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The Consequences
On this third day of the first reading sequence we find Ezekiel 12:1-12 and one of Ezekiel’s famous prophetic sign-actions. God tells Ezekiel to pack an exile’s baggage. In daylight, while everyone watches, he is to carry his belongings away. Then he is to dig through the wall and leave with his face covered. He becomes a living parable. And the reason is given immediately: “Son of man, you live in the midst of a rebellious house; they have eyes to see but do not see, and ears to hear but do not hear.” (12:2)
Notice how naturally this follows the preceding readings. The prophet has eaten the Word. Israel has refused the Word. God’s glory has departed the Temple. Now Ezekiel physically demonstrates where all this leads: exile.
There is also something pastorally interesting about Ezekiel’s bizarre behavior. When ordinary speech no longer penetrates, God tells the prophet essentially to become the message. Ezekiel doesn’t merely announce exile; he packs his bags and acts it out in the street.
Image credit: A fresco from St. John the Baptist Church in Kratovo, Macedonia (photo: Rašo, via Wikimedia Commons)
A Framework to Understand the Response
This coming Sunday is the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time. It is believed that the etymology of “Hebrew” comes from the Semitic root ‘apiru, which refers to those who cross over. It is an apt description when one considers the journeys of Abraham and Sarah, the travels of Jacob/Israel and his 12 sons, and the Exodus of the Jews to Israel – a narrative history of people who were “other” and yet willing to “cross over” because of the call of God. And paradoxically, the disciples are not willing to “cross over” to console this woman who is “other.”
This “otherness” has to understood in the context of Mt 14 and Mt 15:1-20.
Why did the disciples cross the lake (14:22)? To get to the other side – but not willingly. What’s so important on the other side, that Jesus, literally, “immediately” (eutheos) “forces” (anagkazo) the disciples to get into the boat and head that direction? When disciples first cross the lake through a storm, they land on the Gentile/unclean side (Mt 8:23-34). With the boat trip of Mt 14, Jesus had sent them to “the other side” (14:22, see also 16:5), was that meant to be the Gentile side? In Mark, Jesus had sent the disciples to Bethsaida (Mk 6:45), which is on the Gentile side of the Jordan, but they didn’t make it. They end up in Gennesaret (Mk 6:53; Mt 14:34) which is on the Jewish side of Lake Galilee. Can storms at sea (and “little faith”) keep disciples from reaching the destinations where Jesus has sent them? It is a question we can all ask of ourselves and our communities of faith. This issue of “other” and “clean/unclean” is the issue Jesus takes up in Mt 15 (and was addressed in the “Context” section).
The disciples are people learning what it demanded of true discipleship to Jesus. They are emerging from a time in which there is a major holiness movement headed by the Pharisees which is implemented in laws of ritual purity and cleanliness – in which things and people can make you unclean. The disciples are being called into an era in which they are called to “cross over” to all peoples, but not just yet. That commission will become clear in the post-Resurrection appearance of Jesus. For now, it is already clear in Matthew that Jesus and his disciples ministered only to the lost sheep of Israel (9:35–36; 10:5–6).
However, there has already been one notable exception to this rule, the healing of the Centurion’s servant (8:5–13). It is noteworthy that both the previous and the present cases of ministry to Gentiles center around exceptional faith (8:10; 15:28). Both cases involve a request for another person, the Centurion’s servant and the Canaanite woman’s daughter (8:6, 8; 15:22). Both cases also speak of blessing in terms of table fellowship (8:11; 15:26–27), which is then applied to the primacy of Israel. The Roman official may look forward to sitting down at a table with the Jewish patriarchs, and the woman may have scraps of the children’s bread. The language of the table is clearly eschatological in 8:11 and is implicitly so here in Matthew 15, since the woman received blessings flowing from the presence of the Kingdom (12:28). The story of the Canaanite woman is, in a way, the preamble to the gentile missions: not yet, but emerging. For now the Israelites are still called to be the light to the nations – and hence the primacy of mission to them.
Image credit: Jean Germain Drouais, Christ and the Canaanite Woman, 1784, Louvre Museum | Public Domain
Tragedy upon tragedy
Yesterday, the meaning of the first reading, from Ezekiel, was that before the prophet can speak God’s word, he must allow God’s word to become part of him. The prophet is given terrible news. Even though the scroll given him contains “lamentation and wailing and woe” when Ezekiel eats it, “it was as sweet as honey in my mouth.” Today’s first reading (Ezekiel 9:1-7; 10:18-22) jumps into the great Temple vision of chapters 8–11.
Although not part of the reading, Chapter 8 is an important background for understanding the selected reading. Ezekiel has been shown the idolatry and corruption taking place within Jerusalem and even within the Temple precincts. Chapter 9 therefore portrays judgment coming upon the city. But then comes one of the most haunting moments in the entire book: “Then the glory of the LORD left the threshold of the temple…” (10:18) That is devastating. The Temple was supposed to signify God’s dwelling among Israel. But Israel had come dangerously close to assuming that possessing the Temple guaranteed God’s presence regardless of how the people lived.
Ezekiel overturns that assumption. God cannot be reduced to a building, institution, ritual, or religious possession.
There is an intriguing detail: the glory of God does not disappear instantaneously. Across Ezekiel 10–11 it seems almost to depart reluctantly. The glory of God passes from the Ark of the Covenant’s cherubim, to the Temple threshold, toward the east gate, and finally to the mountain east of the city (11:23). It almost reads like a divine procession of departure.
The theological disaster of 586 BC therefore isn’t simply, “Babylon destroyed our Temple.” Ezekiel’s deeper diagnosis is much more unsettling: long before Babylon destroyed the building, Israel had driven the presence of God from the center of its life.
Image credit: A fresco from St. John the Baptist Church in Kratovo, Macedonia (photo: Rašo, via Wikimedia Commons)
The Canaanite Woman
This coming Sunday is the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time. At its core this narrative remains a miracle-story – And her daughter was healed from that hour. But as the encounter is placed immediately after a discussion of purity in both Matthew and Mark, Jesus’ encounter with this Gentile woman also brings out the implications that the Gentiles will no longer be separated from Israel (cf. Acts 10:15, 28; 11:9–18).
As in the case of the centurion’s servant (8:5–13), where also the dialogue takes precedence over the story, the main interest is in the question of Jesus’ response to the faith of a Gentile. Indeed the two accounts are closely parallel in many ways, not only in being the only Synoptic accounts of healing at a distance, but in the racial issues involved, with Jesus’ apparent reluctance to respond to a Gentile’s request met by the persistent faith which ensures his response in the end. The question raised by 15:1–20 of Jesus’ attitude to Jewish ideas of purity, with all its crucial implications for the Gentile mission, is here put to the practical test of a Gentile’s desire to share in the benefits brought by the Jews’ Messiah.
Verse 22 tells us that she is from the region of Tyre and Sidon. These were Phoenician cities just beyond the northern border of Israel. The people worshiped Phoenician gods and were not nor had they ever been Jewish. By stating that she is from the region generally suggests that she was a rural peasant, rather than a city-dweller. In Jesus’ day she would have been considered “Syrophoenician” – the term that Mark uses. But to Matthew, she is a Canaanite. Matthew’s more Jewish audience may be more aware of the enmity between Jews and Canaanites that had existed since the time of Noah. Canaan was the son of Ham, who saw his father naked (a euphemism thought to mean sleeping with his father’s wife). Noah utters this curse in Gen 9:25-27:
Cursed be Canaan;
lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers.
Blessed by the LORD my God be Shem
and let Canaan be his slave.
May God make space for Japheth,
and let him live in the tents of Shem;
and let Canaan be his slave.“
Even more significant than this ancient curse about being slaves to the Jews, is the promise given to Abraham: “And I will give to you, and to your offspring after you, the land where you are now an alien, all the land of Canaan, for a perpetual holding; and I will be their God” (Gen 17:8). They were part of the people the Israelites were commanded by God to place them “under the ban” (Dt 20:17).
The concept of the ban in the Bible is seen in various instances where certain cities and their spoils of war were to be set apart for destruction, not to be taken as booty or spared. The rationale behind this practice was that these objects were considered unclean or devoted to idolatry, and their removal was seen as necessary for maintaining the holiness of the Israelite community and their exclusive devotion to God.
Joshua carried out the “ban” partially as the people of Israel took over Canaanite land and cities. These historical events are carried in memory and would not make Canaanites very friendly towards Jews nor towards the Jewish God. So, why would this woman approach Jesus?
One suggestion is that she had nowhere else to turn. Perhaps she had heard reports about the healing miracles of Jesus. Her need was so great, her concern for her daughter so deep, that she dared cross that rift between Jews and Canaanites. Perhaps she was at the point where she had nothing to lose, and perhaps everything to gain.
In any case her call is striking, not only in its persistence and boldness, but also in its language. Lord, Son of David. While “Lord” may be nothing more than calculated politeness, “Son of David” might refer simply to being Jewish, but it raises the question of whether she had heard (and had nascent belief) in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah.
Image credit: Jean Germain Drouais, Christ and the Canaanite Woman, 1784, Louvre Museum | Public Domain
The Feast of St. Clare of Assisi
Peter said to Jesus, “We have given up everything and followed you. What will there be for us?” Jesus said to them, “Amen, I say to you that you who have followed me, in the new age, when the Son of Man is seated on his throne of glory, will yourselves sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times more, and will inherit eternal life.” (Mt 19:27-29)
Today across the Church universal and especially among the Franciscan communities, we celebrate the Feast of St. Clare of Assisi. It is a very appropriate gospel chosen for the feast day. In the gospel we hear: “Peter said to Jesus, ‘We have given up everything and followed you. What will there be for us?’” It is a replay of the rich young man who comes to Jesus and asks what more must I do to inherit the Kingdom of God. Jesus tells him to sell everything he has and give it to the poor and then follow Jesus. At least the rich young man supplies the answer to what’s in it for him – even as he walks away sad.
Clare could rightly be called “a rich young woman.” She was born into one of the majores families of Assisi, the nobility with homes “up town”, wealth, land and privilege. She did not want… at least not in the traditional measure.
Continue readingFirst, the prophet must receive the Word
The sequence of four first readings begins appropriately with Ezekiel himself (Ezekiel 2:8-3:4)
God hands him the scroll and commands: “Son of man, eat what is before you; eat this scroll, then go, speak to the house of Israel.” (Ezek 3:1) The scroll contains “lamentation and wailing and woe” (2:10), yet when Ezekiel eats it, “it was as sweet as honey in my mouth” (3:3). That gives you an important starting point for the entire series. Ezekiel is not commissioned simply to have opinions about Israel’s problems. He must first receive God’s word into himself. Only then may he speak.
And the sweetness is striking. What Ezekiel must proclaim will frequently be terrible news. Nevertheless, God’s word itself is good. Judgment is not something Ezekiel invents because he is angry with his people. He becomes the bearer of a word he himself has consumed.
Before the prophet can speak God’s word, he must allow God’s word to become part of him.
Image credit: A fresco from St. John the Baptist Church in Kratovo, Macedonia (photo: Rašo, via Wikimedia Commons)
Clare of Assisi – audaciously following Christ
August 11th is the Feast of St. Clare of Assisi – in many ways considered a “second founder” of the Franciscan orders of men and women because of the influence her life, example, and spirituality have upon the religious orders of men and women that carry the name “Franciscan.” In honor of these celebrations, let us look at The Legend of St. Clare (1255) in which we read of Clare’s decision to follow Francis’ way of life.
“The Solemnity of the Day of Palms was at hand when the young girl went with a fervent heart to the man of God, asking [him] about her conversion and how it should be carried out. The father Francis told her that on the day of the feast, she should go, dressed and adorned, together with the crowd of people, to [receive] a palm, and, on the following night, leaving the camp she should turn her worldly joy into mourning the Lord’s passion.
Continue readingThe Pharisee Within
This coming Sunday is the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time. In the previous post we discussed the growing encounters and controversies with the Pharisees. The Pharisees are easily dismissed, after all, they are the antagonist in the narratives. A more optimistic reading of the context is that the Pharisees are the ones who were on track but have now lost the spirit, heart, and compassion of the Law. There is nothing wrong with wanting holiness to be a goal and desire of all the people. But the assumption that the rules and traditions of the Levites are the path of holiness for the people errs in that it assumes the Levites exist in a hierarchy that places them closer to God. In addition, when one forgets the bases of the traditions and whether they are “t” traditions or “T” traditions, then only problems lay ahead.
But there is the potential Pharisee in everyone of us who relies upon “t” tradition too heavily. What would be the reaction if all the Catholic Churches removed the holy water fonts? The end of faith and time as we know it? Doubtful, but certainly, the pastor who allowed it! What happens at the moment that you reach to dip your fingers into the water of the font and discover the font missing? Do you eventually reach the point where you muse, “Well, it was always there to remind us of our baptismal vows, the one we will renew in the Creed, the ones we received at the beginning of our journey of faith, the ones I remember on this journey today into the heart of the Eucharist.” Holy water fonts are wonderful, but are “t” traditions meant to remind you and lead you to the “T” traditions.
And there is the potential Pharisee in everyone of us that presumes upon the “T” tradition in the wrong way. What could be said about the person who comes to Reconciliation every week, confesses the exact same sins, and in between makes no effort in prayer or action to effect change in their life? What is the difference between magic and a sacrament? Some find that a shocking question, but I think it is a good one to help uncover one’s heart. An anthropology professor once told us that magic is the idea that one can do the exact thing, say the exact words in the right order, all at the right time, and then one controls the power of the gods. “If I go at the appointed time, know the right words (Bless me Father for I have sinned…), confess my sins, then I GET forgiveness (emphasis pointedly added).” I have done the right thing with the right words at the right time so I have earned, am owed forgiveness…such is magical thinking or heartless juridical accounting where faith should be.
A sacrament never controls God or God’s power, it relies upon the promise of God, and so as we have been told, we ask and believe that what we have asked for is given: God, the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world to himself and poured the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins; through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Forgiveness is mercy from God and is never earned, but only received as a gift for the asking. Such is the way of faith.
The Catholic “traditions” are plentiful and there to help the faith. They are good. It is the Pharisee within that can introduce the merely juridical or magical attitude upon the good.
Image credit: Jean Germain Drouais, Christ and the Canaanite Woman, 1784, Louvre Museum | Public Domain
The Prophet Ezekiel
Starting tomorrow this week’s first reading for daily Mass is taken from the Book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel was a priest who had been living in Jerusalem during the first Babylonian attack on the city (2 Kgs. 24:8-17, circa. 597 BC). The city itself was spared, but the king of Babylon took a first wave of Israelite prisoners into exile. Ezekiel was among them. The book begins five years after these traumatic events, and we find Ezekiel sitting on the bank of an irrigation canal near his Israelite refugee camp, on his 30th birthday no less. It’s the year that he would have been installed as a priest in Jerusalem. If you would like to explore “the big picture” of Ezekiel, you can find some great material on our parish Ezekiel webpage.
Over the next four days the readings are: Ezekiel 2:8-3:4, Ezekiel 9:1-7; 10:18-22, Ezekiel 12:1-12 and Ezekiel 16:1-15, 60, 63.
There is a strong narrative and theological progression in those selections. They can be read almost as a miniature version of Ezekiel’s whole prophetic message:
- God gives the prophet his word.
- God judges a people who refuse that word.
- God’s glory departs from the corrupted city.
- Exile becomes unavoidable.
- Yet God’s covenant survives Israel’s infidelity.
The readings are not merely four disconnected excerpts from a difficult prophet. Together they tell a story about what happens when God’s people cease listening and what God does when their failure seems to have destroyed everything. So stay tuned…
Image credit: A fresco from St. John the Baptist Church in Kratovo, Macedonia (photo: Rašo, via Wikimedia Commons)
Controversies with the Pharisees
This coming Sunday is the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Lectionary Cycle A. Between the 19th and 20th Sundays in Year A, Mt 15:1-21 are passed over. Jesus’ three acts of power in Mt 14 (feeding the 5,000; walking on water; and the healings at Gennesaret) are followed by a controversy with the Pharisees and scribes.
In order to provide a context let us briefly describe the events which lead us to Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman. These verses describe Jesus’ teaching on how the purity laws of Leviticus are to be understood. In a way it is an extension of the Sermon on the Mount. Borrowing Jesus’ oft repeated phrase, “You have heard it said… by the Pharisees, but I say to you…this is what is at the heart of our purity laws received from God.”
The specific issue for debate is the disciples’ failure to observe the rules of ritual purity/cleanliness as exactly as the Pharisees did (v. 2). The Pharisees had received and built up a body of tradition designed to ensure the observance of the written Law. Their intentions were good: if one does not break the traditions then one will never break the commandment/Law and then God will never again punish the people by Exile. The people will remain a covenant people; at least so went the thinking. The Pharisees also saw the special Levitical (priestly) rules as having value and helping attain holiness and so they also wished to extend to all Israelites the rules that originally applied only to members of priestly families on the grounds that Israel is a priestly people. That is the background in Mt 15:2 where they expected Jesus and his followers to observe the rules of priestly purity spelled out in Lev 22:1–16.
The first part of Jesus’ response (15:3–9) attacks the Pharisees’ idea of tradition. Jesus argues that sometimes their tradition leads to breaking the clear commands of the law (vv. 3–6). The commandment about honoring one’s parents is stated in the law both positively (Exod 20:12; Deut 5:16) and negatively (Exod 21:17). But the Pharisees’ tradition, according to Jesus, allows a person to place property under sacred vow as a means of preventing the parents from having access to it. Thus a pious fiction provides the excuse for disregarding and getting around a sacred obligation encouraged by the law. The words of Isa 29:13 are used to brand such behavior as hypocrisy. The tradition that claims to protect the law actually violates it.
The second part of Jesus’ response (Mt 15:10–20) concentrates on the specific issue of ritual purity. The statement in v.11 to the effect that there is only moral uncleanness is very radical, since large parts of the Old Testament law concern ritual uncleanness contracted by touching and by eating certain foods: “It is not what enters one’s mouth that defiles that person; but what comes out of the mouth is what defiles one.” Only a firm faith in Jesus as the authoritative interpreter of the law could allow Matthew and his community to accept such a revolutionary teaching.
The basic statements in verse 11 are joined with a very harsh judgment on the Pharisees (vv. 12–14) and an explanation for the disciples of Jesus (vv. 15–20). When informed about the Pharisees’ offense at his teaching, Jesus denies their spiritual roots (v. 13) and condemns them as blind guides leading others to destruction (v. 14). Peter’s request for an explanation of Jesus’ teaching in verse 15 assumes that “parable” means “mystery” or “riddle.” Jesus’ explanation in verses 17–20 merely expands and makes concrete the radical statement in verse 11: “…the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile. For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, unchastity, theft, false witness, blasphemy. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.” (Mt 15:17-20)
Image credit: Jean Germain Drouais, Christ and the Canaanite Woman, 1784, Louvre Museum | Public Domain
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