2nd Sunday Year A - Homily 6

Homily 6 - 2020

In today’s Gospel John called Jesus the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”. In the Gloria of the Mass and just before Communion, we pray to the. “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world”. The Gospel refers to “sin” in the singular; the liturgy uses the plural “sins”. We are familiar with the idea of the “sins of the world” - less so with the “sin of the world”. Yet, depending on how we understand it, the “sin of the world” can be terribly destructive.

Remember how Pope Francis, not long after he became Pope, went down to the small island of Lampedusa, just off the south of Italy, and close to the coast of North Africa - the port to where asylum seekers in their thousands made their way to Europe as boat-people, in the vain hope of finding refuge there. Because of the unwillingness of most of the nations in Europe to open their doors to those fleeing war and terrorism, many of them were turned back or interned; while hundreds of others were drowned on their way across the Mediterranean Sea. It was there that Pope Francis made the comment that the modern world has lost the capacity to weep with those who suffer. He deplored the widespread resistance throughout Europe to the heart-rending pleas of the refugees; and pleaded with their leaders to work together selflessly and cooperatively, motivated by compassion, to seek just and fair solutions to this inexorably escalating world-wide problem.

That general resistance could be one example of the “sin of the world”. No single person was responsible for the drownings. No single person was responsible for the loss of hope of others and their frequent deaths through suicide. Probably no one thought of confessing their inaction in Confession. Yet, might the over-whelming rejection by the populations of Europe be leading Jesus to say to each of them, “Whenever you did not do it to the least of my brothers or sisters, you did not do it to me”? All, though not individually responsible, were collectively complicit, in their own unique ways, and to widely varying degrees, in the "sin of the world".

In the harrowing light of the current bushfires, everyone seems to be looking around for something or someone else to blame. Not so many are asking, “How might my priorities, my life-style, have contributed to the gradual warming of the globe? How much might my thinking have affected the attitudes of others? What might I need to change?” We are used to blaming others. We are instinctively reluctant to change ourselves. The attitude is endemic to the adversarial cultural air we breathe. My sense is that this is another example of the “sin of the world”?

The actions of any one of us alone might not affect outcomes. But none of us is an isolated individual. We are part of a commonwealth - I influence it and it influences me. What communities do can have a real influence on outcomes. What single nations do might have little effect on global warming. But global warming is a global problem. What single nations do together will have a highly relevant effect on global outcomes. Each nation, then, has the responsibility to work closely with every other nation to reduce global warming. Nations need to agree on the fairest way to work cooperatively according to each one’s capacity. All of this is simply the teasing out of Jesus’ insistence that loving one’s neighbour is the very heart of morality and the key to the gradual extension of the Kingdom of God on earth.

How did/how does Jesus “take away” the sin of the world? That is something we might all think about. Our answer could throw light on how we cooperate with him in his redemptive work. He does rely on us!