22nd Sunday Year A - Homily 6

Homily 6 - 23

Jesus knew where his life was heading if he kept on teaching what he had been teaching and doing what he had been doing. His insistence on loving, loving everyone and anyone, as the only way to save people from themselves and from each other, and to change the present world for the better, was so counter-cultural, so threatening to the status quo, that it would eventually provoke resistance. Unless he changed his tune, it was clear to him that it was only a matter of time before he would be eliminated somehow and finish up being put to death at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the scribes.

How did he cope with that prospect? It was obviously an inner struggle, as is clear from the strength of his reaction to Peter’s outright rejection of the whole likelihood. “Get behind me Satan!” was in alarming contrast to “Blessed are you, Simon son of John!” of a short time before. One thing is certainly evident: Jesus was utterly intent on changing the world and in saving it from itself. He was totally prepared to lose his life if such was to be the price of his convincing the world and of enlisting people’s indispensable cooperation in the project.

So convinced was he that he insisted that his disciples be prepared to renounce themselves, take up their inevitable “cross”, metaphorical or even literal, and follow him. In that same vein he continued: “… those who want to save their life will lose it; but all who lose their life for my sake will find it”.

Yet everything is not ‘doom and gloom’. To the extent that we succeed in loving, we discover the unique joy that love brings. As we come to discover God’s infinite and unconditional love for ourselves and for others, we experience a similar joy. The problem is we so easily confuse the addictive focus on our own selfish wants and pleasures with genuine love — and find ourselves constantly restless and dissatisfied. Yet we rarely seem to learn.

It is interesting that the morality that Moses taught his Hebrew followers was largely a face-to-face, a one-on-one, morality — summed up largely by the Ten Commandments. However, as the Chosen People matured across the centuries, the Prophets came on the scene. They were concerned more with the broader social scene. Their focus was more the political structures and the large-scale moral issues of oppression and social injustice— on issues dealing with people in their hundreds and thousands, on situations whose outreach extended far beyond individual person-to-person interactions, on evil with a capital “E”.

From the start of his public ministry, Jesus drew attention to issues such as these. Quoting from the Prophet Isaiah, he saw it as his mission: “… to bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, … to set the downtrodden free, to proclaim the Lord’s year of favour”.

We here in Australia will be voting soon in the Referendum regarding the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Peoples’ Uluru Statement’s “Voice to Parliament”.

For us who are followers of Jesus, it is important that we do our best to discover how Jesus would have us vote. This is one political issue that certainly is also a clearly moral issue, whose outcome will affect the lives of thousands of people. It is important that our choice be motivated by love for those affected. Love takes practical shape in respect for people’s God-given human dignity; human dignity calls for a genuine care for others; caring is expressed in a readiness to listen. People will choose in different ways for different reasons.

We might well ask ourselves over the next few weeks: What is the Jesus I know saying to me?