"For my house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples”

Readings

Isaiah 56:1, 6-7

Romans 11:13-15, 29-32

Matthew 15:21-28

When I looked at Matthew’s gospel while preparing for today’s Sunday Eucharist, I had the impression that I have already heard similar stories somewhere else. Where? Oh yes,  in the book of Midrash, the jewish writings. I don’t know if you ever heard if it. So before explaining why today’s story of Jesus and the Canaanite woman looks very much like a Midrash, it’s worth saying what a Midrash is.  

In the Rabbis’ tradition a Midrash  is an interpretive act, seeking the answers to religious questions (both practical and theological) by plumbing the meaning of the words of the Torah. (In the Bible, the root d-r-sh is used to mean inquiring into any matter, including occasionally to seek out God’s word.) Midrash then responds to contemporary problems and crafts new stories, making connections between new Jewish realities and the unchanging biblical text, which in some type of Midrash would imply to ability of creating homilies and parables based on the text.

In this sense, Matthew’s story about Jesus and the Canaanite looks very much like a Midrash, a made up story to inquire a very important question and make connections between a new Christian reality and the biblical text. Now what was the question and what is the new reality connected to this text and perhaps the main reason of the question? Can a Canaanite, a foreigner, a pagan be part of the new Israel, the Christian community, if he/she hasn’t be part of the People of God, the old Israel? Foreigners who converted to Judaism were usually treated as a second class believers. So, how can they now become Jesus’ followers without previously been Israelites? This is the crucial question that Matthew’s gospel is trying to answer, which triggers a question about to whom Matthew is speaking to, and with whom he is engaging on this debate. It seems to me that the gospel talks to a community of people who converted from Judaism to Christianity and struggle to accept that non Jewish people can convert to Christian faith and be treated as equals to them. This is perhaps their problem: how anyone who didn’t belong to the chosen People of God can be treated the same way as us, the chosen ones? This is not a new question as we heard from the Book of Isaiah, but it is certainly a question that has been asked over and over through the history of the People of Israel, and has its grip on our current reality.

Isaiah is prophesying a time where “all who observe the sabbath, not profaning it, and cling to my covenant, these I will bring to my holy mountain. (...) For my house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples”. Isaiah is actually predicting a future where ethnic identities and political, social and cultural differences won’t matter anymore, because God’s message will be universally equally heard by anyone anywhere. Are we there yet? Well, Isaiah’s prophecy sounds more like a idealistic utopia that never happened during Israel’s time and it is hard to see in our society. Strongly affirmed in theory and beautifully defined in International Declarations, it seems to clash with a reality of social tensions, hatred and divisions. For instance, what happened in Charlotteville a few days ago cannot be underestimated.   

Today’s gospel challenges us on a personal and community level asking the same question again and again. Imagine for a second then -instead of Tyre and Sidon, the cities mentioned in the gospel-  the text would you say Baghdad and Pyongyang? Just imagine that instead of a Canaanite woman, it would say a north Korean woman or Syrian nationalist (bearing in mind that this is just an example). A Jewish converted to the Christian faith would have hardly believed in the conversion of a Canaanite as well as we would probably be very skeptical about a North Korean or a Syrian nationalist converting to democracy after so many decades of Communist brainwashing or years of active terrorist violence. Now maybe this not too politically correct, but this comparison would help us to understand the impact that it would have probably generated in the early Christian community a story like the one we heard from today’s gospel. Like a stone thrown into a pond of still water, it would reverberate by generating so many circles of reflection and reactions into our congregation and local community as well. Jesus not only acknowledged the Canaanite’s faith, but also praised her faith and boldness. Fascinating! In that sense, the one who truly understood how revolutionary was Jesus’ message for the early Christian communities and the future of the whole Christianity is, without any doubt, St Paul. And he says it clearly in his letters. As a matter of fact, in the letter to the Romans, the one we heard today- he talks explicitly about the full inclusion of the Gentiles -meaning the non Jewish people- in God’s plans of salvation. Who are they? Usually, they are foreigners. What question is left to our reflection? Today’s gospel challenges us in our inner and, very often, psychological and sociological temptation of dividing the world, and our world in two main categories: in and out, insiders and outsiders, in-group and out-groups, and essentially us and them. This dualistic view of the world can really become an evil dynamic in our daily life, especially when we start making decisions based on these two categories. It is not just discrimination, it is more about the way it shapes our mindset and pushes us to pigeonhole people in certain boxes and being able to take control of the situation by labelling them. Think of what happened in Charlotteville: white supremacists against counter-demonstrators. This is quite common in the Church of England as well. And although I personally think that the diversity of traditions expressed in the UK is a more a sign of the richness of the Church than a sign of divisions, some people would perhaps see it a way of feeling less anxious about with whom I’m engaging with and who’s who. You are Anglo-Catholic, and he is Evangelical, but not conservative, and so on and so forth. The gospel will always challenge our mindsets and try to open our minds pushing us to the limits and beyond, to Tyre and Sidon, where a Canaanite -a foreigner, someone we already labelled and from whom we would expect the worst-  would surprise us showing a greater faith that any other faithful Israelite or Christian.                       

Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary (BVM)

As many English people and maybe some of you do, during summer time I tend to go with my family to warmer places than England. The choices are usually Italy or Spain. However, It has been awhile since the last time I have been in Italy or Spain on the date of the feast of the BVM, which is kept as a Solemnity in those countries despite the unbearable warmth.

I still recall one of those occasions when I was in Italy for the feast of the BVM and could picture in my mind people processing under the most inclement sun, sweating like pigs and hoping that the following year the vicar would make a shorter procession. Here in London our spring-ish summer allow us to take some time to pray and reflect on the beauty of the feast we celebrate today.

We heard a majestic and dramatic opening to this Feast by the Book of Revelation, which will inspire so many artists and result in the production of plenty of paintings and statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary depicted exactly as described in the first verse of today’s first reading: “A woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars”.  

The scene we heard described in the Revelation foresees the great cosmic battle between Good and Evil, respectively represented by the Virgin who is about to give birth and the red dragon ready to devour the child to be born. In this vision the woman plays an absolutely central and crucial role in the history of salvation. Without her there would have been no salvation because she is the one who would give birth to the child “destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod”.

This is also the central message for the celebration of the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary we receive from the Christian tradition. Already in earlier centuries, it was believed that Jesus glorified the body of his mother and took it to heaven making it similar to his and stressing the role of Mary in the history of salvation.

In many countries the Assumption is marked as a Holy Day of Obligation in the Roman Catholic Church and as a festival in the Anglican Communion. Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholics celebrate the Dormition of the Theotokos (the falling asleep of the Mother of God) on the same date. What we celebrate then is something that Christians have always believed since the early centuries: Jesus wanted to give a special recognition to her mother for her role in the history of salvation. Why is this celebration so important to us? There are certainly many reasons why we keep this feast, but one is particularly important: she is one of us, a human being with free will and capable to say “no” to God and turn down his plans of saving the world from destruction. The beauty of Mary lies in her freedom, through which she chooses to be the Mother of God, the Theotokos. She chooses to say “yes”. This is the beautiful truth we celebrate today.

There are some beautiful paintings like the one by the Renaissance artist Leonardo Da Vinci who very boldly described the annunciation as a declaration of love: a noble man proposing to a princess. This is the interpretation that some experts actually make of the renowned painting. If we could translate this into the original theological meaning of the biblical text, we would perhaps say that it is God who proposes to Mary through his messenger. Fascinating! How beautiful is a God with an expectant look towards Mary hoping to receive a “Yes” like a lover proposing to his beloved and expecting to be accepted. It is such a moving and profound image of the encounter between God and Mary. On that “Yes” will depend the destiny of the whole history of salvation. This is also what we celebrate today: Mary’s yes to God’s plan of salvation for the whole humanity. Let’s avoid the temptation to take her “yes” as a line of a script already written for her. This is not acting! We may have to understand that she could have said “no” to God, which makes her even grander to the eyes of the world. She didn’t, she said “Yes” and it all begun.

This feast of the BVM, then, is so important to us because it sets us into the right perspective in our daily Christian life. Like Mary we can always say “no” to God’s plan of salvation for our life and the life of the people who live with us, and the community we live in. We can turn him down by not listening to his voice or simply doing the opposite of what he asks us to do, or even worse by ignoring him. Mary reminds us the beauty and terrible responsibility of being human and endowed with free will. We are not machines, we are not determined to say necessarily “yes”. Sometimes, we don’t realise the consequences of saying “no” to God and the impact of it in somebody else’s life. However, it is absolutely true that we have been created as free beings and endowed with free will. It is not very hard to find evidence of that! By looking to what happens around us and in the world we will dramatically realise how many “Nos” are said to God’s plans and “Yes” to violence and death, and essentially evil. What happened in Nigeria where at least 11 people were killed in an attack on a Catholic church service in southern Nigeria last Sunday, is just one of the many examples of that.    

In Mary we celebrate the exaltation of human freedom before God, our creator who made us 100% free as well as its powerful responsibility. Like Mary we take part in the cosmic fight against evil. The red dragon is still here. It’s not gone just because we don’t talk about it. At the same time, we know that evil has already lost the battle, because the Virgin gave birth to the Child who will save the world. With Mary we sing the Magnificat, which is the exaltation of her and our magnificent freedom. A freedom that made her and us part of God’s plan, glorifying the humble and the weak and scattering the proud in their conceit.

How beautiful is the encounter between Mary and Elizabeth, so full of biblical echo and accomplished prophecy.  It also shows us that the exaltation of Mary is a symbol of human and godly fruitfulness. When God’s will meets human freedom, there will always be love, which for us will mean to be the Son of God, the child destined to be the savior of the world. With Mary we say “Yes” to life, to love, to beauty, to holiness and justice despite the death, hatred, ugliness, secularism and injustice we see in our society and this world.

How does the kingdom of God look like?

A new vicar in a small town in Gloucester spent the first four days making personal visits to each of the members of his Congregation, inviting them to come to his first service.

The following Sunday, the church was all but empty. Accordingly, the vicar placed a notice in the local newspapers, stating that because the church was dead, it is everyone’s duty to give it a decent Christian burial. The funeral would be held the following Sunday afternoon, the notice stated.

Morbidly curious, a large crowd turned out for the “funeral.” In front of the pulpit, they saw a closed coffin, smothered with flowers. After the vicar delivered the eulogy, he opened the coffin and invited his congregation to come forward and pay their final respects to their dead church.

Filled with curiosity as to what would represent the corpse of a “dead church”, all the people lined up to look into the coffin. Each “mourner” peeped into the coffin then quickly turned away with a guilty, sheepish look.

In the coffin, tilted at the correct angle, was a large mirror!

Why does Jesus speak in parables?

From a teaching point of view, it doesn’t make any sense. We heard a parable that wasn’t even understood by his own disciples. They actually come to him in puzzlement and ask him: “Why do you speak to them in parables?” In other words, they are asking: “Why would someone speak in a way that is unintelligible to his audience?” It sounds rather confusing and amazingly contradictory.  Can you imagine a teacher who would teach maths in the most possible cryptic way in order to confuse his students instead of leading them to a better comprehension of it. His main task would be to make simple what it is complicated, not the other way around. It sounds rather ridiculous to our ears and very much against the common sense.

Now what if, as a scientist would do, I’m trying to explain the origin of the entire universe but don’t have the vocabulary for it. Stephen Hawking, for instance, is a very good example of that. The theory of the black holes was something he had in mind, his original intuition. Unfortunately nobody thought of it before, so that he had to make up concepts and images to explain something new, something that no one never thought of before. He had to make up words and invent a new vocabulary for it in order to make sense to other people of something extraordinary new. What He was trying to say would actually represent what in science they may call a paradigm shift, and we may call a revolutionary change -in more simple words.

Why then Jesus speaks in parables? Because what he proclaims is the kingdom of God. How does the kingdom of God look like? That’s his question. He knows that the kingdom of God He announces is more than good teaching or a set of wise advices about how to be a good person. It contains a new ethos, but it actually overcomes all that has been said before about it. The truth Jesus wants us to receive is hugely bigger that our human understanding and capacity of comprehension. And this is perhaps why he uses parables. Through parables he gives us a hint into what and how the kingdom of God looks like.  It’s God’s visions what Jesus longs to transmit to us, but he feels that lack of vocabulary for it, not just to describe it, but to communicate it as a whole. Just think, for example, of the series of short parables and images that Jesus uses to give us glimpses of the kingdom of God.

The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. The kingdom of God is like a yeast, or like a treasure hidden in a field, like a merchant in search of fine pearls, like a net thrown into the sea ad caught fish of every kind. They are amazing parables and imagines of the kingdom of God, but never quite define it completely.

The kingdom of God is like…

Today we heard the parable of sower, a powerful parable. Jesus seems to look at the world as a limitless field and tells us God’s sowing of his word would impact and transform our lives according to our responses to it.

If the kingdom of God is a revolutionary change brought to our lives, then it is transformative change that would be very much about a new way of living our lives. It would include a vision of the world as well as an ethos that would change our way of being a community and reshape our lives. It would a way of finding meaning and a place in this world, and essentially of learning how to be the family of God and brothers and sisters to each other. This is perhaps the revolutionary change Jesus talks about through the parable of the sower. Jesus brings to us a new sense of brotherhood.

Now where do I get that from this parable? For each thing Jesus says it always good to look at the context in which his parables happen to be said. Just a few verses before Jesus tells us this parable, something happened. His mother and his brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to him. And when someone, tells him about them, he replies quite harshly: “Here are my mother and brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother”. Is is actually rejecting his mother, or refusing to recognize his own family? No, He takes advantage of the situation to give us a glimpse of how the kingdom of God looks like, and tells us the parable of the sower.  

Interestingly this parable challenges its audience on a life/death level. It doesn’t seem to be a middle ground for the sowing of God’s word: it rather bears fruit or dies. Also, we realise how provocative was Jesus’ way of proclaiming the gospel. The gospel actually ends up with: “Let anyone with ears to hear listen!” The parable of the sower challenges us on a very deep level: “Do we preach and witness a gospel of good manners and good behavior as the highest values of our community or we provocatively live according to Jesus’ revolutionary message of love for the enemy, forgiveness and solidarity towards the poor and the needy?” When we look at our Church and Congregation, and Local community do we see a coffin with a dead church in it or a sign of the kingdom of God in living worship and action? In our life’s blueprint -as Martin Luther King would call it- do we wager our lives on money, power success or have a solid commitment to beauty, love and justice?