Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time - A

Lately, I have taken an interest in one of the masterworks of the famous and prolific English writer and Catholic convert, G.K. Chesterton: a book entitled, The Everlasting Man. Another well-known, English writer, C. S. Lewis credited The Everlasting Man with "baptising" his intellect, calling it "the [very] best popular defence of the full Christian position I know”. Lewis also cited it in a list of 10 books that "most shaped his vocational attitude and philosophy of life". In this book, Chesterton states: “The world owes God to the Jews.” The uniqueness of the declaration made me pause. “The world owes God to the Jews.” I continued reading and realized how evident and accurate this conclusion was; how profound and simple it was at the same time.

Popular theories on the development of worship would have us believe that monotheism, or belief in one true God, was a late development in humanity only after centuries of the worship of many Gods, known as polytheism. To the contrary, we believe that the human understanding of God was originally monotheistic and that from the beginning, we were created in a relationship with the One True God. Over time, and as a consequence of our fallen human nature, faith in this God was abandoned for the worship of created things. From this disordered type of worship, elaborate forms of polytheism grew and prevailed throughout human civilization everywhere, except in one place and among one people: in Israel, among the Jews.

Yet, Faith in the One True God did not originate with the Jews. Beginning with Abraham, God chose a people to be His People in order to preserve what was once lost among a mass of confused mythology. The Jews were given the Laws of God at the hand of the prophet Moses. By these laws, God charged His people to stand out among the other nations. To be holy and set apart for him alone and not to profane their religion by mingling their faith with the pagan practices of their neighbors; so that, through their obedience, the other nations would come to know who God was. And, though you and I might think parts of the Mosaic law are strict and strange, we can see that, at the very least, these laws set them apart from the polytheistic cultures that surrounded them. They served to remind the Jews that they were to be a sign, an emblem, a contrast that was significant enough to preserve the Faith in the One God, creator of heaven and earth in a world that had long ago abandoned it.

They would obey this law even to the point of death, because of the obedience of faith to which God called them. And so, for centuries, the Jews carried Faith in One God amidst the threats of polytheism, leading Chesterton to the conclusion that “the world owes God to the Jews.”

Turning to today’s Gospel reading from chapter 15 of Matthew, we meet Jesus at a particular time of in the history of the Jewish religion. As usual, we see Jesus challenging the understanding of the Jews of Jesus’ day; for the Jews had developed their religion to the point of hating their non-Jewish neighbors, whom they called “Gentiles”. Today, Jesus reminds the Jews that their separation from the Gentiles was not to develop into hatred and that the law was never meant to lead to the mistreatment of the stranger; that their obedience to the law was intended to lead the Gentiles to know God and to desire a relationship with God.

In the account of the Canaanite woman, Jesus is also testing the faith of the Canaanite woman. I would even say he is eager to play the role of the typical Jew so that his disciples can see how great a hunger the Gentiles have to know the one True God and to demonstrate how great a Gentile’s faith can be in contrast to many Jews. Why else would he have led them into the Gentile territory of Tyre and Sidon? It would be absurd to conclude that he was simply offending a Canaanite woman.

Jesus is telling the truth when he says that “[He] was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” At least, this was his first and primary mission, because this is what God promised the Jews, but Jesus is always listening to the Father, who also promised to the Gentiles what we read from Isaiah:

The foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, becoming his servants-
all who keep the sabbath free from profanation and hold to my covenant,
them I will bring to my holy mountain and make joyful in my house of prayer;
a house of prayer for all peoples.

In context, the purpose of the Father becomes clear: At the end of this chapter, we read about the feeding of the 4000 IN GENTILE Territory. Just one chapter before this, Jesus was feeding 5000 in Jewish territory. Clearly, Matthew marks a turning point and a teaching point in Jesus ministry.

Saint Paul attempts to capture the significance of Jesus actions in our second reading from the book of Romans, chapter 11. He speaks of the disobedience of the Jews which allowed the Gentiles to be united to the believing Jews, through faith in Jesus Christ, into one body, the Church. In some verses of this chapter which we did not read, he explains that “some of the branches were broken off [meaning the disobedient Jews], and you, a wild olive shoot [the Gentiles], were grafted in their place and have come to share in the rich root of the olive tree [Israel]…. They were broken off because of unbelief, but you are there because of faith.”

The teachings of the apostle are clear: The Church is the new Israel, and we have an obligation to continue what God began with the Israelites. In our modern times, we face something not unlike the situation of the ancient Jews, but instead of polytheism, the new Israel is threatened by any number of competing philosophies demanding equal validity with the gospel of our Lord.

Our modern culture suffers from the delusion that all philosophies (worldviews, beliefs) are equally valid because every person is of equal dignity. Now, although we can agree that every human person has equal dignity, we cannot agree that all philosophies are of equal worth, nor can we conclude that they are equally correct, especially if they are contradictory. Doing so would be contrary to reason.

Others may argue that we are all equally fallen in regard to our human nature, and so we can only conclude that all human philosophies are equally invalid, meaning that no one has any claim on the truth. This conclusion is equally unreasonable and ultimately leads to despair.

The only hopeful answer is the one we started with: that God chose to reveal Divine Truth to his people despite their sinful, fallen nature, in order that all may know Him and have a foundation for determining what is right and wrong, what will bring ultimate fulfillment and happiness. All of God’s people, having been baptized into Jesus Christ, have an obligation to live in the obedience of faith, just as the Jews did, so that all might come into a relationship with God leading to eternal salvation. Therefore, just as the Old Testament Faith did not originate with the Jews, the New Testament Faith does not originate with us.

We were baptized into Christ, not ourselves, and not unto ourselves, but unto God to be more conformed to his likeness in how we think and what we desire. For our sake, the Lord gave the keys to the kingdom to Saint Peter and his Successors in Rome, NOT to any of US. For centuries it has been their duty to protect the gospel and determine what teachings were essential to it.
When confronted with a behavior, practice, belief or philosophy in our modern world which contradicts the Gospel, we cannot treat the Faith as one opinion among equals. God has appointed the Church to guide us in these matters. We must pursue God like the Canaanite woman pursued Christ. We must also persevere in Faith like the Jews. As they were to reject the influence of the cultures around them, rejecting any other gods, so we must reject the erroneous thinking prevalent in our age. We should not profane the teachings of the Church by mingling them with teaching contrary to the Gospel entrusted to our leaders.

In this way all nations will come to know the one True God, through you and me – through our obedience of faith – a heritage entrusted to us by the Lord himself. Today, if you are a Jewish Catholic, rejoice that you are of the original olive tree. I you are a Gentile Catholic, rejoice that you have been grafted in, but let us together be on guard lest we once again be cut off.