Good News to the Nations (Mt 15:21-28)
20th Sunday in Ordinary Time
It so happens that I write this from Nairobi, where I am on transit. I travelled fromIndiaa few days ago, and tomorrow I will be travelling to London. Memories of my days inIndiaare still fresh in my mind, even as I closely watch the current riots in the United Kingdomwith some anxiety. Thanks to our easy means of communication and fast means of travel today, many of us enjoy the privilege of constantly coming in contact with people and places that are new to us. The Word of God today invites to examine our attitude towards ‘strangers’ in the light of Jesus’ own mission to the nations.
The current riots of London do not seem to have any explicit racial connotation, but the role of the inability of people to accept strangers and the unwillingness of strangers to feel at home cannot be denied. During my recent stay in India, I was utterly shocked and even annoyed to hear the people of North-East India and some other ethnic groups being referred to as “Tribals”, and the people ofAfricabeing referred to as “Negroes”. When such expressions came from a well-educated priest, I wondered if it was mere ignorance or utter insensitivity. We cannot deny an ingrained sentiment of “in-group” and “out-group” in such expressions!
Jesus, being a man of his culture, also had to refine his own attitude towards the “out-group”. And this ability of Jesus to learn even from a woman of the “out-group”, and his openness to discern the will of His Father in this encounter, would determine the future of the Good News.
“I was sent only to the lost sheep of House of Israel” (Mt 15:24)
The people of Israel saw the experience of Exodus as a unique intervention of Yahweh in the history of their ‘nation’ (Ex 19:4). According to them, He even acted against the Egyptians and destroyed them in defence of their nation (Ex 14:30f). They referred to Yahweh as the God of Israel (Ex 34:23). This exclusivity of the love of God for Israel also sometimes contributed to arrogance towards foreign nations (who were referred to as pagans and gentiles); this was also because of a fear that association with other nations would tempt the people of Israel to follow the gods of the nations. For instance, the book of Deuteronomy warns the people of Israel:
“Yahweh your God will put the nations (including the Canaanites) at your mercy and you will conquer them. You must put them under the curse of destruction. You must not make any treaty with them or show them any pity. You must not intermarry with them; you must not give a daughter of yours to a son of theirs, or take a daughter of theirs for a son of yours, for your son would be seduced from following me into serving other gods” (Dt 7: 2-4).
This privatisation of God by the people of Israel began to be challenged when they came in real contact with other nations. Of particular importance was their experience of the non-Israelites during the Babylonian Exile (around 600 years BC). After all, there were also some good people among them! A shocking fact was that it was Cyrus – a pagan king from Persia– who would finally help the Jews to return to their homeland (2Chr 36:23), and help them rebuild the temple which would be completed under the reign of Darius, another pagan king (Ezra 6:15).
That is why, by the time Isaiah 56 (today’s 2nd reading) was being written, people of Israel express an open attitude to all nations. This universality is expressed even in their openness to share the Temple with foreigners: “Foreigners who have attached themselves to the Lord… I will bring them to my holy mountain (Zion)… for my house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples” (Is 56:6-7).
However, the people of Israel were not consistent in this universal attitude, even during the time of Jesus and even up to the time when the Gospel of Matthew gets to be written. In the Gospel of Matthew initially Jesus understands his mission as being exclusively directed to the people of Israel. During his public ministry, when he sends the twelve out Jesus instructs them (Mt 10:5-6): “Do not make your way to gentile territory, and do not enter any Samaritan town; go instead to the lost sheep of the House of Israel.”
Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations (Mt 28:19)
The writer of the Gospel of Matthew attempts to convince his own Jewish audience that the Good News of Jesus is addressed to all nations. He does this in an evolutionary but dramatic way as Jesus himself realises his mission during his public ministry. In the 2nd part of the Gospel of Matthew we see Jesus more and more becoming universal in his mission.
In Matthew 21, Jesus goes into the Temple and drives out the traders and money-changers. The scene of cleansing the temple takes place at the Court of the Gentiles because the ideal that was proclaimed by prophet Isaiah, as we heard read in the first reading of today, has been forgotten: instead of the Court of Gentiles being used for prayer by the non-Jews, the temple priests had converted it into a market place taking advantage of the presence of the gentiles for their own economic benefits at the expense of the poor Jews. So Jesus says to them, “According to scripture, my house will be called a house of prayer; but you are turning it into a bandits’ den” (Mt 21:13).
And later, when Jesus talks about the destruction of the Temple and the second coming, Jesus would say, “This good news of the kingdom will be proclaimed to the whole world as evidence to the nations. And then the end will come” (Mt 24:14). Finally, when Jesus sends out his disciples after the resurrection, he commissions them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations” (Mt 28: 18-19).
How did this change come about in Jesus between Mt 10 and Mt 28? How did Jesus learn that the Good News is to be proclaimed to all peoples? The event that made the difference is the one we heard read in the gospel of today: the encounter of Jesus with the Canaanite woman (Mt 15: 21-28). This event that occurs more or less at the centre of the Gospel of Matthew is also so central to the mission of Jesus. At the centre of this moment of enlightenment for Jesus is a woman, that too, a pagan woman! A strange occurrence in the context of the culture of Jesus!
“Even house-dogs eat the scraps that fall from their master’s table” (Mt 15:27)
Jesus was also a product of his culture. In his Jewish society, Canaanites were considered very dangerous because the interaction with this group in the past had led the people of Israel to the worship of Baal. Matthew tells us that Jesus initially treats this Canaanite woman very harshly. To begin with, he does not even bother to listen to her (v.23). Then when the disciples urge him to get rid of her “because she is shouting after us”, Jesus’ reply is, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel” (v. 24; see also Mt 10:6). When the woman herself starts pleading, he becomes very offensive: “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs” (v.26). This statement is an anomaly given our image of Jesus as a meek and gentle person. It is a racist statement that sees the in-group (the Jews) as children and the out-group (the Canaanites) as dogs. Without intending to defend Jesus, can we suppose that Matthew (also Mark 7) needed this story to convince the early Jewish Christians that the Good News is to be preached to all nations?
In any case, the woman does not allow herself to be victimised by the racist overtones in his statement. She retorts, “… but even the house-dogs can eat the scraps that fall from their master’s table”. Thanks to this strong and convincing reply, Jesus himself learns a lesson. She helps Jesus discern the will of his Father. Thanks to the persistence of this woman Good News is preached to the whole world. Thanks to the faith of this woman we have received the Christian faith.
How come we, the followers of Jesus who is willing to learn a lesson from this foreigner (a dog), are not willing to learn our lessons? How come in this ‘Post-Vatican’ era we still argue about the use of ‘many’ and ‘all’ in our liturgical language? How come we ‘Catholics’ have privatised salvation for so long? How come we still see ourselves in terms of in-group and others in terms of out-group: be it the caste system in the Church in India or the unwillingness of the Church in Europe to welcome strangers with their gifts?