26th Sunday Year B - Homily 2

Homily 2 - 2009

I happened to see a photo in Friday’s Herald-Sun of the three young men who had assaulted an Indian doctor in Williamstown with a baseball bat twelve months ago. They fractured his skull and destroyed part of his brain - and they did it all, apparently, for a bit of fun. The photo showed them, as I saw it, insolent, arrogant and showing no remorse whatever.

Seeing it, triggered off in me a strong feeling, firstly, of dislike, but also of hopelessness, almost despair. My fear is that they are not unique. I think there is so much deep, floating anger around in our world – the same sort of mindless anger that was probably behind the vandalising of a stained glass window here in the Church on Friday night.

Today is Social Justice Sunday. As is its custom, the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference has sponsored another of its annual statements. This year the statement addresses "Youth and Social Justice", following up on the World Youth Day in Sydney last year. Among other things, it encourages young people to get actively involved in promoting justice in society.  But it also speaks of young people being among those most vulnerable to the injustices abroad in society.

The Statement got me thinking again about the three young men who attacked the doctor last Christmas. Without denying their personal responsibility, I wonder if they have been profoundly let down by society. 

Confronted by the depth of my own spontaneous dislike for them, it occurred to me that, that is not how Jesus reacts to people. His consistent response to all of us, at all times, is unconditional love – real love, masculine love. It is a gross simplification, perhaps, but I fear that, as a society, we don’t know how to initiate young men into a responsible stance towards their world.  So many fathers are not sure any more how to father well. Many of them, sadly, were not fathered well themselves.

Recent decades have witnessed a wonderful development in respect for women, and a better understanding of women’s place in community. However, a real, though quite unnecessary, side-effect of the long overdue rise of feminism has been that many men have become uncertain of their roles. Fathers have taken a back-step – some of them totally withdraw from the scene – and their sons are often the worse for it.

A father’s love is different from a mother’s love. A father’s love sets boundaries and places expectations. Fathers need to know how to channel the testosterone produced in their sons into proper confidence, trust, initiative, self-discipline and courage.  Our culture doesn’t help in this. Sometimes – almost, perhaps, in helpless reaction against the feminist revolution – culture promotes the macho image: masculinity run wild and untamed, unredeemed and dangerous.  Men, who simply happen to play football well, are held up as role models – as if football skills summed up the ideal of genuine, wholesome masculinity.

As a society, we have sold short a lot of our young males. We have no idea how to initiate them. That does not absolve them of responsibility. But it is too easy to scapegoat the worst of them, rather than to look seriously at ourselves and make any necessary changes.

As today’s Gospel warned: ‘Anyone who is an obstacle to bring down one of these little ones who have faith, would be better off thrown into the sea with a great millstone round his neck.’ The context might be different, the language colourful, but the depth of feeling behind it is clear.

When Jesus loves, he also has expectations. Jesus’ love is a masculine love – it inspires, it calls forth, it energises, it encourages, it releases potential. And it expects self-discipline. It knows where and how to draw the line on what is unacceptable behaviour.

I wonder if those three young men ever experienced love like that.