33rd Sunday Year C - Homily 2

Homily 2 - 2016

Donald Trump surprised the pundits. Something interesting seems to be happening within the Western democracies in reaction against business as usual. There was Brexit in the United Kingdom, the rise in popularity of the more nationalistic parties in Europe. Our own election saw the return to the political scene of Pauline Hanson. 

Where has the Church been in all this? Certainly, bishops have spoken and written about various issues and the values supporting them. Perhaps even, some of bishops have used whatever power they may have had to bring about change or confirm the status quo, especially on issues in any way connected with sexual matters. I wonder if, in the process, they may have neglected the more difficult task of trying to bring about personal conversion, enlightenment and growth. 

As I reflect on the Gospel, it appears to me that Jesus did not direct his energies to imposing changes through political pressure, even though he was distraught at the depth of oppression and poverty suffered by the majority of the people, and anxious to relieve it. Jesus’ way was the way of radical personal conversion. It was the way of solidarity and cooperation, the way that insisted on both love and on truth as the goals of society and the means to achieve those goals. His way was highly unpopular with both Zealots and Sadducees, and not very successful with the ordinary people. But Jesus stuck to his vision, and would not change, despite apparent failure and even death.  

Today’s Gospel is up front about the impact of Jesus’ way of Love, “You will be betrayed … and some of you will be put to death. You will be hated by all on account of my name”. Earlier in the narrative, he had supposed a similar response, when teaching how to respond to hostility, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who treat you badly…”.   

We do not risk the danger of being killed for our faith. But we do face groups within our culture hostile to many of the values of Jesus’ vision for the Kingdom of God. Our mission is to call them to the values of the Kingdom for their own good and that of the whole community. The catch is, when people oppose us, we tend in turn to react in a hostile manner towards them. We would like, if we had the power, to compel conformity to what we regard as human and moral values. We lament when governments legislate against what we see as important moral issues.

My sense is that that would not have been Jesus’ way. Jesus called for radical personal conversion, not imposed conformity, and saw the Church’s mission as leading the world to conversion. That has proved to be a truly difficult task. We call to conversion by invitation, by attraction, by the way of imitation. Like Paul, our approach needs to be, “Imitate me as I imitate Christ”- daunting as that may be. We show the truth by living it, not simply proclaiming it. Pope Francis is a good role model. We need to show the world the beauty and sense of our values if we want people to adopt them. And people will be open to see to the extent that we respect them and take them seriously, however much we disagree with them. And while this does not rule out a degree of assertiveness, it does rule out every form of violence or coercion.

I think that that is one reason why Jesus insisted that we love our enemies and those who hate us, why he insisted that we pray for them. We pray for them to keep our own approach in perspective. We pray so that we do not approach them with hostility, judgmentally. We pray to ensure that our approach is compassionate and genuinely caring and respectful. In all this, in order to persevere, it helps to have the support of like-minded believers.