15th Sunday Year B
See Commentary on Mark 6:7-11
Homily 1 - 2003
Jesus gave the twelve authority over the unclean spirits: he sent them out with the job to name the evil and to expose the double-talk. So they set out to preach repentance, to call to conversion, more accurately, to call people to a whole new way of seeing and evaluating things: to see people desperately in need of wholeness, in relationships respecting responsibilities, rights and freedom.
In Mark’s Gospel this is still early days. We are only in chapter six of sixteen. Their own conversion was still so incomplete, unfinished. Their own wisdom still so undeveloped. I find all this so consoling! I find myself still in a constant process of growing and learning, getting in touch with what Jesus really is on about. I sometimes cringe when I come across notes of homilies that I have given, things I have said. Probably you parents have a similar experience. You are probably only wise enough to be entrusted with children when you are too old to have them. And besides, you only learn your wisdom by being thrown in at the deep end!
Formation through life! (There is no other effective way!) Provided that life is reflected on and examined in a context of shared exploring and the support of the group, often the extended family. It is obviously written into our human nature by our creating God that we are people in process, often, indeed mostly, in the dark, especially in the important things. We need to take risks, and inevitably we make mistakes. Our guiding values can be clear: particularly the dignity of the human person, but what that entails in practice, especially in new and tricky situations, is not always clear. St Thomas Aquinas taught that the further we move along the line from the basic principles, the more difficult it becomes for ourselves to be certain of our conclusions; and, even when we feel certain ourselves, it is unlikely that everyone else will see things with the same clarity.
The important thing is that we be able to own our mistakes and our uncertainties, that we learn from them and that we be free to change our minds, neither going into denial nor becoming defensive.
Jesus sent them out – so unprepared, so unfinished! In the Gospel passage, the emphasis seems to be more on how to travel and how to respond than on what to say. Travel light: just the staff, the sandals and the tunic they are wearing. We go into our world, just as who we are. We do not take ourselves too seriously; we are at peace with our vulnerability; we do not kid ourselves that we have got it all together already: just our staff and what we are wearing!
And don’t burn up too much energy being upset by those who do not, who will not, come on board, who won’t share our values or our way of living. If any place does not welcome you, walk away, shaking off the dust from under your feet. Love them, do what you can, but do not let their blindness or uncooperativeness destroy your own peace, your joy, your sense of wonder, your gratitude, whatever.
Homily 2 - 2009
Over the years, I have taken little notice of Michael Jackson, other than what I casually picked up from sensational newspaper headlines in recent years. If anything, I looked down on him. Anyhow, the other night, Fr Paddy coaxed me to watch his funeral service on TV for a while. I was surprised at what one of the Afro-American preachers had to say. He said that, over the years, Michael Jackson's career had had a profound effect on his fellow Afro-Americans - it had given them a sense of pride in their Afro-American identity; it had given them hope; it had helped them recognise and develop their own potential.
That surprised me. I didn't know that. But that was wonderful. Then the same preacher (or was it someone else?) said that Michael Jackson gave a percentage of his profits, from every record he sold, to a nominated charity. That also was news to me – but good news. He was a flawed character - in lots of ways a confused and unhappy man - but that, obviously, wasn't the whole story. I don't understand the religious fervour that his death has aroused. I am not sure what it says about people and their needs.
I remember once talking to a woman friend of mine, whom I genuinely respected. She said she found it easier to relate to Elvis Presley than to Jesus. For her, Jesus was too perfect. He seemed to have no shadow side. And she couldn't empathise with him. That is not my experience - though, early on in my life, I did have an image of Jesus that now would turn me right off. Fortunately, over the years, I have had the chance to explore, to reflect on and to meet the truly human Jesus, who now fascinates me.
As I was watching the funeral on TV, and listening to the praise being heaped on Michael, I couldn't help thinking of another Afro-American who was murdered years ago - Martin Luther King. Martin Luther King was, also, in some ways, a flawed man. But he was a prophet – not unlike Amos in today's First Reading: unpopular, and a threat to the status quo. He was a man with a vision – a dream, not just for himself, but for his oppressed brothers and sisters, and for America as a whole. He was a man of immense courage, ready to face death. He was a man of energy and commitment. He was a man who simply loved. I would prefer people to be more impressed by him. But, perhaps, it's another generation, and a different world. Perhaps, it reflects the power of the media. Perhaps, now, it touches into a deeper sense of emptiness in people's lives.
In today's Gospel, Jesus sent out the twelve on mission. They were to stay close to the people. If you enter a house anywhere, stay there... Their message was not complex: The Kingdom of God is close at hand. And they were to give witness to that closeness by being themselves bearers of wholeness, and sanity and life. They cast out devils, and anointed many sick people with oil and cured them.
They are models for us. But, for us to be able to tell people that the Kingdom of God is close at hand, we need to be sensitive to its presence ourselves. We can't point it out to others if we haven't learnt to see it.
As we look at our world today, can we see it? Can we see God's Spirit at work – in people? in flawed people? in each other? in ourselves? Sometimes, we have to be prepared to change considerably before we can see it. It's easier to see what's wrong, than to see what's right.
Is our role to keep on harping about what's wrong? or to appreciate, and highlight, and cooperate with and encourage what's right? The more we can nourish and nurture what's right, the less room there is in our world for what's wrong. The Kingdom of God is close at hand. It was even at work in Michael Jackson - and I didn't see it. The Kingdom of God is close at hand. The trick is to loosen up enough to recognise it.
Homily 3 - 2021
Today we bring Australia’s annual NAIDOC Week to an end. With the Dodson brothers having studied here at Monivae, Hamilton has reason to affirm the two brothers’ proud role over many years in their work for Reconciliation. There is still a distance to go, but slowly the social climate is changing for the better. My suspicion is that “corporate Australia” finds progress a challenge when their financial privilege is threatened in any way. Fortunately “big sport” seems finally to be coming on board.
And where do we stand as disciples of Jesus? Are we noticeably different from the general community? Sometimes I wonder whether on many moral matters, especially in matters of Social Justice rights and responsibilities, our party-political leanings are more significant than our faith. Nor has the Church’s record always been exemplary.
There is no doubt where God stands on racism and social entitlement. Nor where Jesus stood. Tactically, the limited human Jesus largely restricted his movements and teaching to “the lost sheep of the House of Israel”; but when Samaritans or pagan individuals were in need of healing, he mercifully reached out to them quite spontaneously. This was consistent with his tuning-in to God. Mutual understanding and love constitute the intrinsic essence of God. The Godhead exists as three Persons in relationship with each other.
Human persons, all made by God in the image and likeness of God, necessarily bear that divine mark of relationship. It is in our DNA [as it were]. We have an innate tendency to relationship — though it has been badly bruised by sin. This was God’s plan for humanity, even “before the world was made”, “from the beginning”, as Paul insisted in today’s Second Reading. We distort our essential humanity when we act self-centredly; when we close off from others.
Jesus himself was highly aware of relationship in his personal identity. The human Jesus was the Second Person of the Three Persons of God. It was this Second Person of God [the one whom John’s Gospel referred to as “The Word” and whom Paul preferred to refer to as the “Christ”], who became human as Jesus — born of Mary. He knew at first hand the beauty and the non-negotiable value of relationship.
With this in mind, again as we heard in today’s Reading, Paul consistently emphasised, “[God] let us know the mystery of his purpose … that he would bring everything together under Christ as head.” Elsewhere, in his Epistle to the Colossians, Paul wrote, “God wanted all things to be reconciled through [Christ] and for him.” In working for Reconciliation, together with our First Nations peoples, for instance, we work hand in hand with Christ. It is a sacred task.
And where does the Church stand? The Second Vatican Council spoke of the Church as the “sacrament of salvation” — sacrament in the sense of both symbol or sign of the community’s salvation and instrument or means of that salvation: as we live the gift of salvation together, our living in relationship as Church models for our secular community what reconciliation can look like; and our personal commitment as genuinely motivated and responsible disciples helps to bring it about.
Could this be one of the clear aims of the coming Plenary Council?