14th Sunday Year B - Homily 3

Homily 3 -2018

Remember last Sunday’s Gospel: a young girl, on the threshold of adulthood, dead. She was the daughter of the head of the local synagogue, symbol of the Jewish establishment, keeper of the culture, keeper of the faith. Yet, for Jesus, even the girl’s death was not final; but her father, the establishment personified, had to change. Jesus was clear: “Do not be afraid; only have faith.” Have faith – trust the way of Jesus; adopt his vision, his approach to life. Accept that God is love, and all is gift. But to have faith, he needed to face his fear. His fear was the fear endemic to all institutions, to Judaism then and today to the Church, the fear that without their firm control, grounded in the tradition and expressed in the familiar, everything would fall apart. As it unpacked that story, the Gospel included another, by way of contrast, of an older woman, this one with an incurable hemorrhage, and so ritually unclean, excluded, in fact exploited, without hope. She faced her fear, trusted Jesus – both his power and his readiness - and was healed. Confirming her attitude, Jesus said to her, “Your faith has saved you.”

Today’s Gospel passage addressed similar issues – but by way of contrast. Jesus was back home, in Nazareth. Why would they not believe him, not trust him? Their motivation sounded like envy. He challenged the pecking order, seemed more important: “This is the carpenter, surely?” But there was something else that blocked their freedom to see the obvious. They could ask the questions, “Where did the man get all this? .. What is this wisdom? … these miracles?”, but were afraid to answer. Their former companion’s wisdom and miraculous power, that could and should have been opportunity, were seen as threat – threat to the familiar, to their assumptions, their expectations, their comfort. “Jesus could work no miracle there.” In their fear, they were as good as dead. There was nothing there for him to work with. “He was amazed at their lack of faith.”

Today marks the beginning of NAIDOC week, an invitation to celebrate indigenous culture and contribution to the common wealth. I wonder at times whether our attitude might mirror that of Jesus’ former childhood companions from Nazareth. We can be compassionate; but we have nothing to learn from indigenous culture. We have the answers, the superior culture. Why can’t they be like us?

Can we hear our question? Here we are, destroying our world, not only by wars with their increasingly destructive armaments, but exhausting and wrecking our natural environment, driven by an economy that has got out of control. We seem unable to stop. In the process, we seem to be destroying our very selves, our inner peace and capacity for genuine joy, with our addiction to productivity, busyness, frantic-ness.

Could it just be that the wisdom of indigenous Australians might help to heal us, to save us? Their respect for the environment, drawn from their acceptance of their relationship to it, and their appreciation that enough really is enough, is more than skin deep. It has been bred into them over millennia. Along with that, they have not completely lost the ability to take time, to have time. Is there some way we can learn from them? For us Catholics, could they model for us, and help us, like Mary, to treasure life’s experiences and to ponder them in our hearts?

Sadly, our culture has been slowly destroying many of them, despite a stubborn resilience in others. We can help them; they can help us, beginning with mutual respect, openness and cooperation. We need to identify our fears and face them. We shall all be the poorer for it unless we do. It calls for a deep change of attitude on our part, and along with that, readiness to meet and to engage with each other.

This is as true for us as Church as it is for Western Culture as a whole.