Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Isaiah 56:1-7; Psalms 67:2-8; Matthew 15:21-28

Bossemptele, Central African Republic. Sinjar, Iraq. Ferguson, Missouri. These place names ring out like a litany of shame. Tribalism is a stubborn malady, and has always been so. Even the God-Man succumbed to its tendencies, however briefly. And that last fact is important, for it tells us how deep this infection has burrowed into our blood and bones. It is a disease we cannot cure, but one that we can find a way to manage. How? We need to stop pretending that "tolerance" and "coexistence" do anything more than cover up the symptoms of our illness. Chicken soup and a group hug might make us feel better, but they do not make the virus go away. What is needed is work; long, uncomfortable work. Every day, we must choose to actively love our neighbor. And in so doing, our hearts will open to see that the foreigner is really our sibling. "O God, let all the nations praise you!"

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Isaiah 56: 1, 6-7

We do not worship the Christian God, but God. She is the creator of all peoples, not just those that believe in him. She hears and calls out to everyone. He loves everyone. We must always remember that we are not an exclusive tribe, but simply messengers of the one family of the one God.

Matthew 15: 21-28

How should we understand Jesus calling the Canaanite woman a dog? Most would dismiss it as a test of her faith: "He didn't really mean it." I say that he meant every word he spoke, testimony from his own lips to the fullness of his humanity. Jesus chose to be one of us, with all our tribal tendencies. It is not pretty to us, not what we expect of our God, but God's will does not follow our expectations or desires. He has her own plan and we should expect it to be confounding most of the time. Our notions of imperfection may be anything but to the author of perfection itself.