21st Sunday Year C - Homily 1

Homily 1 - 2007

Jesus was making his way to Jerusalem – where God raised him to new life, fullness of life, beyond imagining: human life perfected, intensified, transformed. He was making his way to Jerusalem - where the political and religious leadership executed him – because they saw him, rightly, as a threat, because he took, seriously, the fact that the God of Israel was a God who loved people, and who was particularly concerned about those oppressed and excluded by the dominant political and religious cultures.

He accepted death because he trusted that God would make sense of his conviction of the non-negotiable primacy of loving, and relating to everyone with respect and justice. Drawing on his sense of God, he had been free to imagine what ultimately was beyond imagining. He refused to be limited by what most others took for granted.

He accepted death because he hoped that - by cooperating with God’s grace, and in line with God’s vision - a whole new society, a whole new creation would be born. 

He believed, he hoped, he loved. He had nothing else to bring with him –  certainly not success – just faith in God, hope in the world, and profound love for both.

To the person wanting to know about the fate of others - Will only a few be saved? Jesus said effectively: Forget about that! Are you light enough to get through the door yourself? Be careful – for the door is narrow. You have to let go of everything; you have even to die to yourself. You let go of all trace of relying on yourself and your own resources, and of doubting the ultimate resilience of the way of love. All you bring with you is faith in God, hope for the Kingdom, and love for the world.

Throughout the Church today, this Sunday is recognised as Migrant and Refugee Sunday. Around the world, there are millions of people who have had to flee from their own homes, and move over borders into foreign countries, in order simply to stay alive, or to live in ways that respect their human dignity, or, for some, to be able to practise their religion freely. A recent report of the United High Commission for Refugees estimates that there are over 9 million refugees living beyond their national borders, and about 25 million displaced within their own borders.

Of recent years, the distinction between refugees, asylum seekers and migrants has been blurred and all are now seen in a negative light by some media and politicians. 

Indeed, in much of the Western World, refugees are not called refugees any more – they are called illegals. Sadly, many who have fled homes and families have not always found freedom and respect. They have been herded into refugee camps, kept from view, forgotten, and allowed, virtually, to rot.

Why? In some cases, the countries where they have arrived are themselves too poor and unorganised to absorb them. In other cases, the countries simply do not want to absorb them, because they are frightened –frightened, often, simply that they might be expected to share their common wealth, their luxuries, and their familiar, often wasteful and destructive, standards of living.

In our modern world, the sheer number of refugees can no longer simply be ignored.

They cannot be left to rot. But any realistic response to the problem - like the allied, and ongoing, problems of world hunger and deprivation, along with political tyranny, calls for imagination – the kind of imagination that Jesus had, that in turn called for conversion, and a readiness to let go, and to travel light. Entry into the Kingdom, after all, is through a narrow door. Do we really choose to be lean enough to fit?