A Canaanite woman cries out to Jesus, “’My daughter is tormented by a demon’. But Jesus did not say a word. His disciples said, ‘Send her away, for she keeps calling out.’ Jesus then said to her, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ But the woman said, ‘Help me.’ He replied, ‘It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.’ She said, ‘Even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.’ Jesus responded, ‘O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’ And the woman’s daughter was healed from that hour.”
Scholars analyzing Jesus, such as his conversation with the Canaanite woman, grant him the context of personal goodness. They explain his words to the woman as distinct from his ultimate behavior of granting her request. Hector Avalos in his book, Bad Jesus, claims scholars are biased in granting Jesus personal goodness. Avalos criticizes Jesus as certainly not God made flesh, but “bad,” unethical, a sinner. Jesus calling the woman a dog is proof. What if we grant Avalos his thesis? What if we agree with his criticism that Jesus was not perfect and demonstrated unethical behaviors? We would be granting that Jesus is like most of us, imperfect, a person who struggles with goodness. For such critics, Jesus becomes no different than Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, also “bad” for whatever lesser reasons real or invented, e.g. being unfaithful to their wives, and on and on it goes with all change activists attacked for personal sins. Such critics, knowingly or unknowingly, are promoting the ethics of the cult of Militarism. Militarism’s ethics diminish conscience. They emphasize predominantly personal sin, especially sex, that focuses on enemies who are bad, distinct from cult members and its rulers who are good. Militarism’s ethics explains why people target disobedient challengers for real or invented personal (sexual) sins while they excuse the personal (sexual) sins of rulers like Donald Trump. Militarism’s ethics also explain why cult members justify their insulting, abusing, and attacking challengers while they support criminal rulers, like Donald Trump who is guilty of the far more serious social sins of attacking the media, perverting the 1st Amendment, lying about election fraud, and obstructing justice. Under Militarism’s ethics, sin is not social. The social oppression of censoring information or being abusive, or acting violently is not a sin. Instead, sin is personal disobedience or disloyalty to the cult and its ruler thus aggrieving cult members. Jesus aggrieved the cult members of his time, which included members of his own community. They judged as sinful the woman challenging them, “Send her away.” Diminished of conscience by Militarism, they do not judge as sinful the culture that treats women and foreigners as dogs and influences them to do so too. As they herald an unjust cult they will consequentially diminish democratic communities. We can live an integrated personal and social ethics. People of conscience, like the woman, Jesus, Gandhi, King, and all of us can, at least, initiate challenging social conversations. Highlighting conscience as personal and social can move a person from being loyal to an aggrieved cult toward creating a healing community.
“There must exist a paradigm, a practical model for social change that includes an understanding of ways to transform consciousness that are linked to efforts to transform structures.” (bell hooks)
Prayer: Beautiful Spirit, move us to act as social healers.
Question: How am I helping people shift from a ruled cult to a conscientious community?
August 20, 2023 Gospel: Matthew 15:21-28 Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time