Where are our prophets? (1)

I went to Mass at the small worshipping community in Dantata and Sawoe Construction Company, around the old CBN junction today, as I have done since June 2013 when I assumed that responsibility. The Gospel reading of today is quite instructive. It was the story of the Canaanite woman’s encounter with Jesus, as recorded in Matthew’s Gospel chapter 15:21-28. This Gentile woman came crying to Jesus as he withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely possessed by a demon.” Shockingly, the Gospel relates that Jesus did not answer her a word. Even the disciples of Jesus came and begged him to send the woman away because she was already disturbing them! They didn’t ask Jesus to grant her request. They asked him to dismiss her. See how followers of Jesus respond to a plea for help – “Send her away!” In every age, we find such people in the company of Jesus. Enemies of the good! People who bear the Christian name only in word but not in deed!

 In the first reading of the Mass, taken from several verses of the Book of Numbers chapters 13 and 14, the story was the reconnaissance conducted by selected men of the Israelites on the Promised Land of Canaan. The two spy groups came back with two different reports at the end of their forty-day reconnaissance. The first group reported that the land was rich and flowing with milk and honey, with large and fortified cities. They even brought back fresh fruits from the land to show to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of Israel. However, they indicated that they saw many tribes there, including the descendants of Anak the giant. Even though Caleb, who represented the second group stopped them short and told Moses, “Let us go up at once, and occupy it; for we are well able to overcome it,” the men who had gone up with him expressed their fears: “We are not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we… The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature.” The report they brought further said that the Israelites seemed like grasshoppers before these frightening giants, descendants of Anak. All of this made the people of Israel to weep and cry aloud all through the night. 

During my homily, I situated the two readings within the context of human problems. Interestingly, both readings had something to do with Canaan. In the first reading, the Israelites assess the possibility of conquering the Promised Land of Canaan, but they were overtaken by the fears presented in the unfavourable report. In the Gospel, it is about a woman of Canaan who comes to Jesus to beg for liberation and healing for her possessed child. As human beings, we live in a world of problems. There is nobody without problems and anxieties. Very often, these problems are genuine concerns and they weigh us down. For some people, the problem may be a sick child, school fees, house rent or even food to eat. Others might be experiencing problems in their relationships, business failures, burnout in the workplace, or the fear of evil machinations. Still for many others, it is anxiety about job security or the prospects of ever finding a job amidst the looming crisis of unemployment in the land. 

Our problems are so many and varied. Christian prayer has found a way to express this reality of life: “As our faces are different, so are our problems and needs.” This is the truth. There is nobody for whom life is just one long stretch of happiness and excitement. And there is nobody for whom life is just one long stretch of pain and sorrow. We all have our moments of joy and happiness, as well as moments of sorrow and sadness. Even Jesus experienced both temperaments of the human condition. So, the first lesson is for us to be wary of preachers who promise a life of bliss and luxury, free from all pain and difficulty. Even the so-called prosperity preachers who promise such painless life know truly that, that is not what life is all about. They too have their own problems.

Like the Canaanite woman who came crying to Jesus on account of her demon-possessed child, many of us have reasons to cry and weep. But Jesus is always there to wipe our tears. We may not readily see his hand at work in the situations that trouble us, but we should never lose faith in him. If we lose faith in Jesus, whom shall we turn to? At the height of the discourse on the Eucharist, when many of the disciples stopped following Jesus, Peter confessed his faith and that of the Apostles in the Lord Jesus: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:69). Truly, Jesus alone has the words of life that can soothe our pain and comfort us in our distress. What we need is to demonstrate faith like the Syro-Phoenician woman. When she came and knelt before Jesus, she said, “Lord, help me.” Jesus gave her an answer, which was more like the insult of her life: “It is not right that I should throw the bread meant for the children to the house dogs.” Imagine you are at the receiving end of all this? What would you have done? I imagine that some of us would have insulted Jesus in return: “I don’t blame you. It is because I came to beg you for something. If I didn’t come to you, would you have had the guts to talk to me this way?” Some others would have replied him: “It is your father and your mother, your brothers and sisters who are dogs, not my child.”

But the Canaanite woman did not speak in this way. She gently replied Jesus: “Yes Master, I know that it is not fair to give the children’s bread to the dogs. But even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” This response was the saving grace. Jesus looked at her with amazement. “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you desire.” The Gospel stated that the woman’s daughter was healed instantly. So, what does Jesus ask for? Faith. He wants us to believe in him. He wants us to trust him. He wants to see that we are persistent in what we are asking for. That is what he taught us in the Parable of the Unjust Judge and the Persistent Widow (see Luke 18:1-8). The parable opened with these words: “Jesus told them a parable to show them that they should pray continually and not lose heart” (Luke 18:1). In other words, we need to be persistent in prayer for our request to be heard. Jesus never responded to the Canaanite woman’s request until she persisted. He also didn’t answer the plea of the blind beggar Bartimaeus until he persisted (see Mark 10:46-52).

We who are prophets, priests and spiritual leaders ought to give this hope to our flock, especially in these times when the epidemic of hopelessness and helplessness seems to be the only selling commodity. The reality of Nigeria today is of a people who have been battered and whipped into submission by the harsh socio-economic conditions. Millions upon millions of able-bodied Nigerians are literally jobless, with nothing to do. Many are caught between starvation and suicide.