It seems that the scripture readings for the Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time have clear ties to what is happening in our country and in our world today.  We have mention of “foreigners” in the Prophet Isaiah’s reading (Is 56:1, 6-7), “race” in Paul’s letter to the Romans (Rom 11:13-15, 29-32), and mention of “lost sheep, dogs, and demons” in Matthew’s Gospel (Mt 15:21-28).  In all three of these readings, the common pieces seem to be confrontation, exclusion, protest, inclusion, healing, reconciliation, and ultimately “faith” as the “irrevocable call and gifts of God.”

Isaiah starts us off on this path with the Lord’s admonition to “observe what is right, do what is just; for my salvation is about to come, my justice, about to be revealed.”  When we look at “what is right and what is just” in our nation and world (and even as close as our families and communities), we see that people have very different ideas about the two – what is right and what is just.  How far have we gone to create notions of “righteousness and justice” in “our own image”  rather than opening our minds and hearts to the always wider and inclusive context of God’s sense of what is “right” and “just?”

The violence of hatred born from warped senses of “right and just” exploded with fury in Charlottesville this past weekend with the horrifying human indignity of white supremacy racism and bigotry that was manifested there.   This type of racism and human indignity flows from a culture where anything and anyone perceived as difference is a threat, and thus a “foreigner” that must be ousted, even killed.  In the process of waging violence upon those considered “foreigners,” we as violent perpetrators ostracize ourselves and indeed become the demonic illusion of that which we fear.  The Lord in Isaiah’s reading speaks of the “foreigners” who will be brought to “the holy mountain,” wherein they will be made “joyful in my house of prayer…a house of prayer for all peoples.”  Who are these “foreigners” and where is the “house of prayer for all peoples?”

Paul, in his letter to the Romans, addresses “the Gentiles,” those non-Jewish people who at that time were considered unworthy and “foreigners” to “God’s people.”  Even though slavery was not conceived as something wrong or inhuman at that time, Paul seemed to see that this whole idea of the “other” (the Gentile) in that culture was a devastating roadblock for the true message of Christ.  The privileged people within the culture that Jesus was born into rejected Christ, and it was actually the “outsiders” or “foreigners” that started responding to the invitation of this new way of life.  Paul goes so far as to say that he hopes that his ministry to the gentiles would “make his race jealous.”  He goes on to say that the rejection of the Christian message by the Jewish people at that time actually provided for the invitation opening up to all peoples.  In that this “open invitation” for all is now available, Paul’s hope is that those who rejected the message will come to accept it by seeing how it has affected and transformed precisely those that were looked upon as “other” and “foreign.”  This acceptance could be a way of “rising” from the dead.

This same “open invitation” takes place in the Gospel of Matthew in albeit curious fashion.  This is one of those rare pieces in the Gospels where it appears that Jesus himself is “challenged” within an exclusive cultural mindset.  The Canaanite woman comes shouting after Jesus to heal her daughter, who is mind you possessed by a “demon,” causes such a stir that the disciples basically ask Jesus to get rid of her at all cost.  Surprisingly perhaps, Jesus response to the pleading woman is that he had come for the “lost sheep” of Israel, whom Paul mentioned in the letter to the Romans.  He confronts the woman in a less than compassionate fashion to say the least,

“It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.”

But this response does not put the woman off, she in fact protests his response with:

“Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.”

 It is the woman’s expression of resilient “faith” that cuts across cultural blind spots, including bigotry and racism, and prompts Jesus’ response of healing:

“O woman, great is your faith!  Let it be done for you as you wish.”

Her insistence on addressing the narrow-minded and ingrained exclusive character of WHO can embrace and receive the Christ even seems to awaken Jesus.  It’s almost as if here the confrontation of the cultural bigotry at that time had to come from one of those considered as a “dog,” an “outsider,” or a “foreigner.”  Without any discussion on the biblical scholarship on how Jesus is to be viewed within this story, perhaps the power of the story is that there is great courage and strength in a form of protest that is based in of all things “faith.”  Indeed it is this type of “faith” that confronts and names and participates, by questioning and engaging, that can heal that which is “demonic” – e.g. racism, bigotry and all forms of rigid thinking and behaving that attempts to sustain a privileged and clearly delusional position.  This type of “faith” certainly does away with any candy-coated and comfortable “warm fuzziness” that we may sometimes associate with “faith.”

This must be the same type of faith that the “foreigners” demonstrate in Isaiah by embracing the “irrevocable call and gifts of God” that we hear of in Paul’s letter to the Romans.  This is taking full advantage of the mercy of God, who “delivered all to disobedience” precisely so that real MERCY may be manifest.  This is the “house of prayer” on the mountain of God for all peoples.  But we must see and recognize the “demon” of violent exclusion that takes the form of racism, bigotry and all thoughts and actions that dehumanize the children of God – all of us!

This is no easy task.  It is a difficult and arduous road that we must walk together.  Breaking out of mindsets and heart-sets that are culturally and historically bolstered can seem unattainable.  But “faith” says otherwise.  Faith says we have done it before and we will do it again and again.  It is the steady determined and courageous “faith” that requires looking at ourselves and seeing ourselves in those we consider “other.”  And in cases where the “other” is held in hatred, the interior struggle can be life or death.  But there is resurrection always possible and it occurs through honest interactions and nonviolent “faith-filled” actions.

As the French Paleontologist and Mystic, Teilhard De Chardin, puts it, “Nothing is precious save what is yourself in others and others in yourself.”[i]  This “preciousness” is that active mercy of God that holds us accountable for our mind and heart “sets” by constantly inviting us to a deeper clarity and a more expansive horizon, which includes precisely those concrete things and people we fear.  The delusions of our tightly-held “Identities” that prevent us from seeing the preciousness of ourselves and each other are indeed “demons” that must be named and driven away.

When we can recognize the demon by naming and confronting it in ourselves, our families, communities, nations and worlds in nonviolent ways we then can receive and actively give the healing of Christ that is true mercy.  For every time we act in “faith” in our interactions, we ourselves are transformed.  Just as Jesus ostensibly through his interaction with the Canaanite woman was challenged himself to perhaps see his own mission as much more expansive than even he imagined.

When we follow Christ in this way, our “faith” can be so great and expansive so that the demons of hatred and exclusion (e.g. white supremacy, racism, and dehumanization) will depart and be transformed such that all of God’s sons and daughters can heal and be healed.

Peace,
Thomas

[i] Pierre Teilhard De Chardin, The Heart of Matter (Harcourt, Inc.:  1978), 69.