Wednesday – 18th Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel – Matthew 15:21-28

A Leap of Faith

Delivery Day, TN


Exactly 2 years ago today, a large U-Haul truck arrived at our newly built home here in Tennessee, filled with all our earthly Chicago possessions.  Fun Fact – they actually tried delivering our ‘stuff’ the day before.  But the semi-trailer could not navigate the tight turns on our driveway.  So they retreated to the local truck stop and transferred everything to a smaller vehicle.  Sheesh!

Within a few hours, they had moved everything into our Heiskell home – a few pieces of furniture and dozens of cardboard boxes, so many piled up that they blocked the windows and created a maze-like walkway throughout the house!  It took us weeks to wade through all those cartons, not to mention countless trips to the local recycle center to drop off all those empty boxes. 

Looking back, Ginger and I both realize what a tremendous leap of faith we made (and continue to make), faith in our family, faith in her doctors, and mostly importantly faith in our God!

BOLDNESS!  FAITH!  That is what we see in the Canaanite woman in today’s Gospel.  Let’s face it.  In the Jewish world at the time, everything is against her.  She is female; she is Gentile!  She knows she is fighting an uphill battle to be heard, much less engaged in conversation.  And yet she persists!  She insists on not being ignored!  She had no real expectations that Jesus would respond to her pleas!  But she makes that leap of faith. And in the end, Jesus praises her for her great faith.  And even though her daughter is quite a ways away, Jesus heals her daughter.  Sounds a bit like the Centurion’s servant, doesn’t it?  Great faith and healing from a distance!

So the question for us today?  How great is our faith?  How persistence is our faith?  How bold is our faith?  Do we just stand on the sidelines and grumble and complain?  Do we give up and walk away when life gets hard and seemingly impossible? Or is our faith active in our words and our actions?  Do we live out our faith in our prayers and in our compassion and love of others, no matter how great the ‘leap’ might be? 

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