Hope is Always In Spite Of

The Grace of God knows no limit and his boundless gifts cannot be contained by man. We know from The Grace of God knows no limit and his boundless gifts cannot be contained by man. We know from scripture that God’s banquet table, laid out for the righteous, also overflows and spills out upon those deemed in our eyes as not so worthy, nourishing them and strengthening them towards a more perfect way of being. God’s forgiveness and mercy goes where God alone wants them to go. It is telling that in the first reading the Lord commands - do what is right and just. not specifically to the people of Israel, but also to the foreigner, who comes to know and love the living God. To the surprise of the self-righteous, it will be the right and just “other”, who will be gathered upon God’s holy mountain. Isn’t it always the surprised guest, who delights most in the unexpected invitation? God’s generosity extends to all people. Anyone can be grasped by God’s love. Anyone can hear his call (even if it is the tiniest whisper) to become right and just. Because righteousness and justice do not prefer one people over another, one nation over another. Righteousness and justice recognizes no boundaries. St Paul the apostle to the Gentiles preached beyond the boundaries of the Law that narrowly defined people of God. For St Paul the Law restricted God’s mercy and forgiveness. He preached that it is only through Jesus Christ that God’s excessive generosity, his Grace and blessing would be “irrevocable” gifts given freely and without exception to Jew and Gentile, female and male, servant and master, me and you, us and them. Hope is an irrevocable gift (given and never taken back). All of us are weak and prone to sinfulness. St Paul calls this being delivered up to disobedience. We are delivered up by our own free will to what takes us away from God. But, St Paul also says, that though we are delivered up to disobedience we are also delivered up, by the Grace of God, through his son Jesus, to God’s forgiveness and mercy. Where sin abounds, St Paul says, Grace abounds more. This is our Hope. Is this what Isaiah meant when he says God will bring them (all the faithful, known and unknown) to his holy mountain to be joyful in his house for God’s house shall be called (because it is) a house for all people. This too is our Hope. Last Sunday were heard about the importance of confidence and indeed it is important. Confidence, always has a sense of the reasonable about it. I am confident because I am prepared, for example. But, Hope is not reasonable, it is courageous by it very unreasonableness. Hope is not sensible, it is in-spite-of. In Today’s Gospel, in spite of being a stranger, in spite of being a Canaanite, and a woman, a mother comes to Jesus. This foreign woman does not come to Jesus confident, because her request is just or a convincing argument. . She comes because she hopes. And her hope rests in Jesus alone. But, Jesus disciples, tell him to send this bothersome outsider away. She has nothing to do with us and we have nothing to do with her. She is not a Jew. Did they remind him that his concern was only for the lost sheep of Israel? The woman cry’s out “Lord, help me” and he replies (perhaps with the words of his disciples still in his ear) that it is not right to take the food from the children and throw it to the dogs. Meaning it is not right to take the Word of God (creative and efficacious) from Jew and give it to the Gentile. But, she does not budge. A growing unexpected faith keeps her planted to where she is. She replies to him that this might be true, but even dogs eat the scrapes that fall from the master table. Jesus knows this. God’s table of plenty has more than enough for all those around the table, and those in the corners of the banquet hall and those at the door waiting to get in, and those not yet invited and even enough for the dogs, who we lest forget, are devoted to their master. Surprised by her insight, her persistence and moved by her faith in him, Jesus does what she asks and heals her daughter instantly and from afar. He asks nothing from her. This is surely hope that did not disappoint. A hope that led to unexpected faith in Jesus, which opened up to new life shared with her daughter within a new community of known and unknown believers. This foreign woman received far more then she knew. At least knew that day. We can each ask ourselves, am I this woman? Do I have courage of this woman, who in spite of the odds, the wisdom of the day, the way things are, still hope - Lord, help me. By her example and the Lord’s compassion I cling to the Hope “the irrevocable gift” that knows no limits and no boundaries and cannot be contained or diminished by any power. I cling to the Hope that already has the first fruit of God’s forgiveness and mercy within it. I cling to the hope that we are the invited quests and the last minute replacements. At the table, or waiting for a hand out. Who knows? That God’s business. But, what I do know. What I have confidence in, is that our living Hope will not disappoint. That (in-spite-of) the frailties of our bodies, the waywardness of our will, the instability of our resolve, the weakness of our faith, our bondage to sin we already (by God’s love alone)share in his banquet.