5th Sunday Lent C - Homily 1

Homily 1 - 2007

In today’s Gospel, one thing that stands out for me is that Jesus does not judge. He knows the human heart. He has been tempted himself – in every way that we are (though he managed always to choose life - he didn’t sin.) He is not fazed by sin, not shocked by it. 

He understood that his mission was not to adopt the moral high-ground, not to point the finger, but to try to set people free – like himself – free, in the face of temptation, to choose life consistently. Part of that mission to set people free was to show that the God he knew and loved - the God who sent him - was a God who forgives, who hopes, and who never gives up because his God does not waste time judging. God simply loves. (People judge themselves).

But when fragile, vulnerable people have been deeply hurt (and we are all fragile, vulnerable people), a lot of other steps need to be taken; a lot of healing needs to happen, before there is much chance of moving towards real forgiveness, and what you might call closure. You can’t just get on with life – no matter much you would like to!

The Bishop has asked us to observe today as Healing Sunday throughout the diocese – in the context of the deep hurt caused particularly by the sexual abuse of children committed by a few priests in our own diocese, some of whom served here in this district.

I think we have all been hurt by the abuse. But I don’t think that most of us have any idea of what the child victims themselves have suffered, and the depth of its impact on their lives. Often their pain was suppressed and only forced its way into their consciousness years later. Then there are the families of the children abused: They were betrayed. The ones they loved were abused by priests they trusted. They have seen their children falling apart – sometimes years later – and felt powerless to help them or to live their lives for them.

And the whole Church system didn’t understand at the start, didn’t want to believe, didn’t want to lose face, so it closed ranks.

Since the extent of the harm has been made public, we have all been hurt. We other priests have felt it. You parishioners had to try to make sense of it. And some of you faced ridicule from contacts at work and sport, etc.

For healing to happen, the pain has to be acknowledged - our own pain – and the pain of the victims and their families needs to be believed and respected. And where there is pain, there is anger. Thank God for the anger – it provides the energy to make things change.

I think we all winced when news of abuse was published in the papers. Some felt angry at the papers for publishing it. Sometimes, from our perspective, the reporting seemed one-sided – but I personally wonder, if the abuse hadn’t been publicised the way it generally was, whether we would ever have moved to respond to the situation as well as in fact we have?

Healing takes time. It helps when the those who were guilty accept their guilt and the devastation they have caused, when they genuinely regret it, and come to say sorry. As healing happens, then forgiveness begins to be a real possibility.

In the Gospel today, Jesus did not make light of the sin. He named it for what it was.

But his interest was always in healing.

Eucharist is a wonderful sacrament of healing. As we continue our celebration today, let us pray that God’s healing grace be poured out over our diocese, into our own hearts, and especially into the hearts of those still hurting so deeply.