HOMILY FOR THE 20th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME YEAR A

1. Isaiah 56:1,6-73

2. Romans 11:13-15,29-32

Gospel: Matthew 15:21-28

          The Canaanite woman's faith brought many from far

In one of his  autobiography Mahatma Gandhi tells how, during his student days, he read the  Gospels and saw in the teachings of Jesus the answer to the major problems facing the people of India, the caste system( The system that divided Hindus into four main categories: Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and the Shudras). Seriously considering to embrace the Christian faith, Gandhi attended church one Sunday morning intending  to talk  to the minister about the idea. On entering the church, however, the usher refused to give him a seat and told him to go and worship with his own people. Gandhi left the church and never returned. " If Christians have caste differences also," he said, " I might as well remain a Hindu."

The belief that God's blessings are somewhat limited to peoples of certain tribes or cultures has been around for a very long time. Such belief was very much alive in the society in which Jesus grew up. In today's gospel we hear Jesus saying, " I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matthew 15:24) he was expressing a popular belief. It is not clear whether he really believed it himself or whether he said it in order to expose  and correct its false claims. Every people and culture has a handful of such prejudices and myths- from the myth of the Jews as the only people of God to that of no salvation outside the church, from the prejudice of the caste system in India to that of racial superiority in Nazi Germany, from the myth of the Superiority of Western cultures. We are today invited to expose such myths and correct their false understanding and exaggerated claims.

We learn something great from the Canaanite woman, an outsider who took active intervention by creating the awareness among early Jewish Christians that the belief in the exclusive divine prerogatives of the Jewish people did not stand up to reason. Probably we can learn something crucial here from that woman that you and I owe the fact that we are Christians today to the heroism of this unnamed woman who dismantled the dividing wall of intolerance between Jews and Gentiles. We need to consult this woman in today's service asking her to teach us how to go about dismantling the structures that create undue division among God's children, the human race that God has loved into being.

Then what lessons can we learn from that Canaanite woman? The first thing she teaches us in our Christian vocation  to reconcile all humankind to God is courage. Given her position as a foreigner and as a woman, it took phenomenal courage on her part to decide to take on the all-Jewish and all-male company of Jesus and his disciples. She was so small that, even though she addresses Jesus by his proper Messianic titles" Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David" ( verse 22), Jesus still ignored her: " He did not answer her at all" ( verse 23). Her courage and her refusal to take no for an answer finally paid off.

The second thing we can learn from this woman is focus or what the civil right movement calls " keep your eyes on the prize." When Jesus spoke to her in language that demeaned her to people: "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs"(verse 26), she did not lose her hope but kept her eyes on the goal of her mission, which is to show  that even non-Jews are entitled to God's blessing  in Christ. That woman is non violent because with the words that Jesus uttered to her she would have also reacted violently to Jesus. Thus we have a picture of non-violent figure in the reading.

Finally, it was Jesus who gave in: " Woman , great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish" (verse 28) and the woman got what she wanted. From this particular encounter between Jesus and a woman the message we get is Be not afraid. Be not afraid to challenge  prejudice and falsity in all its forms even in high places including religious places. The least among us can be a vehicle that God can use to bring justice and healing to all of God's disadvantaged daughters and sons all over the world.

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