THEME: “NOT WHO YOU ARE, BUT WHAT YOU DO”
ISA 56:1,6-7; ROM 11:13-15, 29-32; MATT 15:21-28
- WHO AMONG THE TWO IS MY TRUE SON?
The readings of today remind me of the story my friend shared with him, regarding his experience with his son and his son’s friend. This my friend had just a son before his wife died. Because his wife died when his son was still very young, the man was doing everything for the boy. So, the boy grew up and grew used to not doing anything at home. The son later entered boarding school and made friends. But out of his friends, he had one who was very close to him. During holidays, the son used to come home with this his friend. This stranger boy, while at his friend’s house, was doing some home chores like keeping the house clean, washing plates after meal, etc. He would go down to the family’s garden where the man used to stay in the evenings and keep the man company, sharing stories with the man. But the son enjoyed playing video game with friends in the neighborhood who used to come around too. The relationship between the man and the stranger boy (his son’s friend) grew so much that the man started calling him: Son. This continued for years. Later on, both the man’s son and his friend finished school, got work, and lived differently in the city. The son’s friend never missed calling the man and visiting him with gifts. It grew so much that when the man got sick, instead of calling his son, he called this his son’s friend. Now, the man asked me: Out of these two, who in real sense is my son? I responded: “Both….one biological, the other practical.” The man retorted: “Forget what biology says, birth alone is not enough to make a son. I see a son in that stranger boy than I see in the one I gave birth to.” The foreigner became the real son, while the son turned to be a foreigner! If we understand this story, then we have understood the message of the readings of today. It is not who we are that matters, but what we do. Our names identify us with something, but it is our action that defines that our identity.
- WHAT MAKES A TRUE SERVANT OF GOD? WHO IS A TRUE ISRAELITE?
The first reading is taken from the very first chapter of the so-called ‘Trito’ Isaiah (Isa 56-66), which is written after the exile of the people of Israel. Before the exile, the people of Israel could be defined as a seclusive community that only allows the descendants of Abraham as its members. No one who was not of Abrahamic blood was allowed to join in the communal and cultic activities of the people. It was a taboo for a foreigner to enter into the house of the Lord. God was seen as God of the fathers, as a national God. But the exile exposed the people of Israel to international atmosphere. Some of them worked as officers and senior citizens in the Babylonian kingdom. Some of them entered into mixed marriages. Hence, exile opened them up to international world. Now, after exile, as the Israelites were coming back under Persian era, not only the sons of Abraham came back, but also the so-called ‘foreigners.’ These foreigners include any person that is not a descendant of Abraham: their foreign wives, children born from mixed marriages, their friends who came back home with them etc. So after the exile, there was serious tension between the so called ‘sons of the land’ (that is, those who were not taken into exile, but remained in the land) and the exile returnees. There was problem of “who are the real sons of Abraham”. Those considered to be foreigners were not allowed to participate in the community life and in the worship. But little did the people know that exilic experience, as unfortunate as it might be for them, was God’s way of throwing out his net to other nations. So in the first reading, God is asking the question: Who is my true servant? Is it someone who is a descendant of Abraham by blood, or someone who is a descendant of Abraham by action? God himself gave the answer: to be a true servant of God involves: serving the Lord, loving his name, observing the sabbath, clinging to God’s covenant. Hence, if a ‘foreigner’ does all these, then he is God’s true servant and must be allowed to come up to God’s Mountain where God will not only make them joyful, but also accept their sacrifices on his altar. Through actions, a foreigner can become a worthy son with full rights of a son!
- Gentile in Name but Abrahamic in Faith (Jesus and the Canaanite woman)
In the Gospel, the same tension of “who really merits God’s salvation” continues between Jesus and the Canaanite woman. In order to understand the encounter well, we must remember the conventional thinking of the people at the time of Jesus. There was still this tension between the Jews and every other nation (the so-called Pagans/Gentiles). The Jews believed that anything coming from God, once it is their God, the God of Abraham, the pagans have no business with it and have no right to benefit from it. Tyre and Sidon (Phoenician cities) belong to these pagan nations. We have to observe the contradiction in the story.
- Jesus did not only enter into the pagan cities, but withdrew into it. If Jesus meant to say that he was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, why then did he
withdraw into the pagan cities? In other instances where this verb (ἀναχωρέω anachoreo) is used to speak of Jesus, it bears the connotation of going to find rest in another place (cf. Matt 2:14; 2:22; 4:12; 12:15; 14:13).
- Already in Matt8:5-13, Jesus has had an encounter with a man from ‘pagan’ world: the Centurion. So, he would not have made that statement when he knew he had had an encounter with a gentile before now.
- Again,we have to observe that Jesus did not tell the woman that, but to his disciples.
The evangelist said that after the woman made her first prayer, Jesus did not tell her anything. It was only after his disciples intervened, that he made the statement, referring to the disciples. The possible reason is that Jesus was simply expressing what the disciples and the woman have learnt from the society. We can therefore hold that Jesus was somehow making mockery of the people’s belief about God and his salvation. Hence, a simple rephrasing would be: “I thought you people hold that the Son of Man is sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel”?
So, if the people believe that Messiah is only for the house of Israel, it then follows that it would be a waste to extend salvation to anyone who is not a Jew. Thus, on the second prayer of the woman, Jesus responded to her: “it is not good to take the children’s food and throw it to house dogs”. Is this expression offensive? Yes…very offensive to the person of the woman because it means that the Jews were seen as children while the gentiles as dogs. But I want us to focus on another aspect. When Jesus said that he was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, he gives the idea that the gentile nations are totally out of the picture. But now, taking up the image of children and house dogs, he at least brings the gentile nations into the house, because these dogs live in the same house with the children. The question then is: who made them dogs? God or they themselves? But, even with such a derogatory statement, the Canaanite woman did not give up. She was patiently following Jesus’s logic and providing him different reasons why she too merits to have a share of the salvation and liberation brought by Christ. The woman was like: “Sir, I do not even need to get to the position of being a child before I can benefit from your mercy. Even as lowly and sinful as I am, let me just have a taste of the leftovers, I will be grateful. For even in my unworthiness (dogs), I believe that you can still allow me to have a taste of your salvation Lord.” What a great faith!!! The faith of this Canaanite woman not only got her daughter healed but brought her to the level of being Abraham’s daughter. Abraham was chosen by God because of his expression of faith in God. By similar expression of faith in God, one is inserted into this Abrahamic seed. In the Second Reading, Paul speaks of this salvation brought to the pagans whose attitude of obedience to God merited them God’s mercy. God looks for not just those called by his name, but those who show respect and love for his name through their actions.
Questions we have to ask ourselves:
- Are we sons/daughters of God by name or by actions? Do our actions define our identity as true servants of God?
- In the house of God, do you see yourself as a true servant, or a foreigner? The way you participate in the things of God, is it as a foreigner who stays far off or as part of Yhwh’s household?
- Do we block others from benefiting from God’s goodness, or goodness of their fellow men, simply because they do not belong to our family members, church or society?
- Is it not better to be a dog who stays at the feet of the master, than a son who does not even know where his father is staying?
- Do you allow who you think you are to deny you blessings a simple humility would have gained for you?
LET YOUR ACTIONS DEFEND YOUR IDENTITY AS TRUE CHILD OF GOD
Fr. Nnamah Chukwuezugo