20th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year A
The Outsider's Faith
Rev. James A. Wickersham

We don’t usually think about God feeding his people with crumbs from the table. Yet that is what the Canaanite woman in today’s Gospel asks for. She wants healing for her daughter. She believes that even a crumb of Christ’s mercy will be enough.

But Jesus intends to give her more than a crumb. He heals her daughter, draws her faith into the open, and places that faith before his disciples: “O woman, great is your faith!”

We know the history of Israel. God called Israel and set them apart—not simply to separate them from the nations, but so that they could become a light to the nations. God promised Abraham that through his descendants all the nations of the world would be blessed.

The prophet Isaiah makes that promise even more explicit. He foresees a day when foreigners will join themselves to the Lord and worship him: “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”

Where Israel repeatedly runs into trouble is in confusing outward religious observance with true conversion of heart. It is not either/or. It is both/and. God desires outward worship, but he also desires hearts that belong entirely to him.

The Canaanite woman is definitely an outsider. The disciples want her sent away. They experience this desperate mother as an interruption. But she recognizes something in Jesus that they do not yet fully understand. She calls him “Lord” and “Son of David.”

Then her prayer becomes very simple: “Lord, help me.”

Even when Jesus allows the apparent boundary between Israel and the nations to stand before her, she does not walk away. She believes that even the crumbs falling from the Master’s table will be enough.

Then Jesus says, “O woman, great is your faith!”

I imagine that the disciples were a little baffled. They wanted this woman sent away. Jesus holds her up as an example of great faith.

Not many of us here are descended from the Jewish people. I am what I call a northern European mutt. I come from all those northern European nations. Yet through faith and baptism, we have been gathered into the Church, the Body and spotless Bride of Christ. This is our new identity.

Like Israel before us, however, we can practice all the outward observances of religion while keeping our hearts closed to continuing conversion. We can love the smells and bells while resisting the interior call to holiness.

The smells and bells are important. Our outward worship is important. But in every sacrament, we encounter the mercy of Jesus Christ. What we receive sacramentally must gradually conform our lives to Christ.

The Church is not meant to be a fortress protecting Christ from the world. Christ does not need our protection. The disciples wanted the Canaanite woman sent away. Jesus revealed her great faith.

The Church is the Body of Christ, called to carry him into the world. We gather here every Sunday to worship the Lord, but then each of us is sent out to proclaim him to people who have yet to encounter his saving mercy.

You all enter places that I will never enter. You enter your homes and families, your workplaces and schools, restaurants and stores, friendships and ordinary conversations. You encounter those wonderful people who speed past you on I-35.

All these are places where you can bring Christ into the world.

We cannot speak beautifully about our Catholic faith and then act like complete jerks when we drive, eat at a restaurant, shop in a store, or deal with our own families. If receiving Christ does not begin to change how we treat people, then our Catholic identity has remained only on the outside.

We receive mercy so that we can become ministers of mercy to others.

The Canaanite woman believed that even a crumb falling from the Master’s table would be enough. She received the healing of her daughter and heard Jesus say, “O woman, great is your faith!”

We come to this altar and receive much more than crumbs. We receive the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. We have not earned him, and we do not deserve him.

But having received him, we cannot keep him for ourselves.

We are sent from this altar to carry his mercy into the world.