Homily for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost.
2 Cor 6:16-7:1
Matt 15:21-28
So often, when we hear a geographical description in a biblical passage, our eyes kinda glaze over. And that’s natural. We don’t live there, we don’t think in terms of that geography. But it makes an interesting difference here.
Matthew wrote his Gospel specifically to the Jews. His point was to show that Jesus was the fulfillment of the Messianic prophecies, that he had a legal claim to the throne of David. It’s Matthew who tells us about the Magi, and about King Herod’s fear of a new king. In a passage using language of Israel’s king appointing a new Chief Steward (or Prime Minister), it’s Matthew who tells us about Jesus giving Peter the keys of the kingdom. And it’s Matthew who tells us of Jesus, in giving the right to the bind and loose, giving the apostles the exercise of His royal authority.
To put the narrative in a context that we can appreciate, let’s say that the disciples held that Jesus was sent to the people of New York and ONLY to the people of New York, and not just that, just to the New Yorkers of European descent.
Making those substitutions, this passage would read something like this. “Jesus went up to the area of Ottawa, and an Iroquois woman from that region came to him and said, “My daughter is demon possessed. Help!”
And he ignores her.
His disciples come to him and tell him to get rid of her. It’s not mercy that they seek for her. They just don’t want her around, as if to say, “Get rid of her. She’s not one of us”.
But what they were forgetting is that Jesus, while not focusing on Gentiles, that is, non-Jews, he did, in fact, respond when they came seeking him. Just a few chapters earlier, He had healed the servant of a Roman Centurion.
Can you hear the sarcasm in his voice when he said that He’d only been sent to the lost sheep of Israel?
Yes, Jesus came first to seek and save the Lost Sheep of Israel. But, He later tells the disciples, “And I have other sheep that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice. So there shall be one flock, one shepherd”. As he told Nicodemus, “Whosoever believes shall be saved”, not just the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
After Paul’s conversion, but before he began his ministry, God appeared to a Roman Centurion, an Italian named Cornelius. Cornelius was a righteous man who prayed constantly and gave to the poor. He was told to send for Peter.
After Peter had a vision, he accompanied the men to see Cornelius. After talking to him, Peter was able to proclaim, “Truly I perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every nation any one who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him”. And he baptized him.
Now, Paul’s mission was to the Gentiles, but the Jewish believers hounded him, saying that these Gentiles also had to obey the Law of Moses. It got so bad that Paul went back to Jerusalem. The Apostles called a council, the first recorded Church Council. And at that council, the Holy Spirit showed them that Christians did not have to follow the Law of Moses. Why? As Paul later wrote in the Epistle to the Hebrews, “The Law was given as a shadow of the Good things to come”.
One aspect of worship under the Law was the Temple in Jerusalem, the place where God was worshiped. But now, the body - the body of believers - was the Temple of the Living God. He dwells in us. He is our God, and we are his people. As he told the Prophet Jeremiah, “I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people”.
Yes, we live under the New Covenant, a covenant not only with the house of Israel, but between God and all who believe.
As I’ve pointed out before, our law is mercy and blessing.
- We are empowered by our faith and the sacraments to live by the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy
- We are empowered by our faith and the sacraments to live by the Beatitudes
- We are empowered by our faith and the sacraments to live by avoiding the passions that lead to sin, practicing rather their opposite virtues.
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