What Will Our Future Look Like?

33^rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Mal 3, 19-20 / 2Thess 3, 7-12 / Lk 21, 5-19

 

In today’s gospel reading from Luke Jesus is foreseeing the future of his disciples.  And he sees scenes of fierce opposition to them.  He says this opposition must and will happen.  Yet he also tells us we are not to be afraid – not even worry how we are to defend ourselves.  Rather, Jesus tells us, we are to entrust ourselves over to God’s presence.  And we will know what to say and how to act in the midst of opposition.

As his disciples we really should take Jesus’ foresight as something to rely on.  We should agree with him:  there’s something about following him that provokes strong opposition.  And we might ask ourselves: does our discipleship bring about strong negative reaction?  We might ask further:  what is it that we do as disciples – or, at least, should do as disciples – that could possibly get the kind of reaction Jesus describes here?  He is describing strong reactions from the politically powerful – from the rich and well off – and from established religious leaders too.

There’s a scene in Luke’s gospel that I think can help us answer those questions.  It’s the scene where Jesus tells his disciples they must forgive those who wrong them.  He says:  if they wrong you seven times in one day and return to you seven times saying, “I am sorry,” you should forgive them.  The disciples are stunned by Jesus’ teaching.  It so contradicts not only the way things are but also the way they think things should be.  So they ask Jesus to increase their faith.  They think having a bigger faith, a faith able to overcome all doubts and hesitations; they think that will enable them to forgive as Jesus wants.  But Jesus contradicts them.  It’s not a matter of big faith.  Size isn’t the issue here.  He tells them if their faith were small, the size of a tiny mustard seed, they could do great things – fantastic things.

To become forgiving we must entrust ourselves – not to the bigness of our own faith – but to becoming little and weak, even in the eyes of those we forgive.  It’s a matter of learning – humble learning:  learning not to let the intended snubs, the little cruelties we practice on each other – not to let these get in the way of our root connection to each other.  Doing this, we will grow to do greater things.  We will grow – we will flourish into not letting bigger hurts get in the way of our root connection to each other.

For Jesus our becoming forgiving suits us.  And this is where all the opposition will begin to stir, because for Jesus we have been made for mercy.  We are hardwired for it.  We have been made to receive God’s mercy and to give it further.  Our life project is mercy.  It is not the accumulation of things, nor their consumption.  It is not our having but our letting go in love that connects us to each other – that connects us to all and everyone.  That is God’s movement of mercy in our lives.  To rely on God is to rely on that movement of loving mercy within us.  Letting go is letting God act.

To the powerful intent on holding on to their having – we, disciples of Jesus, we say: we will rely on mercy.  We will rely on the weakness and messiness of mercy.  As citizens, we will not seal ourselves off from one another.  We will not prefer partisan purity to our shared human root connection.  As Church, we will not seek to become the club of the strong, holy and righteous.  Rather, we will seek to be love among all – to be patient love, full of mercy and goodness, among all, for all.

As that Church we gather for Eucharist.  We gather to let Jesus’ words take on new flesh in our lives.  With him, through him and in him we say to our world:  This is my body – for you.  This is my life-blood – poured out for you.  All this – all this for the forgiveness of sin.

Fr. Pat Earl, SJ

A November Homily

31^st Sunday in Ordinary Time

Wis 11, 22-12, 2 / 2Thess 1, 11-2, 2 / Lk 19, 1-10

In the liturgical calendar the month of November begins with the feasts of All Saints and All Souls.  And the last Sunday in November is the feast of Christ the King.  It marks the end of the Church’s liturgical year.  So this month – as also this time of year – would have us reflect on basic things.  Always around this time of year I feel the need as a Jesuit to reflect on something very basic and final: the martyrdom of six brother Jesuits in El Salvador.  November 16 will mark the twenty-fourth anniversary of their deaths.  I want to remember them with you.  And I want to offer their example as a model for how to live and how to die as disciples of the Christ we name this month as King of the Universe.

We need to remember what happened.  We remember that November day in 1989 when elite troops of the Salvadoran army arrived on the campus of the Jesuit university in San Salvador.  These troops, especially their officers, had been trained here in the United States.  They headed directly to the Jesuit residence.  Summarily six Jesuits were shot through the brain – a graphic army protest to the kind of thinking these Jesuits had pursued.  They had spoken out publicly on behalf of the poor and had demanded social justice for all Salvadorans.  After killing the Jesuits, for good measure the soldiers also killed their cook together with her daughter.

There was a member of the Jesuit community who was not killed.  Jon Sobrino, a theologian, had been away in Thailand giving talks.  I know Jon.  We were students together in Germany.  When he returned to El Salvador, he reflected on the slaughter and martyrdom of his brother Jesuits.  “Why?”, he asked, “why kill these men?”  Jon’s answer was so simple and clear-eyed.  They were killed because they had taken to heart Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan.  Like the Good Samaritan, these university professors and parish priests had practiced works of mercy and compassion – and for that they were killed.  Like the Good Samaritan, they had seen the obvious needs of the people around them.  They had not avoided nor closed their eyes to what was blatantly wrong there in front of them in the lives and struggles of their Salvadoran brothers and sisters.  And they responded.  Their response was to call into question the basic power structures of society.  They thought basic thoughts and did basic things:  like speaking out publicly – like calling the powerful into question – like calling the powerful to account.  They responded in those ways because love always confronts un-love.  It threatens our hate and confuses our indifference. 

A year later, at the first anniversary, Jon Sobrino prayed publicly at the graves of the martyrs.  He prayed: “Rest in peace, my six Jesuit brothers.  May your peace give us hope, and may your memory never let us rest in peace.”  I remember their martyrdom today so that we may grow in hope but also that we may have unsettling memories.  I don’t mean the unsettling memories that come from guilt.  They will take us nowhere.  I do mean learning to recognize in these Jesuits what love can do when lived to the end.  What will unsettle us is the recognition of what we can become – the recognition of what God can actually make of us.  It is our hope that will unsettle us.

There is no hope for a love that rigidly focuses on its own advantage.  Let us dare to hope – dare to love – and dare to live for others and, if called upon, to die for others.  Let Christ really be our king!

 

Fr. Pat Earl, SJ