7th Sunday Year A - Homily 2

Homily 2 - 2014

It is important to remember, as we listen to today’s Gospel and to the rest of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount [last week’s too, and the week before!], that what Jesus is talking about is not some sort of post-graduate kind of personal holiness for those who might be interested in that sort of thing.  This is not about personal holiness.  This is about making the world liveable for everyone, and not just for the wealthy, the powerful and privileged.  It is particularly relevant to our world today – the world that our TV screens no longer allow us to ignore – riots in the Ukraine, riots in Thailand, slaughter continuing in Syria, on-going violence in Pakistan. The story goes on. Closer to home – What is happening on Manus Island? in Nauru? We don’t know. Keep people in the dark! It is not just the Church that tries to cover up! But it doesn’t quite work!

What can we do? What are our options? Tune out, as best we can, and get on with renovating our kitchens and improving our dinner menus? It is hard to keep coming to Mass every weekend and somehow to be satisfied with that. 

Jesus called us to be salt of the earth, light of the world. He trusts us to be agents of change. Was that understood when we were baptised? Or was it lost somewhere in the small print? We are in some way responsible for our world. We are in some way responsible for what went on in Manus Island last week [and will keep going on as long as traumatised people are treated as non-persons, kept in the dark and deprived of hope]. The psychological violence to which they are subjected is a sure recipe for physical violence of some kind, some time.

What can we do? Perhaps before asking that, we need to ask another question first… How do we approach whatever we might do? How does a disciple of Jesus approach changing the world? Do we fire up with the same sort of aggression, of power, of pressure, that seem to animate those we disagree with? That does not change the world - only more of the same!

Jesus was serious. His method was radical – frighteningly radical. He said that we start by loving our enemy! There is no other alternative to violence. We need to see that those we disagree with have an inviolable dignity – exactly the same dignity that we have. We need to respect them – genuinely. We need to learn the skills of dialogue. Jesus counsels praying for the violent. Is that a last-resort before giving-up? I like to think its purpose could be to provide the silence, the space, for me to listen to the heart of the other. Where is their violence coming from? The cry of anger is so often the cry of pain. Dialogue starts with listening, deep listening, contemplative listening.

But, if they won’t come to the negotiating table? We live in a democracy. Is pressure a kind of violence? It rarely changes what the other thinks. In Pope Francis’s recent document, The Joy of the Gospel, I came across the phrase: aggressive tenderness. What is that saying? If we look at the three examples Jesus gave in today’s Gospel to respond to violence, they are all examples of active, non-violent resistance [though unfortunately we need to know the world of Jesus’ day to appreciate that]. None of them is spineless resignation. Each of them is an active response, a challenge to re-consider, an effort, if you like, to conscientise the oppressor, but non-violent – risky, in the first instance, almost street-theatre in the second, and at a price in the third. Pressure without violence? I’m not sure. Perhaps not exactly aggressive tenderness – more like tender aggressiveness.

True disciples of Jesus are a minority in this country. We might not succeed in the short-term. But, if we take Jesus seriously, we have an imperative need to engage with injustice. We need to learn, and then to model to our world, the readiness to dialogue, the ability to listen, and the courage to speak the truth - and to do so always with profound respect.