, 29-32; Matthew 15. 10-20, 21-28
The Dog’s food.
Today’s gospel is not an easy one. A woman cries to Jesus for help and first he ignores her and then he insults her with a remark that would be read today as politically incorrect and racist. To call anyone a dog would be insulting. To call them dogs because they are not of the Chosen Race sounds like fascism. It does sound harsh to our ears especially as the woman was not asking anything for herself but for her sick daughter.
Of course we should be careful about judging a previous age by our standards and to remember that the concept of political correctness is only half a century old. Jesus uses rough language about his adversaries but also about his friends: about his family, to his mother, about and to his disciples. Perhaps the expectation was that a Holy Man should be rough with his audience. Or perhaps we are expecting a kind of perfection that is actually incompatible with Incarnation. Either way perhaps we are asking the wrong questions.
What does this story say to us, we who live in a world where pain suffering and death are inevitable?
There is a story which I hesitate to tell because it is so personal. At this time of the year I am reminded of it. About the 11th of August 1973 I received the UUCA message informing me that I had a place at King’s College London. That night after a celebratory drink with a friend I returned home and went to bed. Around midnight our household was wakened by a thunderous knock on the door. It was the police coming to inform us that our nephew had been shot and seriously wounded and asking for someone to go with them to the hospital to be with my sister and her husband as their son was likely to die. Norman had been like a younger brother to myself and my brothers. He was a good young man, a poet and a pacifist. He played no part in the Ulster troubles but he was in love with a Roman Catholic girl and for some people that was reason enough.
My brother Samuel went with the police while I remained and sat up all night with Ann his wife. I prayed with all the energy that was in me. I prayed to Jesus. I was very new to the idea of the intercession of the saints but I prayed that Mary would strengthen and comfort my sister. At about 5.00am I went to the phone box on the corner and phoned the hospital. A nurse replied to my question. Norman had just died.
When the woman came weeping and beseeching him and Jesus failed to respond I know how she felt but in the wisdom of God the Father her daughter got better. My nephew died and the immediate feeling for all of us was desolation. However a few nights later I went to Mass in Holy Rosary Church. Norman was not a Roman Catholic – he was in the Boy’s Brigade with my brother George and myself – but he was in Holy Rosary Youth Club and the Church had a Mass on the eve of the Assumption which all his friends attended and prayers were said for his repose. It took a long time for me to work it out but it was a beginning. Our prayer is never wasted. I think that it was Charles Williams who said ‘man builds the altar but the fire falls somewhere else’
The woman’s daughter lived. She would die one day. We do not know whether she led her life well or otherwise but she would carry with her her mother’s tale of how she had bantered a Holy Jew into performing a miracle for her. My nephew died but his life continued to touch many people – his stedfastness in the truth, his kindness and his love did not die. Surely that is the Gospel ‘love is stronger than death’. That was the experience of the disciples at the empty tomb, in the Upper Room, at the Supper in Emmaus. And for us, as we ponder the Glorious Mystery of the Assumption, our prayers are heard in heaven, our loved ones are in the hands of God, and one day he will enfold us living and departed in to his loving arms.