Wednesday in the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time, August 3, 2022

Matthew 15, 21-28

At that time Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman of that district came and called out, “Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not say a word in answer to her. His disciples came and asked him, “Send her away, for she keeps calling out after us.” He said in reply, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But the woman came and did him homage, saying, “Lord, help me.” He said in reply, “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.” Then Jesus said to her in reply, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed from that hour.

Following the Exodus from Egypt, crossing the Red Sea and then wandering in the wilderness for forty years, the Hebrews crossed the Jordan River and moved into the land promised to them through their ancestor Abraham.  Their progress through the land was marked by almost constant battle with the armies of those already inhabiting the region, and much death resulted.  At times, the Israelites put entire cities to the sword.  Finally, after years of fighting, the Hebrew tribes held most of the land, though some Canaanites continued to dwell in it.  The episodes of slaughter disturb the modern reader and so it is necessary to recall that the Canaanites, also identified as the Amorites, on the whole continued to engage in the behavior that characterized Sodom and Gomorrah, for which God destroyed them.  It appears that God similarly used the Israelites to punish the Canaanites (and as he would later use the Babylonians to punish the idol-worshipping people of Judah).  In Genesis 18, 32, God promised Abraham that he would spare Sodom if he found ten innocent people, and we can conclude from this that not many innocent people could be found among the Canaanites at the time the children of Israel encountered them. They were given to immorality of all kinds: “They provoked him by strange gods, and stirred him up to anger, with their abominations. They sacrificed to devils and not to God: to gods whom they knew not: that were newly come up, whom their fathers worshipped not” (Deuteronomy 32, 16-17).  As part of their idolatry, they worshipped demons who demanded child-sacrifice and cult prostitution.  Thus, in the conquest of the Promised Land, the Israelites defeated the devil.  

St. Matthew calls the Phoenician woman in today’s Gospel Reading a “Canaanite”, a term that had long before become an anachronism.  His use of the anachronism calls attention to her as a sign.  In this way, we can see the ancient struggle against the Canaanites and the demons they worshipped recapitulated here, and fulfilled.  Thus, the Canaanites come before Joshua and now seek his help against the demons whom they had worshipped.  At first, Joshua puts them off.  His mission is to aid the Israelites, not this foreign people.  But then the Canaanites profess the Israelites to be their masters, and so Joshua drives the demons from them.  The Israelites and Canaanites may now live in peace together — this is the fulfillment.  We can interpret this to mean that the Gentiles, once cleansed of their idol worship and baptized, will live in peace with the Jewish Christians.  This is accomplished not by the intervention of a mere man but by the power of God.  The first Joshua defeated the demons by killing those who worshipped them.  The Second Joshua, Jesus Christ, defeats them for all time by offering himself in sacrifice to obtain for us all grace and faith.  As St. Paul declares: “For he is our peace, who has made both [Jews and Gentiles] one, and breaking down the middle wall of partition, the enmities [which have divided us] in his flesh” (Ephesians 2, 14).  

“O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.”  The Lord Jesus publicly praises the Gentile woman’s faith so that the Apostles might know that they, too, are to be saved.  The Apostles would not have understood the meaning of what the Lord had done here, but later they would, as St. Matthew shows us.  It was necessary for the Holy Spirit to enlighten them first.  We pray that with our words, actions, and prayers, we may share in the defeat of the devil and in the glory of Jesus Christ, our God.