Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

“”’O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.”’ And the woman’s daughter was healed from that hour.” (Mt. 15: 28)

Today’s gospel presents a Jesus we don’t recognize …. at least, not at first.
He’s a Jesus who says “No.” He’s a Jesus who is dismissive to the point of almost being rude, a Jesus who ignores obvious suffering.

How can this be?

After feeding the hungry multitude; after teaching us to reach out in compassion to all those in pain; even after walking on water and inviting us to join him in overcoming the fears that prevents us from leaving our places of comfort and safety – after all this, how can it be that Jesus would refuse this woman who is experiencing terrible anguish because her daughter is being “tormented by a demon”?

And yet, that’s what Jesus does. Not once, but twice he refuses the woman’s plea for mercy. He even goes so far as to almost say to her sarcastically:

“It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” (Mt. 15: 26)

So, what’s really going on here? 

The gospel of Matthew was written some 50 – 60 years after the death of Jesus. It came out of a community of believers that was struggling to deal with two major issues:
First, the role of “gentiles,” “foreigners,” people of different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. What do we do with these people? How can they be assimilated into our largely Jewish community?

Second, the role of women in the early church community.

Sound familiar?

We Christian people, we followers of Jesus are still grappling with both concerns to this day.

Let’s begin with the first of these two:
How are we to treat people that are not “one of our own” – the immigrants of today, the racially different of today.

Historically, both have been gigantic problems that are still causing serious controversies personally and culturally for all societies, our own Church, and our own country as well.
Who is to be accepted? Who is to be rejected? Who is to be relegated to the back of the bus? Who is to be treated as “different”?

Today’s gospel tells the story of Jesus himself struggling with these very questions through an encounter with a woman – a very persistent woman; a woman who refuses to take “No” for an answer.

At first, Jesus demonstrates how uncomfortable he is with her because she is not Jewish.
She is a Canaanite, not an Israelite. She is part of another culture, another country, another racial grouping, another religion.

And so initially he stays with his “own kind,” and states:
“I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” (Mt. 15:24)
We can all identify with such a point of view.

We are Americans. We are Catholic. We are Caucasian. We are uncomfortable – at least initially – with anyone who is “different.” We don’t like people who don’t speak our language, worship at our churches, follow our customs, eat our foods, and disagree with our politics. At least, initially we don’t.

Jesus is depicted in today’s gospel reading in much the same way. But notice one huge distinction:
What changes Jesus, what makes all the difference is the woman’s faith.
It is not her persistence that transforms Jesus. That alone can just lead to greater annoyance.

It is Jesus’ amazement at the depth of her love for her daughter and her recognition of the breadth of God’s love for all humans.

It is her belief that God loves all people and will heal all people.

That is what is transformative for Jesus.

Here is the way he puts it:
“O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” (Mt. 15:28)
The other major issue presented in this gospel passage, in a more subtle, but still significant way is the issue of women.

Women, of course, had no rights – legally or religiously – in society at that time. Yet, again and again, Jesus continually broke the rules of his religion and his culture to listen to them, converse with them, heal them, and include them among his primary followers.
The stories of the woman at the well, the woman who washes his feet with her tears and wipes them dry with her hair, the woman caught in adultery, the woman who was the first to recognize him after his resurrection and rushed to tell the men who were hiding in fear – all these unique stories tell the tale of Jesus’ radical love and concern for women.

And there are the stories of the women who were unusually persistent:
The woman who will not quit looking for her coin until she finds it; the woman who will not quit knocking on the judge’s door until she gets the answer that she wants; the woman who reached out and touched the hem of his garment in hopes of stopping the bleeding that had persisted for twelve years; the woman whose back was bent for eighteen years – and others as well, including the woman in today’s gospel.  

Even in such a different time and place that had a multitude of rules constraining females, Jesus upheld those women who broke the rules:
The women who reached out when they were supposed to stay away, who spoke out when they were supposed to remain silent, and who cried out when they were supposed to ask for nothing. 

Jesus even used women as examples for us all:
Like the woman who gave her last dime; like the woman who knocked until the door was finally open; like the woman in today’s gospel who is given the ultimate compliment of teaching Jesus!

In every one of these cases, what Jesus finds remarkable is their faith.

In spite of all the prejudices against women, and in spite of all the sorrows they endured, Jesus is consistently awed by the faith of women – by their undying conviction that the God that Jesus preached and taught and modeled was a God who included them fully in his great love for all humankind.

It was that very faith, Jesus recognized, that gave them the power, the courage, and the relentless energy to make their faith the dominant feature of their lives.

Matthew’s community of believers needed to understand this some 2000 years ago, and you and I need to understand it and learn from it equally as much to this very day.
Because, in the end, what you and I need to remember above all else is:
It will be our faith that will triumph.

It will be our faith that will lead us through all the heartaches and all the “demons” that torment us.

It will be our faith that will overcome all our many biases and prejudices and give us hearts large enough to welcome everyone.

It will be our faith in the God of Jesus that will make it possible for us to be transformed to such an extent that Jesus will be able to say to each one of us those very same words he spoke so long ago, and with the same degree of amazement:
“Great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” (Mt. 15:28)

Ted Wolgamot, Psy.D.