20th Sunday of Ordinary Time, A August 16, 2026
Fr. Alexander Albert St. Mary Magadalen, Abbeville, LA
Here’s a modern day parable. A football coach was leading practice when a soccer player approached and said, “please help me be a better athlete.” The coach ignored him, focusing on leading passing drills. The soccer player kept insisting until the football players complained he was getting in the way. So the coach said to the soccer player, “I’m here to help my players get better at catching the ball, I can’t waste time on some foot lover.” The soccer player replied, “even football players need to kick the ball sometimes.” The coach then smiled and said, “I was hoping you’d say that. Show my kicker how to make more field goals and I’ll help you as an athlete.”
While we might talk like the rivalry between football and soccer is a big deal, we know it’s not really a problem if you like one more than the other. No one is offended when a football coach refuses to get involved with soccer. But, when Jesus refuses to help a woman because of her race, it makes people uncomfortable. He compares her to a dog, even. You can imagine a conversation where a football coach says, “soccer fans are dogs” in a playful way, but for Jesus to say that about a woman just because she’s a non-Jewish foreigner?
Of course, Jesus really is more offensive than people realize. Someone who says Jesus was always nice and accepted everyone is someone who has never actually read the gospel. In one place, Jesus tells his disciples not to “give what is holy to dogs, or throw… pearls before swine;” he is clearly comparing non-believers to dogs and pigs there. Jesus also routinely insults the pharisees and scribes. So, it’s not totally beyond the realm of possibility that Jesus is being mean.
At the same time, even when Jesus is “mean,” he always acts with love. He is harsh precisely when he knows harshness is what a person needs most. Nonetheless, that isn’t entirely what he’s doing here with this Canaanite woman. He is insulting her, but not because he doesn’t like her. He’s insulting her because he knows she can see past it. He’s insulting her because he wants his disciples to witness how a person with faith is supposed to respond to an insult. It’s a tactic we teachers sometimes use. We set up a tough situation on purpose to see if a clever student will catch onto the right response and set the example for everyone else. I sometimes make an argument for something I don’t believe, hoping the person I’m talking to will see through it and “win” the argument because I’m more interested in teaching them to find the truth for themselves than I am in demonstrating my knowledge.
In my sports analogy, the football coach was always planning for the soccer player help his kickers, but he wanted him to earn his players’ respect first. The coach could have just told his players to respect and learn from the soccer player, but he knew it would be more effective to let the soccer player earn that respect himself. By ignoring and then playfully insulting him, the coach gave him a chance to show the whole team how persistent and clever he could be. Now the kickers are more likely to take the soccer player’s guidance seriously.
In reality, it is obvious to us that soccer players often make for good placekickers just as it’s obvious to us that Jesus’ disciples should want to help the Canaanite woman’s daughter despite her race. But to an immature young athlete or to the still-in-training disciples of Jesus, sometimes the obvious isn’t so obvious and actions speak louder than words. Jesus seizes this opportunity to strengthen the woman’s faith while at the same time humbling his disciples and teaching them to look past prejudices. Once he’s made the faith of everyone involved stronger, Jesus happily drives out the demon he was always planning to drive out.
What is the lesson, though? What is Jesus teaching through this little play-acting routine? That racism is wrong? Well, yeah, that’s definitely true, but the more important lesson here is about faith.
We’ll start with the wrong lesson to take away from this. Jesus is not saying that all religions are equal or that it doesn’t matter what you believe. The truth matters – Jesus and his apostles constantly insist on accepting the truth and being united in the correct faith. Jesus rebukes people who teach falsehood and St. Paul excommunicates people for going against the truth. This Canaanite woman doesn’t get her miracle because her pagan beliefs are okay, she gets a miracle because she had great faith in the tiny piece of truth she did have. That faith helped her pray with perseverance and endure suffering without quitting.
That’s the real lesson to be learned here: that we should trust what God reveals to us. Faith is a response to what God says to us, an act of trust in what he tells us to do. The disciples knew more than the Canaanite woman, but they trusted less. The Canaanite woman doesn’t know all the Israelite teachings and she doesn’t know the right way to worship. Yet, in some mysterious way, she knows this much: Jesus is the messiah, the son of David, and that he is the “Lord” who has power to do miracles. The faith she has in that little piece of truth is enough to overcome the many things she gets wrong, at least for now. The implication is that, eventually, her great faith in a little truth will one day lead her to discover the full truth.
As Catholics, we know that God has spoken all of scripture to us and all of tradition to us and that we have a real relationship with him. Do we trust that full picture with even a fraction of the faith this woman has in her tiny piece of the picture? She was insulted by Jesus and let it roll off because of her trust. We are insulted by others because we love Jesus and how well do we handle that? Like the disciples, we should be humbled by her example and inspired to redouble our trust, to persevere in prayer, and to be willing to suffer for the sake of the truth… even when the ones who make us suffer are the ones who should know better.
It’s also a good lesson in not judging others. Yes, God wants everyone to accept the Catholic faith. There is no other name than Jesus Christ by which we are saved. At the same time, only God knows just how much truth a person knows and how much faith they have in that truth. The human heart is complicated and what seems obvious to you may seem totally false to someone else. That doesn’t change the truth, but it does mean that sometimes a person is wrong in a way that isn’t totally their fault. God accounts for that. If we’re raised from infancy to call a spoon a fork, it’s not our fault that we get it wrong. Hopefully, we can eventually learn the truth but if we die before we learn the truth, it would be unfair to blame us for something we couldn’t change.
When it comes to the truth about God, people are sometimes wrong in a way that isn’t totally their fault. If, however, they sincerely strive to trust what they get right, God gives credit for that. It’s not an excuse for anyone to stay ignorant or be stubborn about their error; it is a reminder that God is fair, he is just. Only God knows all those details, though, so don’t judge, but don’t be too quick to give them a pass either.
Our part is not to judge, but it is to believe and to evangelize. Trust the truth God has revealed to you! Like this woman, don’t give up on prayer. Like this woman, humbly endure the testing and suffering God gives you. Like the disciples, learn to look past the surface, past race and prejudice to see souls in need of Jesus, knowing that the Church is meant to be a “house of prayer for all peoples.” Your mission, then, is to come to this house with faith and, with patience and love, to bring the whole world with you, one soul at a time.