Daily Reading

First Reading

1 Kings 11:4-13

For when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods; and his heart was not true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father David. For Solomon followed Astarte the goddess of the Sidonians, and Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not completely follow the Lord, as his father David had done. Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem. He did the same for all his foreign wives, who offered incense and sacrificed to their gods.

Then the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, and had commanded him concerning this matter, that he should not follow other gods; but he did not observe what the Lord commanded. Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, “Since this has been your mind and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and give it to your servant. Yet for the sake of your father David I will not do it in your lifetime; I will tear it out of the hand of your son. I will not, however, tear away the entire kingdom; I will give one tribe to your son, for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen.”

Psalm

Psalm 106:3-4, 35-36, 37 and 40

Happy are those who observe justice,
    who do righteousness at all times.
Remember me, O Lord, when you show favor to your people;
    help me when you deliver them;
but they mingled with the nations
    and learned to do as they did.
They served their idols,
    which became a snare to them.
They sacrificed their sons
    and their daughters to the demons;
Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against his people,
    and he abhorred his heritage.

Gospel Reading

Mark 7:24-30

From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

Reflection

Friends, in today’s Gospel, a feisty woman engages Jesus in an argument. It is one of the only scenes in the Gospels where someone cajoles Jesus into doing something he wouldn’t ordinarily do.

There is a long tradition that stresses the woman’s perseverance in the face of the “test” that Jesus sets for her. There is another reading that shows how the woman exemplifies the proper attitude toward God, a combination of humility and boldness, of deference and defiance.

But the reading I want to emphasize is one conditioned by the philosophy of the “other.” The Old Testament speaks insistently of “the stranger, the widow, and the orphan,” those who have no one to care for them. They press upon us even when we would greatly prefer them just to go away.

We the Church are the body of Christ, the physical presence of Christ in the world. And so people come to us demanding food, sustenance, friendship, love, shelter, liberation. So often we are tempted to do what Jesus does initially and what the disciples do: tell them to back off. But the whole of the Christian life consists in remembering the suffering and need of the annoying other.