You can think about our place in the world as a series of interlocking circles of care. The innermost circle contains the people and things we care about the most – family and friends, country and church, values and virtues, health and happiness. We try as best we can, with varying degrees of success, to keep this circle whole and entire. The next circle consists of things we care about but at one remove. We care about the war in the Ukraine, about global warming, about the violence in the city. We care about these things but since we have little to no control about how they will turn out they don’t consume much of our mental space. An outer circle would be filled with things that interest us but which are more passing: what are the Bears going to do this year, how are the elections going to turn out, will anyone become the permanent host of Jeopardy! Not the kinds of things you lose sleep over but you do care about the outcome.
The gospel today is a story of conflict between two competing circles of care. The Canaanite woman demonstrates the most profound and deep circle of care – a mother for her child. She will do anything in her power to care for her daughter because that is what mothers do. Jesus, on the other hand, exhibits his devotion to his inmost circle of care as well – care for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. His mission was to them and they aren’t responding as he had hoped they would. He cared about his people at the gut level and was focusing his mission plan on them. At the initial encounter of these two circles of care they bounced off each other, like magnets with the same charge. The circles needed to find a way to intersect. The mother’s care was so strong that she could break through to get Jesus to see her in a new light. Instead of being a foreigner, as someone not of the house of Israel, he recognized her as woman of faith. He responded to her petition because he recognized that what she was asking was, in fact, compatible with his mission. She proved she was one of the loss sheep by her faith.
The temptation that we all face is to limit our circle of care to those who look like us or think like us. Jesus had to confront that temptation several times. Remember the occasion in the gospel when a woman praised his mother — “Blessed is womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you” – Jesus replied, “Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it” (Luke 11:27). His inmost circle was not going to be determined by biology but by faith. Or remember when he was told that his mother and brothers wanted to see him. He said, “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” His circle of care, and as a result ours as his followers, includes more than the usual suspects. We discover that there are commonalities all human beings share as children of God that lead us to embrace even those who are other than us.
The challenge, then, for St. James is to make sure that our circle of care is ever expanding. Hospitality involves more than greeting those whom we know but includes us reaching out to the stranger we see every week but haven’t learned their names. The students who are arriving need to feel that they belong and we should meet and greet one another. The various cultures and nationalities which make up the parish need to be valued and encouraged as an important part of our identity. Our circle of care must include every child of God who crosses our path since they are not other but are part of the family. That has a particular resonance during these days with the presence of many immigrants and refugees. They are living in front of police stations and staying in shelters and they have a claim on our care. They are Lazarus at our door step and we can’t ignore them. The days and weeks ahead will provide us an opportunity to widen our circle of care to include these, our new neighbors.
Thinking of this reminded me of a prayer from a book, cleverly entitled Prayers, by Michel Quoist. It begins with the pray-er saying something like this: Lord, why did you tell me to love everyone? I was peaceful in my own circle of care, comfortably settled and cozy. But you have asked me to open my door and like rain in the face the cry of human desperation has smacked me. I left my door ajar and it’s almost like they were lying in wait for me – hurting, hungry, sad, needy. As soon as I opened the door I saw them with outstretched hands, anxious eyes and longing hearts. The first came in, there was, after all, a little space in me for them. I welcomed them and would have cared for them, included them in my circle. But then the next ones pushed their way in. I had not seen them there. They overpowered me and I had to find room for them. They keep coming, pushing and jostling. They come from everywhere, numberless and inexhaustible. They come bending under heavy loads of injustice, of resentment, of suffering. They drag in the whole ugly world behind them. They are all over. I can’t do what I used to do anymore since the door keeps getting pushed wider and wider. There are too many for me to include in my circle of care. I have lost my comfortable life. Help me, Lord, for I feel lost. God answers this prayer: Do not worry. You have gained all. For when all those others came in and overwhelmed you, I your God, I your peace, slipped in among them.
