One of my favorite excuses is that the Daily Office readings for any particular day did not inspire me to write. There is a small kernel of truth in this; the daily readings cover a lot of territory and much of it comes from less well known corners of scripture. Many of them are difficult to integrate into a grand theme, and some simply seem obscure in meaning to me.
Today’s readings fall towards the obscure: Ecclesiastes 7:1-14, Galatians 4:12-20 and Matthew 15:21-28.
I had few hopes for the first reading anyway: Ecclesiastes is tailor-made for confusing its readers. The language is dense and convoluted, written in a style that positively wallows in metaphor and simile, and comes across as somewhat depressing. The over-all theme that “the preacher” repeats over and over through Ecclesiastes is that “all is vanity,” that any control we think we have over our lives and our world is an illusion because God alone determines everything.
In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider; God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him.
Depressing indeed! I quickly moved on to Paul, who usually offers up something inspirational. Alas, this passage from Galatians also left me scratching my head. Obviously, Paul is upset with these particular “little children,” but exactly why is not made very clear.
They make much of you, but for no good purpose; they want to shut you out, that you may make much of them. For a good purpose it is always good to be made much of, and not only when I am present with you.
Uh… what? Say again, Paul? “…I am perplexed about you,” Paul says at the end of this reading—the feeling is mutual on my part.
My last hope for anything meaningful was the gospel reading. Thankfully, the story Matthew relates appears relatively straight forward: because of the woman’s faith, Jesus grants her request and heals her daughter. But, as I dig into it, some disturbing subtexts emerge. The woman is a Canaanite, a non-Jew, and Jesus at first ignores her. Finally, Jesus’ disciples ask him to do something to send her away as she is becoming something of a pest in their eyes. At this juncture I was fully prepared for Jesus to rebuke his disciples for their prejudice against the woman; much to my confusion, Jesus rebukes the woman saying, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of the Israel … It is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” Dogs and Canaanites, stay off the lawn!
In the end, of course, Jesus relents and recognizes the woman’s faith, but I find this a disturbing story nonetheless. Granted, Matthew’s gospel traditionally is considered the “Jewish” gospel, much as Luke is often called the “Greek” gospel, but prejudice like this is hard for me to reconcile with my image of Jesus as the manifestation of a loving, all-embracing God. All of which just proves that no matter how strong my faith, no matter now diligently I study scripture and pray the Daily Office, there will always be questions and moments of uncertainty. I suppose that the ultimate test of faith is to believe, as I do, that God will reconcile these uncertainties in due time.
In the meantime, I mark down a little ? in the margins of my prayer book, and turn the page.
