aphic specials our family has watched lately.
Jesus accepts this invitation to shift from the individual to communal. To shift to a deeper sense of community that includes more than the folks that are like him. We find ourselves witnessing a move beyond theology of chosen-ness to a universal salvation. Jesus does not insist that she become a Jew, but extends healing all the same as he shifts his own perspective.
We also are seeing a bit of foreshadowing of the Great Commission. To go and make disciples in all the nations. And… perhaps one of the aspects I am most grateful to notice today, like Jesus we too will slip up. And like Jesus there will be voices that bring us to change our hearts to bring about more of God’s kin-dom in the world. As one writer put it, “Faith crosses boundaries, even Jesus’ boundaries, and leads to the manifestation of God’s liberating power”.
Like St. Mary, like Caludette Colvin, like the nameless Canaanite woman…. may we all be called to faithful persistence steeped in love and justice. And like Jesus… may we all open our hearts to being changed by the persistent voice of the other moving us all beyond what had been.
References: Feasting on the Word, Theological Bible Commentary, Women’s Bible Commentary