20210804 TEST OF FAITH
04 August, 2021, Wednesday, 18th Week, Ordinary Time
First reading |
Numbers 13:1-2,25-14:1,26-29,34-35 © |
The spies return from Canaan
The Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Paran and said, ‘Send out men, one from each tribe, to make a reconnaissance of this land of Canaan which I am giving to the sons of Israel. Send the leader of each tribe.’
At the end of forty days, they came back from their reconnaissance of the land. They sought out Moses, Aaron and the whole community of Israel, in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh. They made their report to them, and to the whole community, and showed them the produce of the country.
They told them this story, ‘We went into the land to which you sent us. It does indeed flow with milk and honey; this is its produce. At the same time, its inhabitants are a powerful people; the towns are fortified and very big; yes, and we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekite holds the Negeb area, the Hittite, Amorite and Jebusite the highlands, and the Canaanite the sea coast and the banks of the Jordan.’
Caleb harangued the people gathered about Moses: ‘We must march in,’ he said ‘and conquer this land: we are well able to do it.’ But the men who had gone up with him answered, ‘We are not able to march against this people; they are stronger than we are.’ And they began to disparage the country they had reconnoitred to the sons of Israel, ‘The country we went to reconnoitre is a country that devours its inhabitants. Every man we saw there was of enormous size. Yes, and we saw giants there (the sons of Anak, descendants of the Giants). We felt like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.’
At this, the whole community raised their voices and cried aloud, and the people wailed all that night.
The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron. He said:
‘I have heard the complaints which the sons of Israel make against me. Say to them, “As I live – it is the Lord who speaks – I will deal with you according to the very words you have used in my hearing. In this wilderness your dead bodies will fall, all you men of the census, all you who were numbered from the age of twenty years and over, you who have complained against me. For forty days you reconnoitred the land. Each day shall count for a year: for forty years you shall bear the burden of your sins, and you shall learn what it means to reject me.” I, the Lord, have spoken: this is how I will deal with this perverse community that has conspired against me. Here in this wilderness, to the last man, they shall die.’
Responsorial Psalm |
Psalm 105(106):6-7,13-14,21-23 © |
O Lord, remember me out of the love you have for your people.
or
Alleluia!
Our sin is the sin of our fathers;
we have done wrong, our deeds have been evil.
Our fathers when they were in Egypt
paid no heed to your wonderful deeds.
O Lord, remember me out of the love you have for your people.
or
Alleluia!
They soon forgot his deeds
and would not wait upon his will.
They yielded to their cravings in the desert
and put God to the test in the wilderness.
O Lord, remember me out of the love you have for your people.
or
Alleluia!
They forgot the God who was their saviour,
who had done such great things in Egypt,
such portents in the land of Ham,
such marvels at the Red Sea.
O Lord, remember me out of the love you have for your people.
or
Alleluia!
For this he said he would destroy them,
but Moses, the man he had chosen,
stood in the breach before him,
to turn back his anger from destruction.
O Lord, remember me out of the love you have for your people.
or
Alleluia!
Gospel Acclamation | James1:18 |
Alleluia, alleluia!
By his own choice the Father made us his children
by the message of the truth,
so that we should be a sort of first-fruits
of all that he created.
Alleluia!
Or: | Lk7:16 |
Alleluia, alleluia!
A great prophet has appeared among us;
God has visited his people.
Alleluia!
Gospel |
Matthew 15:21-28 © |
The Canaanite woman debates with Jesus and saves her daughter
Jesus left Gennesaret and withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. Then out came a Canaanite woman from that district and started shouting, ‘Sir, Son of David, take pity on me. My daughter is tormented by a devil.’ But he answered her not a word. And his disciples went and pleaded with him. ‘Give her what she wants,’ they said ‘because she is shouting after us.’ He said in reply, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel.’ But the woman had come up and was kneeling at his feet. ‘Lord,’ she said ‘help me.’ He replied, ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the house-dogs.’ She retorted, ‘Ah yes, sir; but even house-dogs can eat the scraps that fall from their master’s table.’ Then Jesus answered her, ‘Woman, you have great faith. Let your wish be granted.’ And from that moment her daughter was well again.
TEST OF FAITH
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [NUM 13:1-2,25-14:1,26-29,34-35; Ps 106:6-7,13-14,21-23; Mt 15:21-28]
Today’s recounting of the fears of the sons of Israel helps us to appreciate better why they had to spend forty years wandering in the desert before they could take control of the land of Canaan which God had promised to their forefathers. It was not on the part of God to delay in fulfilling His promise but because of the sin of man, fundamentally, the lack of faith in His divine providence and power. God instructed Moses to “send out men, one from each tribe, to make a reconnaissance of this land of Canaan which I am giving to the sons of Israel. Send the leader of each tribe.” God wanted to deliver Canaan to them when they reached the wilderness of Paran. But they lacked the confidence to occupy the land.
Indeed, the lack of faith is the reason they rebelled against God’s command to occupy the land. When the spies returned from recceing the land, instead of feeling great and excited over the produce they found in the country, nice grapes, pomegranates and figs, they were focused on the size of their enemies, their strength and the number of inhabitants. Compared to them, they felt like grasshoppers. It was an over exaggeration of their enemy’s strength. They were focused on their fears rather than the hope and future in front of them. They still remained slaves in their hearts even though they had been physically liberated from their Egyptian masters. It was fear that controlled them.
The truth is that their fears were unfounded, more so as they had seen the power of God at work in their lives, how God with His mighty hand set the sons of Israel free through His awesome works and wonders. They were just a motley crowd of slaves, untrained, compared to the Egyptian army and their armoury. But God showed that He was their Lord when they were drowned in the sea. Then the Lord protected them with the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. In the desert, God fed them with water, manna and quail. They had seen all the wonders of God and yet they doubted whether they could overcome the inhabitants in Canaan.
Instead of being assured of God’s promise being realized, they did not see that the fruits they brought back were signs to confirm that God intended the Promised Land for them. It was meant to be a pledge of what is to come. It demonstrated the reliability of the Word of God; that they would live in a land of plenty, flowing with milk and honey as promised. God told Moses, “I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” (Ex 3:8) And now at the threshold of entering the Promised Land, they lost faith in God. They forgot all that God had done for them. If only they remembered the many evidences of God’s care and divine providence for them, they would have trusted in God to enter into the Promised Land. This is an important lesson for us to learn as well because many of us are blind to what the Lord had done for us in the past and what He is doing for us in the present, and thus we do not surrender our future into His hands, and walk by faith, not by sight. If this God has met our needs in the past and our needs today, why do we doubt that He will provide for us tomorrow? This is why in the Lord’s Prayer, we are asked to pray for our daily bread, that is the bread for today because tomorrow, He will also provide just as He did for the sons of Israel when God told them to gather the manna enough for just the day, no more and no less. (Ex 16:4)
By so doing, they were rejecting the promises of God. They did not trust in God’s words even though God explicitly told Moses that He was ready to give them the land of Canaan. The men were sent out, not so much to plan for a military operation but to give them encouragement that God’s promise was real and He was going to fulfil them. God had given them a people and so now God was ready to give them the land. Hence, they were made to go through the same way as Abraham did via the Negeb to arrive at Hebron where Abraham and Sarah were buried. (Num 12:17,22) They were to retrace the steps and journey he took in faith when he left his country for Canaan. Unfortunately, they took the same journey without faith in God, unlike Abraham.
Today, we are called to learn from Caleb who was determined to listen to the Lord. He was not cynical and never doubted that God would not abandon them. “Caleb harangued the people gathered about Moses: ‘We must march in,’ he said ‘and conquer this land: we are well able to do it.'” Caleb was full of confidence, unlike the rest of the Israelites who “raised their voices and cried aloud, and the people wailed all that night.” Indeed, in matters of conscience, one must listen to God. This is why sometimes democracy is not applicable to all situations. The Church is never democratic, otherwise, truths will be decided by popular consensus. When churches are fully democratic, this is the reason for so much division and fragmentation because when truth is decided by popular vote, then it becomes a question of influence, publicity and swaying the opinions of people through the media.
What is needed therefore is a firm faith in God. When there is faith in the Lord, we can overcome all odds. When we lack faith, we are depending only on our own strength and human calculation. As the angel said to Mary, “For with God nothing will be impossible.” (Lk 1:37) Unfortunately, because the Israelites lacked faith, God had to train them in faith for another forty years before they could enter the Promised Land. “For forty days you reconnoitred the land. Each day shall count for a year: for forty years you shall bear the burden of your sins, and you shall learn what it means to reject me. Here in this wilderness, to the last man, they shall die.” God waited for the generation to die so that He could raise a new generation with faith in Him to enter into the Promised Land. By the time of Joshua, they were ready to enter the Promised Land and conquer their enemies. Joshua, which means “Yahweh saves” believed that God would win the victory for them. Jericho was won not through arms but through prayers and trumpets. God brought down the walls of Jericho and the inhabitants ran away in fear. (Jos 6:16-21) It was this same faith that saw David defeated Goliath.
This was the same faith demonstrated by the Syro-Phoenician woman. She refused to be deterred by the apparent rejection of our Lord to her request to heal her daughter. Her faith grew because of her contact with the Lord. She confessed in Jesus as the Son of David, a political title acknowledging the place of Israel in salvation history. She was humble to admit that Israel was God’s chosen people and the Messiah would come from the dynasty of David. Her humility was also expressed in her light-heartedness in taking the taunts of Jesus without feeling offended. She would not be dismissed so easily. She was persistent in her request and never gave up.
But her perseverance in faith was strengthened by her love for her daughter. For the sake of her daughter, she continued to have faith even when she was rebuffed by the Lord. Her love made her persevere in faith and hope. It was her love that kept her humble and touched the heart of our Lord’s compassion for her and her daughter. Indeed, so long as we have love, it means that we have faith. Faith, hope and charity always go together. One cannot stand by itself but always with the other two. When we are driven by love, we never give up hope and faith in the person. Love strengthens faith and faith is the basis of love.
Finally, we are told that faith happens when we start praying. The woman knelt down in worship and cried out to the Lord. She believed in the power of prayer and intercession. Earnest in her prayers, she was not disappointed by the Lord. We, too, can strengthen our faith and love for Jesus through prayers and intimacy with the Lord. Jesus was so moved by her faith and love that He said to her, “‘Woman, you have great faith. Let your wish be granted.’ And from that moment her daughter was well again. She passed the test of faith.
Written by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved.
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