Readings: Isaiah 56.1, 6-7 / Psalm 66 (R/v 4) / Romans 11.13-15, 29-32 / Matthew 15.21-28
Among the group of us who shared university lodgings, Thomas always had an answer to every question we asked. His answers were logical in their reasoning, succinct in their explanation, eloquent in their persuasion. When we discussed recycling our empty bottles, he instructed, “Return them to the liquor shop and get the cash.” Though there were other alternatives, Thomas insisted that his answer was the right one. Until an old woman collecting recyclables knocked on our door and asked, “What if you gave me your bottles so I can get some cash to pay for my sick husband’s medication?”
“What if?” Don’t you and I ask this question too?
“What if you had taken that job offer, wouldn’t we be better off today?”
“What if they had married, wouldn’t they happier in their old age and not alone?
“What if I had accepted my difference, wouldn’t I be freer from your hatred of me?
“What if?” We struggle to answer this question now and again. For some, it makes us regret our past. For others, it cheers us up because of what we now have. And there others for whom it raises the possibility of a better, happier life. We, however, tend to dismiss this question too quickly.
But as Christians we would be foolish not to attend to these “What if?” moments. From a faith perspective, these moments can open up our limited, human point of view to the infinite, boundless horizon of God working in our lives.
This is the lesson our gospel story offers us. We find it in Jesus’ interaction with the Canaanite woman.
Jesus enters Tyre and Sidon, Gentile territory. A Canaanite woman approaches him to heal her sick daughter. He ignores her. She continues pleading. He pauses.
At this moment you and I would expect this scene to play out as it usually does in the cut-and-dry miracle story we are all familiar with. The woman would plead some more; the disciples would continue scoffing; Jesus would then heal. And we will learn, again, that God’s love saves.
But this is not how Matthew’s story unfolds. In fact, Jesus appears callous: "Ma'am," he says, "I'm here to feed the children of Israel, not the Canaanites. Not you. It's not fair to take the children's bread and feed it to the dogs, now is it?" Jesus knows that his God-given mission is to announce God’s presence to the Jews, God’s chosen people, and giving food for life is one way God provides for them. His mission isn’t to the Canaanites, Jesus answers the woman’s request bluntly.
Isn’t Jesus’ behaviour confusing? This is not Jesus the caring teacher, the merciful preacher, the compassionate healer that we know. As puzzling as Jesus’ action is, we must really focus our gaze on his action after listening to the woman and not on his initial action of rejecting her. It is Jesus' later action that we must be concerned with.
What Jesus listens to is the woman's deep faith; she speaks about her utter trust in God’s certain providence for her, a non-Jew. Dogs need to eat, she tells him, and they will eat the crumbs from the master's table. God’s food, no matter how little, she teaches Jesus, is also for the Canaanites. Moved by her faith, Jesus praises her and he cures her daughter.
I’d like to suggest that this scene is a “What if?” moment in Jesus’ life and ministry. “What if this woman is challenging me to love as God loves, without limits, without borders, without restrictions?” “As sure as I am about my mission, what if God is inviting me through her to broaden my horizon of who God is--the God of all--and what God wants me to do--bring salvation for all?” Perhaps, Jesus asked himself these questions in his humanity and in this moment. They are the very human questions of one who is intimately involved with God. They are questions an anyone who loves God is trying to answer by paying attention to God’s action in his life so as to better follow God’s will.
And don’t you and I do likewise in that Ignatian exercise of finding God in all things? Here is Jesus doing what we know and practice as this exercise: pausing in silence; listening carefully to God speaking through the people and events of the day; and allowing God to take more control and lead our lives. And Jesus did this without clinging on any longer to his earlier answer of what he thought his mission was solely about.
In this encounter with the Canaanite woman, Jesus shows us what the proper attitude must be for us in a “What if?” moment. If we honestly want to discern God’s presence and God’s invitation to act as God wishes, then, this attitude must be rooted in, and also have the form of, Jesus’ trusting openness that God will always find him--and us--first in life’s uncertainties.
In the interview, A Big Heart Open to God, Pope Francis elaborates on this attitude. “If one has the answers to all the questions--that is proof that God is not with him. It means that he is a false prophet using religion for himself.” Instead, he must “leave room for the Lord, not for our certainties,” because God will always search us out in our uncertainties to meet us, and so save us into the fullness of life, Francis adds.
Yes, Jesus lives out this spiritual insight in today’s gospel story. As his followers, we would be wise to go and do likewise in our “What if?” moments. Why? Not just because Jesus did so. But because as discomforting, painful and wasted an occasion as a “What if?” moment can be, what we in fact have in this moment is God’s graced possibility of much more for us.
We often try to ignore such moments with excuses like "Oh, I just don't have time for this," "Been there; done that; nothing to gain," "Well, it’s a waste of time, again." However, if we pay attention to the attitude Jesus had towards the Canaanite woman, we might appreciate God’s deepest desire for us to be happy.
Jesus better discovered God and God’s will for him in the humanity of his “What if?” questions when he encountered the Canaanite woman. Like him, God will meet us in our own “What if” moments, especially, if it involves another person in need. God does so in order that we can experience and know God’s sure and saving presence in the uncertainties and doubts of our “What ifs?”
However, we cannot experience, know and testify to this truth of God’s saving action unless we humble ourselves first. This involves letting go of the answer we want to cling on to: it can never be the best or the most comprehensible answer before God because I am selfishly and arrogantly clinging on to it instead of listening to God's better answer for me. Letting go is therefore how you and I will find out that the true answers to our questions come from God and God alone.
Let us be bold and do this because we can then begin to catch a glimpse of God's vision for us and our world. It is of a place where grace comes to us in the most unexpected ways: where the smallest speak with the loudest voices; the powerful act with humility; where scraps are good enough for a simple feast; and where even empty bottles can give a sick man hope.
Preached at St Ignatius Church, Singapore
photo: www.labelproductions.com
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