Preferential Option

Gospel; Matthew 9: 18-26

In today's Gospel portion we find two instructive items for our life as Christians today.  The first is that Jesus provides care to people of all backgrounds, classes, and conditions.  In this text he makes himself available to a royal official whose daughter is ill, while at the same time stopping to care for a poor woman in need of healing herself.  Jesus is interrupted in his original plan of seeing the royal official's daughter, but makes time to care for this woman in need.

In stopping to care for this woman he puts her needs first.  He could very well have said to her that he will come see her after going to the royal official's house, but he did not.  Jesus stopped in that moment to care for this woman of lower status and importance in society than the royal official.  In doing so Jesus shows that priority of care must go to the poor and vulnerable in their dire need while at the same time not neglecting the needs of the higher classes too.

Clearly we have not created a secular society where the needs of the poor matter at all.  The more important question is whether we have Christian communities that do so.  To be sure we will find some communities of faith where that care for the poor and marginalized is front and center.  In other places it is merely lip service, while in still others they have helped to create the secular society of utter neglect and contempt for the poor.  The example of Jesus is clear in terms of which is authentic Christian witness.