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20th
Sunday of Ordinary Time
8-18-19
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Come To Bring Fire & The
Sword
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It is always a temptation to preach the Gospel of Jesus in a selective
manner. We sometimes want to accentuate the positive and eliminate the
negative; to such a degree that the message of Christ may become
colorless and powerless. But the gospel is an integral whole with words
of peace, as well as, words of fire with power to unite, as well as, the
power to divide. Watering down Jesus’ words to render them palatable is
a disservice to the radical life He lived and the radical message He
preached. When you read, really read, the Gospels you should wear a
seatbelt and a helmet. Jesus did not intend to stroke His contemporaries
into placid contentment. His was a Prophet’s vocation and He spoke for
God. Every moment of Jesus’ life, every word, every work, every parable
was an invitation challenging the doubter to faith and the believer to
commitment. Jesus caused people to think, to question, to evaluate and
ultimately to accept or reject Him.
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Many of us do not understand Jesus. Some of us have a sweet picture of
Jesus, Jesus meek and mild in pastel colors. A nice man who would not
and could not offend anyone; that is not the real Jesus, not the Jesus
the New Testament tells us about. Many Christians have an incredibly
shallow picture of Jesus’ message, something like-it is nice to be nice
or please try a little harder to be good or caring and sharing are good
ideas. Jesus came in His words to kindle fire on the earth, He came to
bring division. The Gospel is not only meant to comfort; but also to
blast us out of our complacency.
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In His life on earth Jesus experienced fully the pain of being
unpopular. He suffered loneliness in Gethsemane. His suffering on the
cross was a necessary result of the life He had lived. It seems that He
never overlooked an opportunity to rock the boat or to make waves even
when it meant unpopularity, division and danger. He never laid back and
said nothing in the face of injustice. He never let bad things happen to
good people.
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It was in Paris during the Second World War: The Nazis had rounded up
thousands of Jews. They took them to an indoor sports stadium. There
were several thousand of them crowded into the arena, many children.
Soon the facilities broke down and there was no water or food. A French
stadium worker took careful notes of what took place, the number of
people, how they were treated etc. He mentions that he fixed a little
girl’s doll and she told him that she did not know why she was there;
she had been a good little girl. They were brought to the stadium on a
Wednesday and kept there until Sunday morning. Then the children were
separated from their parents. Hundreds of children were put onto buses
and driven through Paris to the train station where they were put on
trains and taken to concentration camps. They were never heard of again.
Is this too much for a Sunday morning with the sun shining? That Sunday
in Paris was a sunny day also. People were on their way to church, both
catholic and protestant, people lined the street and watched the buses
go by. Everyone knew where this sad convoy was going. They made a sign
of the cross as the buses passed by. After the war, the Christians of
Paris asked themselves, “Why did we just stand by and let it happen?
Could we not have left our churches and massed in front of the station?
Even if we had just stood there to let the Nazis know that the rest of
the world would know what they were doing?”
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It is hard to know what any of us would do in a like situation when the
risks to yourself are so great. Perhaps, the only answer is to ask the
question, “What would Jesus do?” We know that He would do something, and
His church can do no less. Even in a free country there will be times
when as a church we will have to speak out and be ready to stand up for
Christian principles. Even against the opinion of our friends and family
and sometimes our governments. We are followers of Christ and share in
His ministry. We are called to be prophets like Jesus and Jeremiah. The
people around Jesus often hated Him enough to kill Him. Not because He
was so bad, but precisely because He was so good and being so good, He
would not be silent in the face of injustice in the face of hypocrisy or
in the face of sin.
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There might be times in life when we have to stand up. Even to family,
friends and those we love and say “Your business practices are unfair,
or your gossiping is ruining someone’s reputation, or your alcohol or
drug abuse is ruining our family, or (what is often more difficult) take
a long hard look at yourself, at your life and the way we are living it,
because the way you live your life affects so many others.” If your life
is a mess and needs to change, do you have the courage to make those
changes? This is not the easiest thing to do, but it is the only thing.
Christians are not in a popularity contest. We are trying to bring
about, with God’s help, a just and decent world for humans to live in.
Many things on this earth are precious and Holy but humanity is Holy of
Holy’s. Jesus tells us what we should be, “You are the light of the
world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a
lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand
where it gives light to all in the house. Just so, your light must shine
before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your
heavenly Father.” (Matthew 5:14-16)
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We work for a world that will be part of God’s reign on earth. As we
pray every day, “Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.”
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Yours in Christ, |
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Fr. Bob Warren, SA |
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