Who Let the Dogs Out
20th Sunday of the Ordinary Time – Who Let the Dogs Out
I’m confident that everyone can remember at least one moment along your journey when someone called you a name that cut you to the quick. Fat. Ugly. Stupid. Good-for-nothing. Other names that I can’t (and won’t) repeat in public.
You can undoubtedly still see and hear in your mind’s eye the person who knowingly or unknowingly damaged a small piece of your soul: an angry parent; a supposed-friend; a spouse who turned on you; a stranger at the store.
What name – all these years later — still shrouds your heart with heaviness and anger and grief?
I ask that question for the simple fact that today’s Gospel has a very similar situation: Jesus – the Son of God and Savior of the world – called the Canaanite woman who came to him begging for healing for her daughter a dog. “It’s not right to take the food of children and throw it to the dogs.”
Let’s not think for one moment that this was meant to be a cute exchange between the two. Unlike our current preoccupation with “fur babies” and other pets we treat as children, in Jesus’ time and culture, dogs were dirty, disgusting, and unwanted. They roamed streets and ate garbage.
So, bluntly stated, this Canaanite woman was trash. Think about it: God just called this desperate Mom an absolute nothing.
I hope your first question is: “Wait. Why would Jesus do such a thing?”
There could be many reasons why this exchange played out the way it did, but most scholars believe that the Good Rabbi was trying to teach both his disciples and his detractors an important lesson.
Canaanites were outsiders. By definition, the Chosen People – the Israelites – knew that the Canaanites were nasty: they didn’t believe in God; they had been invaders and land-stealers; they looked and thought and acted differently.
How dare they lay claim to the love and mercy of THEIR God…
And yet, that’s exactly what this outsider did. Her love for her daughter and her desperation for help brought her to her knees before the One who claimed to save and heal and make whole again.
She didn’t care what others thought. She didn’t care that she wasn’t one of the “lost sheep of Israel.” She wasn’t concerned that she was a woman in a man’s world. She simply knew that she came before Love and needed that Love for herself and her daughter.
So not only did she ask in humility. She fought back when the answer was – at least on the surface – “no.”
And I love that this unnamed Mom verbally sparred with God. “Lord, even dogs eat the scraps that fall from the tables of the Chosen Ones.”
In that moment, she knew that Love does not put up walls and barriers. No, true love invites all. Welcomes all. Heals all. And that was the message Jesus was trying to make the world see: Love never excludes.
Of course, in the mystery of God’s plan of salvation, there are many who have special relationships with the Lord. Our Jewish brother and sisters have always had this intimate walk with the One they call Adonai. We Christians, because of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross, have been welcomed into that same intimacy.
So why are we so quick to close doors on those who may be the modern-day Canaanites among us?
I can’t help but think with all of our readings today, the Spirit is asking us and, quite frankly, challenging us to wrestle with the question: who do we believe isn’t worthy of God’s love?
Maybe even more challenging: Who isn’t worthy of our own time or compassion or forgiveness?
I ask that because most in Jesus’ inner-circle – his disciples and co-religionists – didn’t even consider the woman and her daughter worth the effort to be helped or listened to or even respected as a human person. If she didn’t think like us or worship like us, then to hell with her and her sick daughter – literally.
So again the question: who are our Canaanites today? The political party leader you can’t stomach? The Catholics who don’t love the Latin Mass and appreciate guitars and tambourines (or vice versa)? The neighbors who wear all their opinions on their front lawn?
And maybe closer to home: Is your Canaanite the co-worker who disrespected you? The family member who hurt you? That person who called you a name that still has the power to crush your spirit?
I worry, quite frankly – as many of you do – that we are becoming a nation and a Church in which we are always on the lookout for Canaanites. And then, we attack. We do whatever we can do destroy them. “Send them away,” we echo the disciples in today’s Gospel. It’s easy to want to do, because it keeps us in our safety bubble of sameness and never challenges us.
But that’s exactly what God wants from us – to be challenged. To envision a Kingdom here and hereafter in which we recognize the giftedness and sacredness of others, no matter who; no matter what. It’s the challenge that invites someone unlike ourselves into the very same call of mercy and forgiveness. And it’s the reminder that it is our job to keep inviting others into the Heart of God; to ask our family member, friend, neighbor and co-worker: have you discovered the healing and love of Jesus Christ?
And so we are all asked today: Have you done so lately?
Are we willing to allow the grace and power of the Word and Eucharist to change our hearts and lives so profoundly that we stop treating others like dogs? That we no longer see others as Canaanites but as sisters and brothers in Christ, even if He means nothing to them? Are we willing to be bold like the woman in the Gospel and ask our Lord: “heal my heart and help me love as You do.”
That’s my prayer for the week ahead: Heal my heart and help me love as You do.
Here’s why: a few weeks back at a convenience store we all know I frequent (and love), I encountered the high school classmate who once said something so hurtful in front of others that I never thought I’d recover from that pain of betrayal.
Nearly thirty years had passed, and I could still recall what he said; where we were; how I felt. I never spoke to him again.
I had a chance last month at Wawa to make amends. Instead, I slipped out without him having seen me. He was still my Canaanite dog, and I lost the chance to let the Kingdom of healing break-in for both of us.
Don’t wait until it is too late to love and forgive the Canaanite in your life…