5th Sunday Year A - Homily 1

Homily 1 – 2005 

Jesus is quite clear: You are the salt of the earth; you are the light of the world.  He calls us not simply to personal conversion but to a life-style that has a life-giving effect on others.  We have a purpose, then, a goal beyond ourselves.  That goal, as Jesus would indicate, is to help fashion a world where people respect themselves and profoundly respect each other – where, in line with that dignity, they grow in wisdom, and their actions proceed from within, in freedom, without compulsion.  Our way of bringing it about is to be consistent with that goal.

We reflect today on the message of Jesus against the background, among other things, of renewed discussion at the national level of the issue of abortion.  It is important to remember that Jesus was not primarily interested in people simply refraining from, or being prevented from, doing the wrong thing – not even in their simply doing the right thing, either.  The Kingdom is not an army of robots, even well-behaved robots.

Jesus was primarily interested in people freely choosing to do the right thing, from a true inner desire for that right thing.  In that light, we are not simply interested in preventing other people, for example, from having abortions.  That is not the Kingdom.  What we are interested in is ourselves, and others, acting because we and they appreciate from deep within the dignity of each human person, whether still within the womb, or well and truly beyond it.  Our way of being light of the world and salt of the earth must involve, therefore, deep respect for people’s dignity, and strict avoidance of coercion or violence.

I find it interesting to notice the stance of St Paul on the issue of freedom.  Before his conversion Paul was a Pharisee.  Instinctively he was motivated by concern for the law and for doing the right thing.  But he was converted beyond that ... Paul saw that simply to do the right thing, as commanded by the law, was useless, if it was not done from inner conviction and free choice.  We would be, as he called it, slaves.

However, Paul was realistic enough to know the power of the culture in which people lived – firstly to blind them to value, and secondly to make it impossible to choose from their deepest convictions.  His response was to insist on the importance of providing an alternative community: a community where people truly respected themselves and each other – and genuinely supported each other – and could see with their own eyes the possibility to live from love by seeing it actually lived out in the flesh.  Paul was never content to tell his converts to imitate Jesus.  He had to say: Imitate me, whom they could actually see.

Where does that leave us in the present discussion about the legitimacy of abortion? Our experience of the past few decades seems to show that proclaiming what we believe has successfully made our position quite clear, but otherwise has achieved very little.  Perhaps the wider community will never listen to us, will never think of changing, until they see us as a Church/community trying to learned from each other the attractiveness of the good lived in a life-giving way, and hoping to be tangibly empowered by love to move beyond our self-interest, our fears and our inertia, to choose consistently what is truly life-giving and attractive.

Simply to proclaim what is right may call for some courage when we feel ourselves largely unsupported, but often it has only served to arouse not conversion, but opposition.  Why the resistance?  It may be because people have never experienced, and so cannot hope for or even imagine, a world where women are consistently and concretely respected, and where that respect has taken shape in cultural attitudes, economic arrangements and social supports.  To want an unplanned child in the present cultural, economic and social set-up may seem genuinely impossible to some women.  It would help to have more information on the whole scene.  That is part, surely, of listening and dialogu

Likewise to pray for people to change may never be enough unless we are at the same time trying to empower change by providing what is seen to be, not a judging, but a welcoming and supportive environment.

When Jesus said to the woman caught in adultery: Go now and sin no more, could she hear him?  Perhaps, because of his deep respect and sensitivity, she was ready to listen to him.  Could she succeed? Perhaps, through the love expressed in Jesus’ respect and sensitivity, in the short term she did feel herself empowered to try... And in the long term, did she succeed in loving responsibly, not just from fear of further reprisal, but from within?  Perhaps that may have depended on whether she found the support of a genuinely loving community.  I wonder if she later joined the community of disciples...