who do I need to learn from?

 Homily

20th Sunday in Ordinary Time A

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

16 August 2020

AMDG +JMJ +m

Who do I need to learn from?

Surely in today's Gospel, the Canaanite woman needs to learn from Jesus.  He is the Son of God.  We presume his omniscience in every Gospel story.

Yet the scriptures challenge this oversimplification.  God's ways are so strange, so surprising, so not ours!

The scriptures say that Jesus learns.  He learns obedience from what He suffers.  He grows in understanding.  Surely Jesus can know whatever He wants whenever He wants.  Surely He doesn't need to learn from anyone.  But to be more like us, He does.  He chooses not to know some things.  He chooses to learn.  

Jesus learns from his mom at Cana. Woman, what concern is this wine problem to me?  My hour is not here.  Mary teaches her Son the opposite.  To do something about marriage is the reason I gave birth to you.  This is very much your time.  Jesus is wrong at Cana, not in a sinful way mind you, but so that He may learn.

Today Jesus learns not from the Immaculate Conception, but from a person in every way inferior to Him - a woman, and outsider, an enemy of Israel.

Jesus gets it wrong.  Hey lady - bug off.  Your daughter is not my problem.  You have no right to address me.  This is Israel's time, not yours.

Jesus gets it wrong, not in a sinful way mind you, but so that He can learn.  The woman's faith is a lesson about Jesus' mission to the Gentiles.

Now I now this interpretation is uncomfortable.  It is safe to say that Jesus always knows. That He is always right.  That He always teaches, never learns.  That He questions his mom and teases and insults the Canaanite woman to draw out their faith, not His.  As an example to us that perseverance defeats hopelessness.  Fair enough.

But I wonder if we might draw more fruit from this Gospel by considering what Jesus is learning.  His humility always wins the day.  He learns from someone smaller, more vulnerable and more desperate than Him.  In a human way, Jesus learns that faith grows when we put ourselves in Her position.

In too many of my conversations I do not think I have anything to learn.  Certainly not from people smaller, more desperate and more vulnerable than me.  I like to have right answers and to be in control.  I want to be on the winning side of the politics, polemics and pandemics of 2020.

But what if I am the person who most needs to learn from my next encounter?

Jesus' wisdom is the cross, when He chooses not to know, and asks His Father why.  The cross, when He chooses to lose, and to be counted wrong, instead of being in control.

Today He learns from His encounter with a Canaanite woman.

Who do I need to learn from?