Wednesday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Enemies. Part of our humanity is to have enemies. Not only the individual enemies who beat us up in the schoolyard, the “mean kids” who attack us on the way home from school, and continue doing so into the corporate boardroom. We are born into tribes, all of us, and tribes have histories, histories that invariably include wars, oppressions, injustices, enmities.
The man Jesus too was born into a tribe, a tribe that had centuries of conflict with all its neighbors behind it. Like many tribes, but more than all, His tribe not only believed but knew itself to be chosen by the Almighty Himself to stand out among all others. They were THE nation; the rest were but nations, Gentiles – and, in a difficult phrase, “gentile dogs.”
But God’s heart is different from our projections. Moses can complain to God, be perfectly honest: God allows this, and responds. The woman whom Jesus encounters responds honestly, from the heart, breaking through the barriers of history and centuries of distance. More importantly: the heart of God, revealed in Jesus, is alive and open to the truth of love which breaks down all the barriers of human history. In the mouth of Jesus, there is a strong invitation to that humble love which alone breaks down those barriers. The mother’s love broke through that barrier, and children and dogs were all fed. And I like to think Jesus was gently smiling all the while, for there may have been a gentle irony in His words to her, that gentle irony that invites a trusting response.