HE OFFERED HIS LIFE FOR OTHERS

 

HE OFFERED HIS LIFE FOR OTHERS

Our short text from Isaiah today is repeated - and fulfilled – in the last words of the gospel: He offered his life for others.  Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the Russian writer, puts it this way:

At some thoughts one stand perplexed – especially at the sight of men’s sins – and wonders whether one should use force or humble love. Always decide to use humble love. If you resolve on that, once and for all, you may subdue the whole world. Loving humility is marvellously strong, the strongest of all things, and there is nothing else like it.

But it is a hard lesson learn. ‘Loving humility’ sounds so weak, so spineless. Can you imagine Netanyahu approaching his neighbours with loving humility? We glorify the heroes in war ‘who lay down their lives for their friends.’ Their sacrifice is certainly not useless and in the long run God can bring a new world out of the horror of war. The declaration of human rights and decolonisation followed soon after the end of the Second World War.

Yet the gospel calls us to eschew violence. ‘Put your sword away’ (Mt: 26:52). Jesus pointed to a higher way, one that is hard for us to believe in. It is so contrary to what we experience. ‘Offer no resistance to the wicked … set no bounds to your love, just as your heavenly Father sets none for you’ (Mt 5:39ff).

The disciples, at the time, found this too much. They were still caught in the values of ‘the world’. ‘We want to sit on your right and your left in your kingdom.’ The only ones on his right and his left were the bandits crucified with Jesus on Calvary. James and John declared their desire to follow Jesus but at the crucial moment in Gethsemane, they fell asleep.

Every page of the gospels speaks of the loving humility of Jesus. He is always the servant ever attentive to the demands people make on him, always ‘losing his life’ so that others could find ‘life to the full.’ In the end he is ‘handed over’ (betrayed) and is battered, this way and that, until he finally dies on the cross.

It seems like an impossible ideal for us to follow. But we all know countless people who, in small ways and sometimes big, reach for this ideal. It always takes courage, that noble human quality which overcomes our selfishness. Reaching for this ideal of ‘living for others’ is the gateway to the fulfilment of our deep desires.

20 October 2024   Sunday 29 B         Is 53:10-11  Heb 4:14-16    Mk 10:35-45           

 

SELL EVERYTHING

 

SELL EVERYTHING

‘Go and sell everything you own and give the money to the poor … then come and follow me.’ Some people took this literally, like Anthony of Egypt in the third century and Francis of Assisi in the thirteenth, but these words of Jesus are addressed to everyone – though not literally. A clue is given in our first reading from the Book of Wisdom, ‘compared to wisdom, all gold is a pinch of sand.’

The words of Jesus above refer to wisdom, that unexplored word which has been central to every culture. When we study Shona, we are soon introduced to the collection of proverbs which reflect the wisdom literature of the Scriptures. The wisdom Jesus speaks of is a fulfilment of that wisdom – indeed of all wisdom.

Jesus did not simply speak about it. His whole life was an expression of it. ‘He emptied himself and became as we are and was even more humble, accepting death, death on a cross’ (Phil 2:7). He ‘sold’ everything.

It is painfully difficult for us to ‘empty’ ourselves. Yet it is the core of our growing into the fullness of life. If we reflect on our daily life, we know that we cling desperately to our own ways. How we see ourselves in view of others, how we come across to them, what we say, how we iron out the challenges without facing them! Basically, we run away from who we are and hide behind a variety of stances we adopt. A lot of the time we are on show. We put on an act.

We will never come to the truth until we ‘empty’ ourselves of all these false poses. Jesus is knocking on our door and we don’t allow him in because there is too much clutter in our ‘house’ and there is no room for him.

It is easy to say these things. It is more difficult to face them and act. Yet, these words in today’s gospel are words of wisdom; a gentle invitation to face our poverty and pretence and ‘sell’ all our avoidance of the cross. It is an invitation to freedom. We are to come out of the prison we have made for ourselves; a prison which may give us a sense of security but which, in truth, prevents us enjoying the freedom that comes with letting go of our pretended self and emerging into our true self. It is risky, adventurous and life-giving to the full.   

13 Oct 2024          Sunday 28 B         Wis 7:1-11  Heb 4:12-13    Mk 10:17-30

MARRIAGE

 

MARRIAGE

Marriage is the subject of our readings this Sunday and one, who has not married, might be hesitant to speak of it. Still, there are many ‘experts’ in football who only watch from the stands.

The Church celebrates marriage. It is a risky affair with no sure outcome and for this reason mirrors God’s relationship with us. Jesus used scriptural images of the bond between bride and bridegroom but they do not always describe a happy relationship. Still, John chose to begin his account of Jesus’ ministry by describing a wedding feast and commentators have been quick to draw parallels between this event and the marriage banquet in Isaiah, an image of heaven.

Marriage in the Church has always been surrounded by this enlivening imagery and the ideal of marriage is of a perfect society. And the union in marriage – they become one flesh – results in new life coming into the world. All this is very beautiful. But then we have to enter into the world of actual marriages as we know them. There are people close to us, perhaps in our own families, whose marriages have ‘failed’. Let us come back to that word in a moment. Here we just need to note the intense suffering that can result when two people lose the desire, for a variety of reasons, to continue to struggle to hold their marriage together ‘for better or for worse.’

Traditionally our Church has stuck to ‘the rules’ in the literal belief that ‘what God has brought together, no one should divide.’ Many of us will know people in ‘impossible’ situations where a divorced person enters a new and happy relationship but because of their fidelity to the Church, they cease going to the sacraments for years.

Gradually we are discovering that exceptions to the rules do not undermine the ideal. ‘The Sabbath is made for man and not man for the Sabbath.’ Jesus wants his people to strive for the best but he also wants them to be compassionate, not rigid. Western thinking, and the Church is still dominated by western thinking, says something is either right or wrong. As we move forward, particularly as we follow the synodal way, we are discovering how to take each case as it comes. One rule does not fit all. We are moving into a more discerning, compassionate Church. It may be hard going in the short term but in time we will have a much more inclusive welcoming Church.

‘Failure’ in marriage is not necessarily failure in life. For two people to end their marriage may be an act of great courage ushering in a new beginning. And also, to stay in a marriage, when each day is a torture, while admirable in one way, could also be seen as a want of courage.

   

HIS MAJESTY’S LOYAL OPPOSITION

 

HIS MAJESTY’S LOYAL OPPOSITION

Sometime in the 1820s this phrase was first used to describe the party out of power in Britain. It implied members would cooperate with the government even though they did not agree with them. The opposition party accepted the basic structures of civil society though they had their own ideas about how it should be governed.

I was thinking of this basic framework while re-reading John W. O’Malley’s marvellous book, What happened at Vatican II. O’Malley describes the deep-felt opposition of some of the cardinals, especially Alfredo Ottaviani, to the direction the council was taking in the first session in 1962. At one point the cardinal seems to have lost his temper as he raised his voice, ‘I have no choice but to say no more because, as Scripture teaches, when nobody is listening words are a waste of time.’

I mention this moment of tension and, when we reflect on it, we catch a glimpse of the creative dynamic at work when people have different opinions. No one tried to silence Ottaviani or those who opposed him. The bishops listened to each other inside and outside the council chamber. Gradually, over four years, a marvellous set of documents emerged which we are still trying to digest sixty years later.

In the early church there were also heated debates and reports of angry bishops pulling the beards of those they disagreed with! And, even earlier, in the Acts of the Apostles we find disagreements. The point surely is that differences of view do not have to break the unity, the communion, of people with one another. When we listen to one another with respect we discover something new and life-giving. There are leaders who cannot tolerate opposition. Opponents are labelled rebels who want ‘regime change’. When we don’t listen, we may miss out on something that could really help us move forward.

Moses, in today’s first reading, had sharp words for Joshua on this subject and Jesus, in the gospel, tells John, who wants to silence someone who is not ‘one of us’, to let him alone; ‘you must not stop him … Anyone is not against us if for us.’

Tension means ‘holding’; not too tight, not too loose. You hold a bird in your hand. If you hold it too tight, you may crush it. Too loose and it will escape. The guitar string is tightened – not too much, not too little. And so it is in the Church as we shall surely see in the Synod. Would that we could also see it in civil society, in families and indeed in all our differences.                                                                             29 Sept 2024           Sunday 26 B           Num 11:25-29         Jam 5:1-6                Mk 9:38-48

 

CHIPPING AWAY TO REVEAL YOUR BEAUTY

 

CHIPPING AWAY TO REVEAL YOUR BEAUTY

This is the second week running that we read Mark’s warning that the ‘Son of Man will suffer grievously.’ Why this insistence on this theme? This is the centre of his gospel and this is its central message. It is a message we don’t want to hear.

In Chishawasha, near to Harare, there used to be a group of stone carvers. They have had to move. I used to watch them work and I always remember their answer to my question, ‘How do you decide what to carve?’ ‘The stone itself’, one of them answered, ‘has within itself what it wants to be.’ I am blankly looking at a rock. Each rock looks much the same. But the artist sees each one differently. This one has within it the figure of an owl. That one the figure of a woman.  The sculptor sees in each rock its own unique future.

The sculptors chip away over days and even weeks, leaving a carpet of stone chips scattered around the base of the sculpture. It is an untidy scene as I wait for some hint of what the end product will look like. Paul says we are God’s field where the Lord works patiently to form us in the image he has in mind for us. He could equally have said we are God’s workshop where we are chipped away into shape. There is no escaping the chisel – whatever shape it comes to us. It could be a broken relationship, sickness, failure in exams, an accident.

Michael Paul Gallagher has a marvellous little book he calls Faith Maps. It is an account of ten well-known, and not so well-known, writers’ descriptions of our journey to faith. He starts with Newman and ends with Benedict XVI. One is Lonergan and Michael Paul uses his image of ‘the sculptor releasing a beauty hidden in stone’. But he also quotes Karl Barth who speaks of ‘the two sides of faith; the aspect of joy and the aspect of the cross.’ He quotes the joy of the mother who waits six weeks for her new born baby to look at her with a smile of recognition. But he also has us think of the beauty of the cross.

I have just read of a war correspondent, Lindsey Hilsum, who witnesses awful scenes and has to report them. She says she always carries a book of poetry with her. It helps her make sense of the dreadful things she sees. Poets reveal to us that suffering, pain and chipping away, can lead to something beautiful. Of the executions following the Easter Rising in Ireland in 1916, the poet Yeats wrote ‘a terrible beauty is born.’ Giving of oneself that may lead to suffering and even death is terrible. But it can also be noble and ‘beautiful’ in the sense that it touches something very deep in our nature. We can understand that the martyrs are fulfilled in their giving of themselves.

22 Sept 2024         Sunday 25 B    Wis 2:12-20   Jm 3:16-4:3    Mk 930-37

 

 

FLY OR DIE

 

FLY OR DIE

It is a well-known image: a caterpillar must die so that a butterfly can fly. A less well-known one is about the sea-bird, the gannet. I saw them once swirling round the rocky islands in the Atlantic off the west coast of Ireland. At a certain point, the mother stuffs her chick with food till it can take no more. Then she flies off. The chick relaxes and enjoys itself for a while. But soon enough it starts feeling hungry again. It has never done more than exercise its wings till then. But now it must leave its cosy home. It must either fly – or die.

Its like a law built into our existence. We all have to fly. Otherwise we will die a slow death of boredom, frustration or living off the work of others like that other bird that lays its eggs in another’s nest because it can’t be bothered to rear its own young. A law maybe but – better - it is the truth about life. Think of an artist – or a musician. To succeed they have to get it right. And that may take sweat and tears. Think of children. In the ‘nest’ of a good happy home, they are secure and enjoying themselves. Then they have to leave home and then the struggle begins.

Each week, we work our way through Mark’s gospel. We know the stories. We have met them many times. But then suddenly there is commotion. Jesus tells his closest friends he will be taken from them; he will be betrayed, ‘handed over’, arrested, condemned and put to death. They are aghast. They protest and he turns on them and rebukes their leader in the strongest terms; ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are trying to block the only way to truth and life!’ Jesus has set his face ‘like flint’ (Is. 50) towards Jerusalem. It is the only way for him – and for us.

We look at our high-density suburbs where people spend all their efforts that they and their families may survive for another day. We look at our rural areas where people dig deep into river beds to find a little water for themselves and their livestock. We look further at Sudan where an endless war continues, or Ukraine, or Gaza. It is all so pitiful. And it is all because those of us who have power to change things sit on our hands and do nothing. We are not prepared to fly. We prefer the slow death of ‘comfort’ and ‘security’.

So the only truth about life is the cross. This is the central message of the new world that Jesus came to create when he prayed with us, ‘Father, your kingdom come!’ And he tells us it does not end there; ‘After three days he will rise again.’ The rising of Jesus, and our rising if we are with him, is the truth, the fulfilment of life. The dancing butterfly and the soaring gannet are hints of this.

15 September 2024     Sunday 24 B               Is 50:5-9          Jam 2:14-18            Mk 8:27-35     

BE AHEAD OF YOUR CURSOR

 

BE AHEAD OF YOUR CURSOR

The cursor is that little arrow that tells you where you are when you are typing. It is like a sign post, a familiar land mark, giving a sense of security! We like security. We like to know where we are; how things work; where we will find what we need for our health, our children, our old age. It is all understandable, natural and to be expected.

Yet, if we are not wary, it leaves out one aspect which we know is life-giving: surprise. Surprise covers the unexpected, the unplanned, the mysterious. Arthur Rubinstein was one of the greatest musicians of his age. He lived music from the age of two! His talent was extraordinary. In his early years he relied on his genius and felt little need to practice. Later he realised that even he was missing something by not doing the hard work of study and practice.

So he studied and discovered new horizons he had not known. But he said it was not good to practice too much. ‘In every concert I leave a lot to the moment. I must have the unexpected, the unforeseen. I want to risk, to dare. I want to be surprised by what comes out. I want to enjoy it more than the audience. That way the music can bloom anew.’

In Mark, chapter six, Jesus cures a deaf man. Everyone is astonished. But, as we know, it never stops there with the man being able to hear. There is another layer of meaning; hearing in the gospel means ‘being open’ – Mark gives us the Aramaic, Ephphatha – not just to words but to meanings beyond the words. This opening is to what is beyond our control, beyond our cursor. It is the world of surprise, of wonder, of mystery.

Lets remember! We live in a scientific, rational, age. Everything must be understood, controlled, studied until we solve the problem. Again, this is good and shows we are using all our efforts to make sense of our world. In my first days of learning Shona, I tried to engage an old man in conversation. I started, as one does, with the weather and expressed a hope for good rains. I always remember his response, kana Mwari achida. If God wills. I don’t blame the meteorologists for not bringing God into their forecasts. It’s not their job. And anyway, even the most spiritually minded of our scientists would be wary of saying anything about God’s influence on the weather.

But the invitation stands. With all our science, we are called to recognise the mystery of human life. It goes will beyond our science and signposts. The cursor’s job is limited. It doesn’t tell us the full story of where we are; it simply prepares us for wonder, for surprise – if we are open.                                                               8 Sept 2024         Sunday 23 B         Is 35:4-7                Jam 2:1-5      Mk 7:31-37