And the woman's daughter was healed at that very hour.
Parents at home set up appropriate boundaries for their children.
Some of those boundaries are for safety;
stay away from the fire;
don't touch this or don't touch that.
Other boundaries are more social or cultural
to keep order in the house or in their lives
or to keep them safe in different ways.
Some of them are familial;
some are cultural or national.
And when the children go to school like they did this week,
the first couple of days is all about norm setting, right?
It is all about boundary establishment;
you can do this; you can do that.
And it may seem a little bit over the top,
but it is all in an effort to keep safety
and ensure kids don't harm one another
and keep social order.
For a classroom of 30 students,
you have to have certain rules to keep order,
otherwise it can get chaotic,
and no one will be able to learn.
And when we leave school, we have other norms.
Other boundaries are set up.
Again, some of them are for safety
and some of them are for cultural norms
that allow us to keep order in society,
order that allow us to function,
not only just as an individual or families,
but as a whole society and in an often-crowded world.
But there are times when we have to cross those boundaries.
Maybe for safety or maybe for some other purpose.
For example, we all know to walk on the sidewalk and not on the road
to keep safe from the cars.
But if somebody is driving down the sidewalk like a maniac,
we tell our child to walk on the road and get off the sidewalk.
Save our life. We don't hold our ground on the sidewalk.
“No, I I'm staying. This is the right place to be.”
Because you'll be dead. Right?
The same is true of boundaries taken to the extreme, they will damage us.
I remember for example, when I visited South Africa,
how shocked I was with the boundary of blacks here, whites here.
You hear about it, but when you actually experience it,
it is shocking to the system
and it makes no sense for somebody who came from Ireland,
where none of that existed.
Apartheid was there to keep people apart.
We have those roots here in our country in the United States
where slavery was legal at one point along with apartheid
especially in the South.
However, at some point, we have to cross the boundary
if we are going to have justice.
Now the question is how do we know when to cross the boundary?
Because if we cross the boundary all the time,
then there is no point in having boundaries, right?
In today is readings, we hear all about boundary crossings
and we get some good guidance when and where to cross boundaries.
All three readings are about boundaries crossing.
The first reading, for example, Isaiah tells the chosen people,
the people of God;
remember, these are the ones who had gone through the desert
and they were the ones who inherited the land.
Their God chose them as God’s people, the chosen people of God.
Then along came Isaiah and he says,
“Anyone who does the word of God has salvation.”
This smashes the boundary of ethno-salvation,
that we are saved by our race.
Isaiah says, all are welcome in the house of the Lord.
All nations are welcomed.
Then we have St. Paul in the letter to the Romans;
remember the story of Paul.
He was a Jewish Pharisee
and was ardent in persecuting the Christians.
Then, he had conversion on his way to Tarsus at Damascus;
there he had this conversion experience
and he then turns around.
He becomes a disciple of Jesus Christ.
He then went back to preach to the Jewish people,
his own people, and they rejected the message.
So Paul crosses the boundary
and not only talks to, but actually recruits Gentiles.
Then taunts his Jewish brothers by saying,
“Look, the Gentile have the mercy of God.
You Jews had it but now all have it.”
The reason for crossing a boundary is mercy.
Then in the gospel, we hear about the smashing of boundaries.
Jesus, just prior to this, left the area where he was in Galilee,
which was would have been Jewish territory and went to Canaan.
Most Jewish people would never have ever gone into Canaan
but Jesus goes and meets a Jewish woman.
In ancient times a woman is never meant to speak to a man in public.
not even to their husband.
Not only is a woman speaking to a man,
but a Canaanite woman is speaking to a Jewish man,
a double boundary crossing just there.
And so, Jesus goes along with the cultural norm at the time,
and the disciples are irritated saying,
“Listen, look, you're one of us. Tell her to get lost.
She is not one of us. She is one of them, a Canaanite.
She is not a Jew. So, tell her to get lost.”
Jesus says, “You're right. That is what it says.”
But she pleads her case.
She double backs on the boundary crossing
and pleads her case again for mercy.
“Lord, help me. My daughter is sick.”
Then he turns around and he does something that is very hard to hear.
He calls her a racial slur.
He calls her a dog saying,
“It is not right that I take the food from the children
and give it to the dogs.”
She is not deterred by his racial slur
and crosses the boundary yet again saying,
“Even dogs can eat the scraps from the master’s table.”
Then Jesus decides to cross the boundary for mercy.
And he says, “Your faith has saved you.
Your child will be healed.”
And at that very moment, the child is healed.
The overriding reason to cross a boundary in our readings is mercy.
We cross a boundary when love requires us to cross the boundary,
when we are called love;
called to move beyond the cultural norms of our time
and reach out to somebody in need, then that is what we do.
Because love, mercy and justice call us to do so.
For example, who among us,
if our child came out as a gay or lesbian or transgender,
would not continue to cross that boundary and love them,
accept them for where they are
and make sure they knew that they were loved by us.
Of course, we would cross that boundary
regardless of what the cultural norms say.
We would love our child for who they are.
If we can allow ourselves to be thoughtful
when we are called to move across the boundary
for those who are in need,
when there is an injustice in the world,
when somebody is being harmed
because of a cultural normal that we have inherited,
then we need to cross that boundary to love them.
Now the question is, and this is the hardest part,
how do we know when to cross the boundary?
Because if we cross a boundary all the time,
then there is no point in having any boundaries, right?
The whole purpose of boundaries is to keep order.
And that is where prayer and discernment come in.
I cannot tell you when;
only that you can be informed by God in life.
I will tell you the driving force is always going to be for mercy
or always going to be for justice.
That it is never about defending the boundary for the sake of the boundary.
It will always, because what is the most merciful,
the most loving thing I can do?
What is the most just thing I can do?
What is the most just action that I can take?
And sometimes that will require us to cross the boundary.
Because it was mercy that Isaiah spoke
about when the Lord opened up salvation to all nations.
It was mercy that St. Paul spoke about in his reading
in his letter to the Romans
when he told the Jewish people and the Gentiles
that it was because of God's mercy,
God's love that we have been invited to cross the boundary.
Because God has crossed the boundary to offer us his love and mercy.
And in the gospel, it is Jesus who crosses the boundary
because mercy and love demands it
because healing is needed and wanted.
Today, as we go forward from here,
nourished by the mercy and love that we are given,
may we look at our own lives and be thoughtful.
Where am I called to cross the boundary because of mercy or love?
