premature<\/strong> spreading of the Gospel among the pagans. This may seem counterintuitive but it makes sense.<\/p>\nHow clear was this plan in Jesus’ mind when he began his preaching? I don’t know, I’d say nobody knows. Being also a man, Jesus did not know everything, including the future; however, I am unable to analyze this complex theological problem, so I’ll leave it to others.
\nIn fact, discussing this issue isn’t even significant for this article.
\nTrue, his not having a universal mission in mind at the time is technically within the range of possible scenarios; a version of Jesus who genuinely thought he came exclusively for the Jews would not be prejudicial to faith, albeit problematic. But we have no reason to believe that this was the case!<\/p>\n
I personally find this widespread attitude utterly ridiculous<\/strong>: claiming to demonstrate prudence and \u201cscientific\u201d rigor by insisting only a reconstruction that minimizes each and every juicy bit could receive a stamp of approval by historians<\/strong>. In this case, Jesus Christ would almost inevitably be unaware, misunderstood, reinterpreted arbitrarily.
\nRealistically: how many times have we heard of leaders or holy men who claimed to (be able to) save the world, usually greatly overestimating their power, knowledge and relevance? Now, enlightened scholars would try to convince us that by contrast right when God chose to come in the flesh, to actually save the world<\/strong>, He became a man who had totally different, short-term goals, and had no idea<\/strong> about this grand plan, the essence<\/strong> of his mission!
\nEven if you believe Jesus was an impostor, it’s a stretch to assume he was so successful in unwittingly launching a universal religion, while so many weren’t that were actually trying to.<\/p>\nBut, as I said, we don’t need to give a final answer to this issue here and now. What interests us at present is this: Jesus had good reasons to behave as he did. He wasn’t malevolent nor a slave to sinful prejudices.<\/p>\n
Putting every piece of the puzzle in its proper place\u2026
\nAt this juncture, the most obvious objection would be:
\n\u201c OK, it makes sense to resist the pagan. But couldn’t he act a bit less outrageously, act diplomatic, thus avoiding us a few headaches?\u201d<\/p>\n
Again, here’s why I insist on talking about the Bible text being an interlocking puzzle.
\nIt’s not just events that are deeply interconnected, each of them carrying out a specific function; you have to consider the multiple and concomitant purposes of each individual passage of scriptures.
\nIf in fact, the text exists to communicate a series of messages, coexisting on different levels, we will find it unsatisfactory or inappropriate if we’re only interested in a very specific idea, obsessively focusing on that and expecting the whole paragraph to be optimized to convey that specific message and nothing else<\/strong>.
\nLet me go back again to the classic case of the Muslim who finds scriptural references to the divinity of Jesus not sufficiently clear, indeed far from indisputable from his point of view. Of course! That’s because Jesus isn’t only God, and his having a complex relationship with the Father, in addition to being a man, prevents the simplistic, naively requested form of revelation: an imaginary Jesus saying \u201c Here I am in front of you, I am God the Father, Creator of the Universe, worship me\u201d.
\nThe Gospels are hard to decipher and that’s by design: they must be impervious to any one-dimensional interpretation!<\/p>\nHere we have a text that<\/p>\n
– must first of all be a historical pivot point<\/strong>,
\n– then it must retell<\/strong> a story that really happened; a story that serves to emphasize a need for development<\/strong>\u00a0in preaching,
\n– additionally, it’s meant to illustrate a proper attitude of humble prayer, plus the crucial being put to the test<\/strong>\u00a0by God;
\n– plus other meanings. All present in those few words.<\/p>\nPerhaps it is now clear why I feel like developing such a long analysis: if I were to deal separately with some of the contents and teachings found in this reading, one could hardly appreciate their interdependence.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Fourth teaching opportunity, and quite significant: Jesus testing us<\/h3>\n
We finally got to the point where a sermon from a real-life priest could begin: stick to explaining the most immediate and proper meaning of this passage.<\/p>\n
Again, if Scripture is to be read as a whole, it makes no sense to pretend to get a glimpse of the character of Jesus from a single passage. We know about His ultimate sacrifice on the Cross; we observe that Jesus sets lofty, seemingly impossible goals for us, but at the same time he’s caring, benevolent<\/strong>, always willing to forgive.<\/p>\nSo let’s take those words uttered by Jesus as calculated, not malicious<\/strong>.<\/p>\nFirst of all, this woman isn’t just from a different ethnicity. She’s a pagan: a slave<\/strong> of a system of superstitions; she doesn’t believe in God but in many divinities, or more properly mysterious, magical forces; to be feared but also to turn to, in order to get favors.<\/strong> She belongs to a people known for the sinister practice of human sacrifices to the god Moloch, especially children.
\nLet’s face it: human sacrifices<\/strong> were far from a rarity in the ancient world. In fact our ancestors in prehistoric times were anthropophagous<\/em>. The heart of man is full of darkness. Even Israel had been there: we find traces of this fact in the Bible. Abraham’s story, on his being ready to sacrifice Isaac, but receiving a sort of call, a moment of clarity, thus sparing his child, reflects this.
\nSo, it’s appropriate to re-center the perspective and say: yes, after so many centuries, believing in these superstitions<\/strong> represented a problem. Even for a pagan, that could be called a sin<\/strong>, that one needs to be freed from.
\nMaybe not necessarily insulted, but for their beliefs the Canaanites deserved to be confronted without much ceremony, highlighting the evil of their way of life.<\/p>\nIt’s true that one may believe in the worst of the worst<\/em> in good faith; moreover, being a woman, realistically in her society there weren’t many escape routes for her. In practice, she was chained up to her world, religious practices included<\/strong>: through practical impediments, her family, social rules and conventions.
\nTo think of it, perhaps this is why we find Jesus, more often than not, meeting women, not men, from neighboring populations (think also of the Samaritan woman). First of all this type of dialogue, between a rabbi (teacher), from a people known for their scrupulous care for ritual purity, and an impure or pagan woman, indeed causes scandal, but it also represents an opportunity for a reversal of perspective, for the emancipation and affirmation of the dignity of women<\/strong>\u2026 Secondly, this could be a sign of Jesus’ greater indulgence towards women, for their limited responsibility<\/strong> in their condition and the faults of their people.<\/p>\nPlus here we may find a further teaching opportunity nested inside. Our faults need to be acknowledged and chastised, especially if the protagonist speaking is a teacher capable of reading people’s hearts, someone who knows when a dressing down is in order. This is a far cry from our modern attitude: diplomacy at all costs, giving up even the idea of mentioning sin, letting the wounds become infected… for fear of driving people away, or maybe hurting their feelings!<\/strong>
\nIndeed, this is our modern faith and deeds: lukewarm, clueless, inconclusive.
\nNo, it’s better to have a moment of conflict, to cause a gut reaction if anything, even hostility! Open, honest criticism helps shed light on an infection that is festering. Going for a quiet life, not poking the bear, means eventually forgetting what lies behind acting morally and doing evil \u201cin earnestness\u201d<\/strong>.<\/p>\nIronically, from a people who attributed a sacred value to immolating children, here comes a mother who’s willing to try anything to save her child.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n
What would Christ say to us in a similar situation, given that the babies we immolate on altars where one reads \u201cMy body, my choice\u201d are then uncerimoniously thrown in the hospital waste bin?<\/div><\/div>\n
A mother’s heart.<\/strong> Here we’re getting to the heart of the problem. If you’re a mother this works even better, but still… try to put yourself in her shoes: what wouldn’t you try to save your child? This happens in our day too: once the most promising conventional options and therapies are exhausted, we turn to the most diverse and improbable alternative treatments. Including the guy who treats tumors with lemon juice, the other non-doctor who uses baking soda instead (why not both, since you’re at it, so that you get a nice foam?), a \u201c pranotherapist \u201d laying his hands on us… Up to the Indian guru who invented his very own religion, inspired by the usual oriental traditions, which are hardly ever out of fashion…
\nThere is something for everyone in this supermarket, indeed. We believe any puny idol which promises to restore our health. We’re pagans again.<\/strong><\/p>\nThink how happy Jesus could be to be placed onto this stage, treated like a run-of-the-mill Sai Baba… here’s someone desperately trying anything<\/strong>, in practice saying \u201cLet’s try this too: here’s a foreign teacher who they say, is capable of healing impossible cases\u201d\u2026
\nJesus isn’t just, as often was the case, annoyed that people seek wonders and miracles instead of the Word that saves.
\nA miracle is an absolutely exceptional tool, happening for a reason, for the Revelation: a sign confirming<\/strong> a faith, showing how it’s not just a belief based on empty, beautiful words…
\nThe last thing you’d accept: to see miracles down to a means to obtain a desired result. Imagine finding this woman, a month after the miracle, possibly burning incense again in front of a random magic statuette\u2026
\nHere’s the reason, indeed the need, to test her!
\nThat woman is called to recognize a priority.\u00a0JHWH (I am), the God of Israel, truly exists; from there comes true salvation. Whoever is outside… is as if they were part of a lesser humanity, lost in ignorance.<\/strong> Not only must she recognize this reality, but to do it clearly, to humbly demonstrate an openness of her heart to conversion. On the other hand, a blind attempt, made only because she had nothing to lose, would not have been acceptable.
\nThat’s what she had to go through, humbly and spontaneously offering: yes, I am like a dog, but I’d be happy if I could just feed myself with the crumbs.<\/em>
\nOnce you read this passage from this angle, that’s a magnificent result: test passed<\/strong>. Awesome. Something to contemplate.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Additional consideration: here it’s about her child being liberated from a demon, rather than from some form of ailment. Although eventually the term used means healed<\/em>. The two, at that time and in their worldview, were quite superimposable. Yours truly, of course, does not exclude anything a priori<\/em>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Fifth: the credibility of the Scriptures, once again<\/h3>\n
For me this is perhaps the most significant aspect, the pivot point<\/strong> of the entire passage, yet it arises from a retrospective analysis.<\/p>\nThis is a useful passage, especially for skeptics.<\/p>\n
I had observed that there are many evidences and clues, documentary and even archaeological, of the fact that the NT is by no means the result of a long creative process, carried out by a community (supposedly) free to invent stories due to their distance in time and space from Jesus’ Galilee and Judea.
\nHere, I said, in the wake of others far more competent than me, including first of all Vittorio Messori: this distance is<\/strong> not just assumed but desired, since it’s super useful<\/strong> for the purposes of many exegetes; that’s why they fight tooth and nail for it: because it allows to diminish the credibility of the Gospels. Which happens to be the actual goal<\/strong>, stemming out of personal, collectively fashionable, philosophical prejudices<\/strong>. If there were no distance, this would create a problem for skeptics that want to dismiss the most challenging contents.<\/p>\nIn this reading we can find a textbook case. I believe I already mentioned in the past one of the criteria that are used to evaluate the credibility of a text: the criterion of embarrassment<\/strong>.<\/p>\nWhy, if you made up this story, should you put words in your characters’ mouths that put them in a bad light and\/or hinder your preaching?<\/strong>
\nHere’s a passage that seems to indicate a Jesus sent to Israel alone, which creates a huge problem. Even assuming this blunt dialogue wouldn’t be seen as off-putting to an audience of Greek language and culture, as it makes us moderns raise an eyebrow… Why leave in the book a text where preaching to pagans was hampered<\/strong>, unless<\/p>\n1. that dialogue indeed happened<\/strong>,
\n2. you had to faithfully report<\/strong>\u00a0the facts and words of Jesus, even when counterproductive?<\/p>\nPlease take notice of the exceptional weight this nugget of truth shall have, however hidden in the folds this is.
\nEven more so if we take into account the alleged time distance. A community of the late 1st century, early 2nd, should have taken into account that a large part of the faithful and potential new converts came directly from paganism, as indeed began to happen almost immediately. They’d never have invented such a scene. Indeed, if it already existed and they were as free to modify the Gospel as alleged, they’d have expunged it from the manuscripts. If not to avoid rejecting the pagans, at least in order not to feed internal disputes between Christians respectively of Jewish origin or coming from paganism (quarrels that were already seen in the Acts of the Apostles).<\/p>\n
Therefore, considering that in the composition of the Gospels many events and words of Jesus have been omitted, for example for the sake of brevity, even just based on the peculiarity of this passage we can draw two further reasonable conclusions:
\n3. it was composed, and circulated<\/strong> as a preaching tool, well before the fall of the Temple of Jerusalem (in the year 70 AD), really close to the facts<\/strong>;
\n4. the community later\u00a0could not change<\/strong> significantly the text, indeed they did not.<\/p>\n(Point 3 is perhaps not obvious to everyone, but the year 70 marks the end of ancient Israel; it represents a breaking point: mentioning a mission entirely to the people of Israel made sense only for a text written as a practical, immediate preaching aid, used in that specific context, before everything changed.)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
No kidding! In a world where the opinion of ignorant atheists prevails, often without challenge, proclaiming Jesus Christ completely equivalent to fairies and gnomes, here’s an example of how convincing conclusions can be drawn even based on biased texts.
\nThis, without falling into a kind of superficial absolutism that is in fact typical of these unbelievers: they’re really convinced they can separate reliable sources from unreliable tales just like that, without delving deeper.<\/p>\n
Just the fact that a passage seems counterproductive and inappropriate happens to represent its most precious treasure: as if it represented an<\/strong> unintended and invisible (to the human author) anti-counterfeiting seal<\/strong>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Notice how the know-it-all may feel reinforced in their skepticism by objections pointing in opposite directions<\/strong>, as if this did not create contradictions:
\n1. on the one hand, Jesus would not have dreamed of founding a new religion, or of aiming to convert all humanity, beyond Israel;
\n2. on the other, the texts of the NT would be quite late, hardly credible, works of fantasy.<\/p>\nThis reading instead seems to be designed to destroy their sophistries, because the mere fact that it could offer an opportunity for people to think of point #1 then excludes #2! But at the same time it is not affirming #1; through other means it is possible to exclude it.<\/p>\n
Through this two separate arguments are dismantled: both the malicious interpretations based on textual internal criteria and the idea that internal criteria cannot be used to come to a tangible, reliable result<\/strong>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Last teaching, still underestimated and partly unexplored: in His image!<\/h3>\n
This last point, which touches on large-scale but elusive and rarely discussed issues, allow me to discuss it another time. Hard, but deserving a second look.
\nI’ll just say: Jesus isn’t just opposed to limiting the miracle to a means to an end, however understandable: healing a daughter or freeing her from a devil. He’s asked something that isn’t appropriate at the moment<\/strong>: to shift his attention, turning to pagans. How does all this fit into God’s plan? Similarly we could highlight the miracle of Cana.<\/p>\nPerhaps the divine plan foresaw \u201csince forever\u201d that specific miracle, but then why react as if it were a wrong request? Or maybe it wasn’t in the plans, so why answer it?
\nAs if God could be bent over our prayers<\/strong>; changing his mind\u2026
\nWell … well!
\nIt seems that it is so. Appropriately Jesus is also a man, immersed in time. As such he can additionally show this side of our relationship with him. We participate<\/strong> in our own way, through a gift that is given to us, in defining the very form of reality<\/strong>. Truly God could have made history follow alternative, different ways. But we can choose, ask and get. Even for what is good, there can be many different ways. And this is how we leave\u00a0 a mark: our footprint<\/strong>.<\/p>\nThis too, I would say, is part of being created in his image.<\/p>\n
Just\u00a0with his showing a contrary will, Jesus makes us discreetly understand that in our small way we have a power to change the future, beyond the visible effect of our actions<\/strong>. If he had always been pleased and ready to answer affirmatively, we could have suspected that we were living an existence entirely predetermined to stay on fixed rails, where nothing we do is actually of our volition, every bit is a reflection of the divine will.<\/p>\nBut if we really participate in creation like this, from the inside, well… this changes everything.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time \u2013 Year A Oh, this reading was meant to spark controversy! Jesus is in pagan land, in the region of Tire and Sidon. A local woman (Canaanite) asks him\u00a0to save her sick daughter (she was said to have \u201ca demon\u201d, but that’s not necessarily meant as a demonic possession in the proper sense). Jesus, at least at first, appears unfriendly, contemptuous. He states that he’s been sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel! Only after doubling down, comparing pagans like her to house pets, It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs\u2026<\/p>\n
Continue reading<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2671,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,866],"tags":[961,962,12,963,871,392,960,164,958,959,147,280],"yoast_head":"\nPseudo-Homilies 27 - Jesus, a backward xenophobe? - Blumudus<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n