I heard a young woman from Cornwall say something great on the Radio the other day. She said that she had been told that the Church was global; but when she was at the World Youth Day at Mass with at least a million young people from all over the world around her, she had been able to see for herself what “Being a global Church” really means. You can see and hear me give this Homily on Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrVyNulSACA
It reminded me of a priest I know who used to work in Stoke-on-Trent and at the Sunday Mass once a year, he would get various people to stand up in turn and say “Happy Easter” in their first language. He was proud to tell me that over 30 different languages were represented.
All of this is a fulfilment of the wonderful vision of our 1st Reading today, (Isaiah 56:1.6-7) where the prophet sees that the Temple that the Jewish people hope to rebuild in Jerusalem will not just be for them, but will be for everyone. Isaiah calls it “A house of prayer for all the peoples.” ; and this reminds me of that other great passage on this theme from the prophet Micah (4:1) where he writes of the Temple, saying that, “The peoples will stream to it, nations without number will come to it; and they will say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the Temple of the God of Jacob so that he may teach us his ways and we may walk in his paths.”
But how do we get from talking of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem to talking of the global Church? Well from Jesus of course! (John 2:13-21) It’s when he’s upset everyone in the Temple by driving out the money changers and the traders with a whip, telling them that the Temple is not meant to be a market; and then, in response to their protests, he says “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”; and St John follows that with an explanation saying that “The Temple he had spoken of was his body.” So Jesus is the new Temple. But St Paul takes us further, in his letter to the Corinthians, where he teaches us that we Christians “Are the body of Christ and individually members of it. (1 Cor 12:27) And so there we are, the people of God, the holy Church, we are the Body of Christ, and so in Christ we are the new Temple, and so we are the house of prayer for all the peoples.
We could argue that it was sad that Isaiah’s great vision of a Temple for the whole world was not realised, that most of the Jews turned back to the old idea of a Temple just for them. Perhaps in a strange way it was necessary, so that Jesus could show them and us that a physical Temple like that will inevitably be destroyed, thus pointing to himself as a new kind of Temple. Our Gospel (Matt 15:21-28) shows Jesus putting this into practice, as in response to the foreign woman’s appeal for her daughter; and her wit at describing herself as a dog eating the scraps; he extends his healing and salvation to her, and thus to anyone who cries out for help. And this means that we must do that too, first in the Church itself, and then in the world.
When I go on holiday and go to Sunday Mass wherever I am staying; being on holiday I wear ordinary clothes so no-one knows I’m a priest. Sometimes I get a great welcome – someone at the door to hand me the right books or bits of paper for the Mass, and before and afterwards various people saying “Good Morning”; and even sometimes someone who spots that I might be new to the church and makes a point of finding out a bit more about me. But now and then, sadly I go to a Church where none of this happens, and I walk in and out as if I didn’t exist. So please ask yourself what you do to make the Church you go to a “House of prayer for all peoples”? Does your church have people on duty to welcome others, and if it doesn’t, what are you going to do about it? Do people at least say “Good morning” to one another including people they don’t know, which means a stranger would at least get that kind of welcome? And don’t leave it to the priest, because even if he isn’t rushing off to say Mass somewhere else, he can easily miss people. And don’t say “Oh yes, no-one says hello to me where I go to Mass?’ – as if it is their fault. Instead, start saying hello to them.
My second point is that if the Church is to be a house of prayer for all peoples it must also be a church where its members practise care for other people where they live or work. If you or I limit our care to those we know, we are failing to follow Jesus who died for all men and women, whatever they are like and wherever they are from. We may for example have differing opinions about how to cope with people who are trying to enter our country often by illegal means, but however we think we should cope with this, as Christians we have to recognise every one of them as a fellow human being crying out for help, just like the woman did in our Gospel. This may be hard, there may not be easy solutions, but Jesus never said that following him and his way would be easy. It worries me when here in Britain and Europe we have quite rightly made great efforts to welcome people from the Ukraine, but have been far less welcoming to people fleeing from war or oppression in Afghanistan or parts of Africa. We, the Body of Christ, the house of prayer for all peoples need to set an example to those around us. It is part of the way we share God’s love, and it cannot be shirked.
In the midst of all these demands, we may all feel helpless at times, we may feel overwhelmed; and then we are more like the woman in our Gospel than like Jesus. Let’s remember then what she did. She called out to Jesus for help. Priests often tell us when we are facing troubles to pray, but too often we think of prayer as a quiet thoughtful process. Well yes, it is great when prayer is like that, but at other times we must not be afraid to pray like that woman did, to shout out to God, to Jesus, for help. And to argue with God, just as she did, for we Christians are not just called the Temple of God but also the New Israel. And do you know what Israel means? It means those who struggle, those who wrestle, with God. Now that’s quite a calling!
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