work through our problems and differences. Really work through them; to listen and talk; to work hard and to really understand the other person; to try to see through the problems and into the soul of the other, the real person. It’s been hard. It’s been tough work but for the first time we really are beginning to believe in each other and believe that this marriage is going to be a good one.

I think they figured out what Jesus had figured out. You’ve got to be honest. You have to acknowledge differences and boundaries and problems if you’re going to work through them. Boundaries need to be recognized if they are to be crossed. Otherwise, you’ll be crashing into them forever. Unilateral disengagement or make-believe peace merely removes you from the problem and leaves it for someone else to solve. It’s no solution at all.

We come here, week after week after week, to participate in the reconciliation on this altar. That’s what the Eucharist is. Through His sacrifice, Jesus reconciles us to the Father. That’s what the sacrifice was all about. The boundary was sin. He took the sin to himself, dismantling it and nailed it to a cross and then rose and us with Him in baptism. What he did for us we need to do for each other. We need to recognize our differences, accept them, and work through them.

I’d like to conclude with the preface for the prayer for the masses of reconciliation and we’ll use reconciliation two. There are two of them, prayer one and two we’ll use today. So if you’ll bow your heads we’ll pray this prayer:

Father, all powerful and ever living God, we praise and thank you through Jesus Christ our Lord for your presence and action in the world.
In the midst of conflict and division, we know it is you who turn our minds to thoughts of peace.
Your Spirit changes our hearts: enemies begin to speak to one another, those who were estranged join hands in friendship, and nations seek the way of peace together.
Your Spirit is at work when understanding puts an end to strife, when hatred is quenched by mercy, and vengeance gives way to forgiveness.
For this we should never cease to thank and praise you.
We join with all the choirs of heaven as they sing for ever to your glory:

Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.

And we make this prayer in hope and confidence through Christ our Lord. Amen.