If any kids out here know how to do a handstand, I would like you to volunteer for me. If you can’t do it, I can hold you upside down. You probably will need a shirt and pants on for this. (Pause – no volunteers). Alright, Tom, it must be you (older gentleman). (Laughter) I’m serious. I will need somebody strong to come up and help me.
Before we do this. In the beginning, Adam walked upright before God when he had no sin. After Original Sin, something remarkable will happen, and Adam began to walk upside down.
(Ready? Bend over forward. This is a $500 suit? See if we can do this. There you go.) Then after Jesus came, He stood us upright again. Thank you, I’m so glad we couldn’t find a kid.
I want to use that image of walking upright before God. Adam, before he sinned, walked upright before God. After the Original Sin, mankind walked upside down, and I’ll explain that. Then, after Jesus came into the world, he revealed Himself to people and showed them the way, the truth, and the life mankind walked upright again. I want to go through these readings and show what that means.
In the first reading from Isaiah, the Lord says, “Observe what is right, do what is just.” He is saying to observe what is right and do what is just. If we do that, we will walk upright.
I don’t know if you have noticed this about our world and our society lately, but many people are walking upside down, telling us that they are walking right side up and that we are walking upside down. Jesus reveals to us how to walk upright before God.
He says, “Even foreigners who keep the Sabbath will walk upright.” Right now, as all of you stand in different parts of the Mass, the Gospel, and the Eucharistic Prayer, we are walking upright. At least for one hour of the week, we are walking upright. Then we go out into the world, and the world constantly tries to have us walk upside down. Trying to walk contrary to God’s ways.
At the end of the reading, He says, “Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be acceptable on my altar, for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all people.” I like this, a house of prayer for all people. This is called today, a house of prayer for all people.
I was reading a commentary on this, and it said that everyone is welcome. All people are welcome, but the commentary said that all ideas are not welcome. All people are welcome, but all beliefs are not welcome. We say something here when we come to Mass on Sunday, especially when we profess The Creed, that we believe something to be true.
People will sometimes, I’m sure you encounter them throughout the week, that are walking upside down, and they tell you that they don’t believe what you believe in. Then they want to say that everything is the same. We’re all talking about the same thing. We’re not. We come here with a very specific belief in Jesus Christ. We come here with a very specific belief in the Eucharist. We come here with a specific belief in the Holy Roman Catholic Church.
Then we hear in the next reading, the Responsorial Psalm. “May the peoples praise you, O God; may all the peoples praise you! May God bless us, and may all the ends of the earth fear Him!”
So, God desires that all the ends of the earth fear Him. Hopefully, we all have an understanding of what that means. It is not that we are afraid of God but that we have this reverence, this awe for God. We have some humility to think that maybe God knows things better than we do. Maybe God’s truth is better than the truth that we tend to make up. Maybe God wanted me to walk upright, which is the real way to walk, and walking upside down is not the way.
Then we hear in the Second Reading, “Just as you once disobeyed God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, so they have now disobeyed so that, by the mercy shown to them, they too may now receive mercy.”
God wants to be merciful to us. Even if we walk upside down, God wants to turn us around. He wants to convert us. Every time we come into Mass, we begin with The Penitential Rite and ask God for His forgiveness; it’s a time for God to flip us back in the right direction.
Sometimes we may sin gravely. We may miss Mass on a Sunday, or something else may happen throughout the week or the month. We may commit a grave sin that causes us to flip upside down. We have a wonderful sacrament for that which is called Reconciliation so that we can be reconciled to God, upright again before Him.
Now the Gospel, I want to focus on three things. This woman comes to Him, this is a Gospel that I hope is difficult to hear for you, and Jesus is calling her a dog. How do we make sense of this?
He says, “This Canaanite woman came and called out to Him.”
First, I want to explain that the Canaanites were Gentiles who seemed far from God. Which means that they were doing some horrific things in their lives. They were worshipping idols. One of the things that the Canaanites did, they sacrificed their children to the idols on the altar. I want you to hear that again. They sacrificed their children on the altar. So, Jesus is saying that they’re doing some horrible things.
In this context, He tells her, “It is not right to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” Notice that He doesn’t call her a dog. He is using an analogy. It’s wrong to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs. What He is saying is that the Canaanites have become less than human. They’re not living as humans; they’re living as dogs. They’re sacrificing children at their altars; they’re worshipping pagan gods and doing horrible things with their lives. What He is saying is that these people are upside down.
I love this woman’s faith, and Jesus loves it too. First, she calls out to Him and says, “Pity me, Lord, Son of David!” She knows Jesus is walking upright. “Pity me, Lord.” So, she’s calling Him Lord and then Son of David. Jesus is the inheritance of all the Jewish faith, and then she says, “My daughter is tormented by a demon.”
We don’t experience this too often in our country because a lot of our country is Christian. We’re turning away very fast, but in countries and societies with a lot more pagans and worshipping idols, Satan is set loose. They experience a lot more possessions than we experience today in our world. Not that we don’t; we still do.
So, she’s saying to Jesus, “My daughter is tormented by a demon.” She once says, “Pity me, Lord, Son of David!” He replies, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” He’s saying He is focusing on Israel right now because I want Israel to go to the world.
The woman does something remarkable . . . she does Him homage. That means she either knelt or laid down in front of Him, and then she says a second time, “Lord, help me.” That is when He says, “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” I love this; she is so remarkable; a third time, “Please Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.” She’s saying that Jesus is Lord and her Master. It’s so cool that she says, “Even dogs,” so even people that have been unfaithful to the Lord will take the scraps that fall from the table of their master.
She says, “Just give me a scrap, Lord. Just give me a little bit of grace. If you give me some grace, my daughter will be well.” Then Jesus tells her, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” Does that sound familiar to anyone? “Let it be done for you.” That was at the Annunciation what the angel said to Mary. “And the woman’s daughter was healed from that hour.”
The final thing I want to focus on . . . it could be ourselves too, the times that we walk upside down . . . perhaps there are people in your life right now that are walking upside down, and they may be telling you that you are walking upside down and you need to walk upside down like them.
We are called to help people walk upright. This could be people away from the faith or people in really bad situations; this could be anyone in our society or culture trying to convince us that walking on our heads is the way to walk.
So many times, parents come to me and say, “Father, I don’t know what I did wrong with my children. I thought I taught them everything. I gave them the faith, and they don’t attend church.” This is such a painful thing for parents. I want you to think about this woman to pray for her daughter; she came to the Lord and asked Him three times, “Lord, save my daughter who has been possessed.”
Any time we hear the number three in scripture, it usually is a number that means infinite. So, three times is the number of infinity. So, Jesus fell how many times? Three times. Some theologians will say, “Over and over and over, He fell, and yet He got back up.”
I want to encourage you to pray three times for your loved one; by that, I mean infinitely. You do not give up on them; you can continue to intercede with the Lord and beg Him to save the person you love. You can continue to ask Him that not only do we walk upright, but we can help other people walk upright.
As we are about to celebrate the Eucharist and receive Jesus into us when you leave the church today, you are going out into the world, and the world will try to flip you upside down. I invite you to ask for His grace that we may all walk upright before our God.
