Sunday Homily Living out salvation brings unity

This Gospel challenges us.
Here is how it appears:  the disciples treat an outsider, a woman with clear needs, coldly.  She is treated such because she is an outsider, and probably because she is a woman.  She annoys them.
Jesus follows suit with this treatment.  
Then it seems he has a change of mind.
Did the Son of God change his mind?  Did he call this woman a derogatory term, then see the error and change?
To be honest, I am not sure. For me, the message is not really about that, but something that points to the big picture and how have we accepted Jesus’ salvation.


Salvation, to be saved, means that we have experienced God’s love, in some manner, and it changed us.
God’s love, God’s grace instills a change of thought, change of heart within us.
God’s love by its very nature will inspire us to change.
Jesus came so that we can know of God’s infinite love, to know of the extent of that love (eternal) and to know that we can never ever lose that love, not even by killing Jesus.

Jesus came so that we will accept this gift of God’s love, this gift of salvation; and live as the free human persons we were created to be.
Freedom means that we too choose to love.  
Here is that situation:  this woman, this outsider, was a person.  
She was created by Father, and therefore had an inherent dignity.  
It did not matter the conditions of her birth, or otherwise.
And clearly this woman loves.  
She willingly accept the verbal abuse because her child, her daughter, had a desperate need.  
She did not let her own ego get in the way of true goodness.
Jesus responds to this.  
This is the faith that he speaks of.  
The Son of God, full of Love, responds in love to love.
We who claim Salvation...  
We who claim Jesus as our Lord and Savior, who eat and drink of his very body and blood...
We who claim that God loves us and all...do we act as such?  
Do we live a saved men and women?  
Are we inspired by God’s love for us to see love for others, no matter who they are?
The challenge to our Church, to our times, is this living out of God’s salvation.
We claim it, but too often, we don’t live it out to the fullness.
The German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer called this “Cheap grace.”
We seek to keep others away who are in need of that same love.
We make conditions and demands on them.
We place limits on them.
We tell them to get over it...do it yourself.
We invent so many excuses for NOT doing what is good, just and true.
And at times, we literally tell them to “Shut up.”
Clearly, as we saw this last weekend in Virginia, some of us claim the name Christian, but hate and ego still drives us.  Violence,division and death result.
Some of us claim love, but we still want to do whatever we want:  thinking “my” choice is supreme; when in reality choice is about making sure my “Ego” is satisfied; my life is easier.
People hurt and are hurting.  
People, just as this woman, search for God’s love; who seek healing for themselves, for their families and friends.
People that live on our streets.
They lay in our hospitals.
They exist in our nursing homes, addiction centers, homeless shelters, our schools, our youth centers, our parishes…
Too often we hear these same people being shut out, because they are not in conformity with Church teaching, church protocols, rules…
Because it is too inconvenient to go to them.
Because of so many stupid and senseless excuses; which reflects our own coldness of heart, our own fears.
And quite frankly it embarrasses us all as Church.
If we truly have experienced God’s love, that exclusion, those words and ideas of exclusion need to be foreign to us.
Rather, the words of Jesus would be more familiar… “O woman, great is your faith!...”




Comments

  1. rosalAugust 21, 2017 at 8:22 AM

    I think Jesus didn't change his mind but he changed their mind. I have no idea how dogs were treated at that time. If they were mistreated, and Him being a loving God, he showed them they treated dogs the same way they treated foreign women. I think the one that understood right away was the woman. Eating crumbs that fall from their master's table? Were not they feeding the dogs appropriately? He healed her and ..........her daughter (?) because she loved her the same way He loved dogs and all living things He created.

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