Paulist Fr. Rich Andre preached this homily for the 20th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year A) on August 16, 2020 at St. Austin Catholic Parish in Austin, TX. The homily is based on the day’s readings: Isaiah 56:1, 6-7; Psalm 67; Romans 11:13-15, 29-32; and Matthew 15:21-28.

All of our readings today address integrating people of differing nationalities, ethnicities, cultures, and religious beliefs. In Isaiah, God announces that his justice is about to break through, and when it does, all foreigners will be welcome to worship on the LORD’s mountain. Paul concludes that Jews who reject the gospel are still part of God’s plan. In our challenging gospel passage, Jesus and his disciples are on their way out of Israel when they meet a non-Jewish woman who asks for help. It may sound as if Jesus is disinterested in her. He eventually says something that equates her with a dog, and “dog” is still a disparaging term that’s used in many parts of the world to refer to a foreigner. 

Some interpreters argue that the woman’s witty response causes Jesus to change his mind, but I think Matthew has given us clues that there’s a better way to interpret this passage. Let us not jump to conclusions about who is responding to whom. Is Jesus simply talking with the woman, or is he testing the disciples as he did at the feeding of the five thousand in our gospel two week ago?

There are valid ways to interpret this passage so that it is as open and as inclusive as our other readings today. God grants mercy to all people, not just people who look and think like us. Let us celebrate that!

Some people say that the Canaanite woman had to convince Jesus to expand God’s mercy. Really? Why would this be the one instance of Jesus, the Son of the Living God, making a mistake until someone else corrects him?

For some help in interpreting this passage, let’s look at what’s happened in the previous two chapters of the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus preached at least 7 parables about the nature of the kingdom of heaven, a kingdom of surprising abundance. The disciples apparently didn’t remember Jesus’ teachings about the seed on good soil, the mustard seed, or the yeast, so he tested them to see if they realized that it was possible for them to feed a humongous crowd with a tiny amount of  food. And shortly after that, Peter discovered that he had enough faith to walk on water… at least for a few moments.

Jesus said that the kingdom was like farmhands who should not try to separate the weeds from the wheat until the harvest. And yet, in today’s passage, the disciples decide right then and there that the Canaanite woman is a weed. While there are a few instances in the gospels when people object to Jesus healing someone – because it’s the Sabbath, or because the disciples have a different agenda – there’s something different going on here. It seems as if they’ve decided this woman’s daughter is not worthy of Jesus’ healing. And they might be hard pressed to say why they decided this. She’s a woman. She’s from a different ethnic group. She’s presumably from a different region. She’s not a practicing Jew. Maybe her voice is annoying. Whatever it is, they are biased against her, and surely none of the disciples have ever attended a workshop to examine their unconscious biases. 

When Jesus initially stays silent, when he tells the disciples that he came to save the lost sheep of Israel, and when he tells the woman that it’s not right to take food from children, I think he’s testing the disciples. 

Jesus has been spoon-feeding the disciples about the expansiveness of God’s mercy, but they fail to digest even a morsel. Looking at the uncomprehending disciples, the woman points out that her plea takes nothing away from the disciples – she desires the food that they have chosen not to eat. Jesus called Peter “you of little faith,” but he says to the woman, “great is your faith!”

What parts of the gospel are we failing to comprehend? Do we use our biases to prevent other people from receiving nourishment?

It has now been 12 weeks since the death of George Floyd sparked world-wide protests. Since then, some parishioners at St. Austin have done a lot of reading, thinking, praying, and talking about the role that skin color plays in American society. ¹  Fr. Chuck led a one-night discussion on the U.S. Bishops’ document on racism, called “Open Wide Our Hearts.” Kristen Dempsey Pasyk and Sharon Bieser are leading the JustFaith study series on faith and racial healing. Rachel Vaughn and I are facilitating two groups working through Layla F. Saad’s workbook, Me and White Supremacy. More of our parishioners are participating in the monthly Courageous Conversations held by the majority Black Holy Cross Catholic Church than ever before.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but those of us in the Me and White Supremacy groups feel that we have been enriched through the hard, emotionally vulnerable work we’ve done together this summer. Although discussions about systemic racism and unconscious bias no longer cover the front pages of newspapers, we definitely sense the Holy Spirit urging us to keep reading, thinking, praying, and talking about how we can help undo the evils of racism. And while the Spirit compels us to act, we must act in ways that bring forth the full justice of God, rather than in ways that simply assure white people that it looks like we care about our brothers and sisters of color. 

This fall, we will continue hosting antiracism programs. Please join us, as you can,  in pushing back against the unconscious biases we all hold. Two programs of note: 

• St. Austin Catholic School begins its academic year tomorrow with a special focus on diversity. 
• St. Austin Catholic Parish is collaborating with four other parishes to provide the JustFaith study series on faith and racial healing to as many people as want to participate. (Sign up here. It starts on September 12.) 

Keep paying attention to our weekly enewsletter and our website for additional opportunities.

My Pentecost homily on white silence received more critical praise than any other homily I’ve ever given, but a few people were deeply offended, calling it un-informed, divisive, “racist,” and “the work of Satan.” And yet, if God is to reveal justice and bring foreigners to the holy mountain, we need to keep talking about how bias and racism continue to have detrimental effects on millions of Americans and billions of people worldwide. It makes me think of what Layla Saad says on Day #7 of her Me and White Supremacy workbook: “We do not take a day off [from examining white supremacy], because Black and Indigenous people of color do not get to take a day off from [the effects of] white supremacy.” If we’re closing our eyes to the injustices suffered by our brothers and sisters, we are part of the problem, like the disciples annoyed by the Canaanite woman’s pleading. 

Come, Holy Spirit! Make us uncomfortable, so that we may press on in building the kingdom of heaven!

Notes:

* The title of this homily, “Denial Is the Heartbeat of Racism,” is a quotation from How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi.