Isaiah 56: 1, 6-7; Romans 11: 13-15, 29-32; Matthew 15:21-28

Pontificating: Building Bridges

Introduction

An opening prayer

On this Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time, the opening prayer is, “Oh Lord, may the walls, which prejudice and fear raise between us, crumble beneath the shadow of your outstretched arm.”

A wall in Berlin

It’s a timely prayer because the 13^th of August (yesterday) is the day the Communists in 1961 began construction of the infamous Berlin Wall. It was 10 feet wide and 15 feet tall. It ran for 28 miles through the heart of Berlin. It wasn’t bricks that built the wall; it was ideology: Communist East against Capitalist West. It was also fear that built it --fear of the foreigner, the outsider. Fear of an outsider (one who doesn’t belong to the group) has a special name: xenophobia. Xenos is Greek for the foreigner, the outsider. The Berlin Wall was built out of a fear that insiders would try to get out and that outsiders, foreigners (capitalists), would try to get in.

Perhaps you didn’t hear it, but the first reading is all about the foreigner, the outsider. “Thus says the Lord God, ` The foreigner I will bring to my holy mountain and make joyful in my house of prayer… Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be acceptable on my altar, for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all people’” (Is. 56: 7). No xenophobia, no fear of the foreigner in the Lord God.

Erich Honecker, an old Nazi party chief, vowed the Berlin Wall would stand for a hundred years. It lasted for only 28. Then in one historic moment, at the stroke of midnight, Nov. 9, 1989 (thanks to President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II) mobs scaled the wall and with arms full of hammers and chisels, sent it tumbling down. We hear the echo of the opening prayer: “May the walls which prejudice and fear raise between us crumble beneath the shadow of your outstretch arm.“

Writing of that event Time magazine for Nov. 20 says, "It was one of those rare times when the tectonic plates of history shift beneath our feet, and nothing is quite the same anymore. For East and West Germans it was Christmas, New Year's and Easter all rolled into one." The only ones missing that historic moment were the 191 desperate souls who were killed trying to scale the wall to freedom, for the wall was also built to lock people in.

A wall in the temple

There was also an ugly wall in Jesus’ day. This one ran through the heart of the very temple itself--that edifice which Isaiah calls "the house of prayer for all people." That wall was 5 feet tall and was made of stone. It was called the Separation Wall because it divided the outer court of the Gentiles (those foreigners and outsiders) from the inner court of the Jews (those insiders).

The Separation Wall was ascribed to the divine will. God, it was claimed, actually wrote it into the very blueprints of the temple. (Imagine, God, who has to take care of the whole universe, pouring over the blueprints of a human edifice!) In reality the Separation Wall was built more by human prejudice and fear than by divine will.

Like the Berlin Wall, the Separation Wall in the temple was a killer. On it were attached xenophobic signs prohibiting any foreigner (Gentile), under the pain of death, from going beyond the prescribed boundary. In 1871 a stone inscription, found near the temple area, threatened death to any Gentile who passed beyond that check-point-Charlie located in the very house of God, which supposedly is “a house of prayer for all people.” The wall almost killed St. Paul himself. In Acts we read that some Jews from the Province of Asia tried to put Paul to death because, they claimed, he had allowed Trophimus, a Gentile from Ephesus, to go beyond the forbidden wall (Acts 21:28-29).

That wall, supposedly built by God, was torn down by Christ. Like those Berliners, Jesus with hammer and chisel in his pierced hands scaled the cross and died up there. At that moment, Paul writes, "he tore down the wall of hostility that used to keep us enemies, and he made the both of us, Jew and Gentile, one" (Eph 2:14-16). The opening prayer resounds again: “May the walls which prejudice and fear raise between us crumble beneath the shadow of your outstretch arm.“

A wall in human hearts

The gospel today, just like the first reading from Isaiah, is about a foreigner, an outsider—a Canaanite woman. And there is a wall of separation running right through the hearts of Jesus, a Jew, and the woman, a Canaanite. It’s a racial wall between them. Jews depicted Canaanites as wicked mongrels who should be exterminated. One of those mongrels, a Canaanite woman, is now beseeching Jesus, a Jew, saying, “Have pity on me, Lord, son of David. My daughter is tormented by a demon.” He ignores her. She pleads again. Seemingly unfeeling, Jesus tells her, “You don’t toss to dogs the bread that belongs to the sons and daughters of the household.” (“You don’t give to foreigners what belongs to Jews.”) If it stuns you for a moment that Jesus calls the woman a dog, realize that he’s simply quoting a prevalent proverb. His heart isn’t in it. His tongue is, as it were, in his cheek, and he’s simply reflecting the ugly attitude of his own people toward Canaanites.

The woman doesn’t give up. She holds her ground. She turns the tables on Jesus saying, “Yes, Lord, call me a dog, if you will, but just remember dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table. So, please, Lord, throw me this crumb.” Jesus marvels at her repartee filled with spunky faith. He gives in. He stretches out his arm and tosses her the crumb she’s begging for; he cures her daughter. He sends the wall between the two of them tumbling down. Again the opening prayer resounds: “May the walls, which prejudice and fear raise between us, crumble beneath the shadow of your outstretch arm.”

A parable about a foreigner

The greatest of all Jesus’ parables was about a foreigner, an outsider, a man from Samaria. His fellow Jews despised Samaritans because of their race, politics, customs and religion. Jesus crafted that parable precisely for his Jewish brethren. “Once upon a time a Jew, one of our own, was journeying from Jerusalem to Jericho and was waylaid by robbers and left half dead. Along came one of our Jewish priests, a blood brother, who saw the poor man, did nothing and passed him by. Along came one of our Levites, also a Jew and blood brother. He, too, saw the poor fellow, did nothing and passed him by. Then along came one of those despised Samaritans. He stopped and poured the oil of compassion into the man’s wounds, then managed to hoist the man’s dead weight upon his beast of burden and hurried him off to the nearest inn, where this “bad” Samaritan dug deep into his pockets to pay for the cure and care of one of our own “(Lk 10: 25-37). By that parable Jesus tried to tear down the wall between his fellow Jews and Samaritans. By that great parable Jesus, the Jew, did such a good job on one of those “bad” Samaritans that today we cannot conceive of anything else but a good Samaritan.

The eternal temptation

Religion’s eternal temptation is to build walls of separation, to divide God’s children, to set one against the other. Religion’s eternal temptation is to create insiders of some and outsiders of all the rest. That’s true of Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Judaism created Gentiles. That’s you and me. Islam has created Infidels. Again, that’s you and me. Christianity has done no better. In the course of time it created the massa damnata, the damned masses. That was St. Augustine’s expression in the fifth century to denote a whole world of foreigners and outsiders---a whole sea of unbelieving, un-baptized and, therefore, damned souls. The expression stuck down through many centuries. It still lingers on, sometimes implicitly and sometimes quite explicitly and fiercely as it does in Christian fundamentalism.

A wall in the church

On Tuesday, April 19, 2005 the College of Cardinal elected Cardinal Ratzinger as the 264^th successor of St. Peter and as supreme pontiff in the church. Pontiff is a rich word. It comes from the Latin pons, pontis meaning bridge. A pontiff is one who builds not walls but bridges to reach out to others. A supreme pontiff is one who is supremely dedicated to building not walls but bridges to reach out to others. In an open letter to the new pontiff, Fr. Dominic Emmanuel, SVD, writes:

Your Holiness Pope Benedict, sincere congratulations on your election. In this Year of the Eucharist I would like to share a major problem with you that practically all of us in India often face, and not without some embarrassment. Here in Delhi hundred of people visit the cathedral regularly. Most of them are Hindus or Sikhs who spend time reverently in prayer and silence, and many of them even light a candle before leaving church. [Author’s note: Recall the words of the first reading: “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people.”] Your Holiness, such scenes are moving and often ignite in me an evangelistic zeal to reach out to them […as a bridge reaches out to the other side]. Many of these Hindus and Sikhs return to attend Mass, often showing greater devotion than many of our own Catholic faithful.

Yet, dear Holy Father, before the distribution of Holy Communion, the celebrant announces that people of other religions should not come forward to receive the Eucharist. […There’s that xenophobic fear again in high gear.] I have seen the face of those being excluded suddenly fall. Some of them become angry at this exclusivity of the church. Two years ago I met a man who vowed never to go to a Catholic church again because of this prohibition. What could I possibly say to his question, “Do you think that if I approach Jesus Christ in person, he would tell me to go first go and fulfill the requirements of baptism and confession, and then come back to meet him?” […There’s that massa damnata, that damned mass of the un-baptized, still lingering on]

I would like to know, dear Pope Benedict, what is the best way to handle such a situation, especially since Hindus and Sikhs come from a tradition where, at the end their worship in the temple, they are used to receiving a tiny bit of some sweet substance called Prasad in Hindi.

Even though Fr. Emmanuel asks Pope Benedict how to handle the situation, Fr. Emmanuel already knows the answer he craves down deep in his heart of hearts: Let’s tear down the walls of separation! Let’s, instead, be pontiffs. Let’s build bridges.

Vatican II: a pontiff in the spirit of a Pontiff

The Second Vatican Council was summoned by a Supreme Pontiff, a supreme builder of bridges, Pope John XXIII. In his spirit, the Council sought to be a builder of bridges. It tried to build a bridge to the Jewish community. In its document on non-Christian religions the Council declares that, “The Church repudiates all persecution of any human being. Moreover, mindful of her common patrimony with the Jews, and motivated by gospel love and not by any political consideration, she deplores all hatred and persecution directed against Jews at any time and from any source” (Nostra Aetate , no 4). Here the church, which had terrorized the Jewish community in Rome and elsewhere for centuries, was confessing her own sins.

Vatican II also tried to build a bridge to the Islamic community. In the same document, the Council writes, “Upon Muslims, too, the Church looks with esteem. They adore one God, living and enduring, merciful and all-powerful, maker of heaven and earth and speaker to men. They strive to surrender wholeheartedly even to God’s inscrutable decrees” (Nostra Aetate, no.3). That’s a reference to the very root-meaning of Islam. In Arabic Islam means to surrender to God.

Conclusion

Surrendering to God

We, as a religious assembly, are trying to enlighten ourselves about the nature of true religion. That duty is urgently incumbent upon us now as never before. The old wall which ran through Berlin was built by ideology: Communist East against Capitalist West. There is a now a new wall which runs right through the very globe of the earth itself. That wall has been built by religion: Islamic East against Infidel West. The very word infidel belies the truly religious character of that wall.

That wall was built by Islamic religion as hijacked by terrorists who now preoccupy us totally, 24/7, with their terrorism in our airways, railways, subways, super malls and skyscrapers. At the end of the day, we are now much more preoccupied with their terrorism than we are with the price of gas at the pumps. We are all holding our breaths for the next 9/11 which, we are told by some, will inevitably burst upon us sooner or later. That’s no way to live.

When Judaism, Christianity and Islam surrender to hijackers and terrorists, the three of us are false. But when the three of us surrender to the one true God, all three of us are true, and in some wonderful mysterious way, we are all Muslims because of our surrender.