I’M ALRIGHT, JACK

I’M ALRIGHT, JACK

This saying used to be, perhaps still is, current to describe a person who is self-satisfied with their lot.  They have a job, a house, a car, an insurance policy and a pension waiting for them. It implies that they have taken care of themselves and feel no responsibility for anyone else. Others should do as they have done. End of story.

We know well that this is an untenable attitude of anyone who has an ounce of thirst for justice in our world.  We cannot be truly content if others are suffering. Nelson Mandela once said, ‘no one is free if all are not free’. Pope John XXIII decried, years ago, ‘prophets of doom’ – people who saw no way out of the mess as the future of the world seemed so bleak. At that time – the early sixties – the threat of nuclear war hung over us.

Sixty years on we are still there on our planet and the threat of nuclear war has receded.  But we have new worries while at the same time we have our share of those who say, ‘we’re alright, Jack’. Our biggest worries centre round global warming and the number of people in powerful positions who refuse to do anything about it. Their refusal is based on their sense of being ‘alright’ and they have no wish to make any decision that might threaten how they see themselves.

So when, for example, it is written, as it was in last week’s Zimbabwean,

‘as drought grips the region, the flow on the Zambezi river has dwindled to a third of what it was a year ago, limiting power generation’

they pay no attention or they shrug it off as ‘fake news’. Having crossed the Zambezi several times in the last year I have seen the water level drop and even as a layman in the world of meteorological science I can sense the creeping catastrophe.

This October does not feel like October as we have known it. There are cold winds and none of the oppressive heat that used to signal the approach of rain. So we already have a drought with all its multiple consequences for food and farmers. Yet there are many among us who persist in saying, ‘I’m alright.’

In today’s gospel Jesus tells a story of a widow who is persistent in demanding justice from a careless judge who has no respect for anyone. In the end he gives her what she wants, not because it is his duty but because he fears she will ‘box his ears’. (This is the meaning of the Greek word used).

It we are to make progress in halting and reversing global warming we need people like that widows who are not afraid to box a few ears.       

20 October 2o19                  Sunday 29 C

Exodus 17:8-13                     2 Timothy 3: 14-4:2                                    Luke 18:1-8

PLACES OF ENCOUNTER

PLACES OF ENCOUNTER

This Sunday, 13 October, John Henry Cardinal Newman will be declared a Saint by Pope Francis in Rome and among the thousands who will witness the event will be Charles, Prince of Wales.  The prince writes these words in the Times, ‘Newman could advocate without accusation, could disagree without disrespect and perhaps most of all could see differences as places of encounter rather than exclusion’.  He had an inquiring mind and was always ready to listen and to weigh what others said.

Charles has written a beautiful tribute to a great man. Newman grappled all his life – he was 89 when he died - with pressing issues of education and faith.  He had the intellectual ability to think through – and to pray through – questions that emerged in a century where reason and science posed serious challenges to long-held beliefs. Outstanding among his contributions was his assertion about the development of doctrine and the place of the laity in the Church. The essentials of doctrine do not change but the way they are expressed can undergo evolution and development.

He made a detailed study of the Arian controversy in the fourth century. The priest Arius held that Jesus, Son of the Father, could not be equal to the Father and so was subordinate to him. This view had serious implications for our understanding of ‘salvation’.  If Jesus is not God then we are left high and dry. No man could do what he did and does for us.  The Council of Nicea, in 325, condemned Arius and affirmed the absolute equality of Father and Son. But opinion remained divided and the Christian emperors of the period oscillated between Nicea and Arius and the bishops were inclined to follow their lead. It was “a time when the fidelity of the laity had ensured the Church’s continuance ‘when the body of the bishops failed in their confession of the faith’.”  Newman believed therefore that the Church was healthiest when able to encourage people to an intelligent grasp of the faith, and weakest when only requiring of them an ‘implicit faith in her word, which in the educated classes will terminate in indifference and in the poorer in superstition’.” [1]   

Perhaps this gives us a taste of the sort of man Newman was and the point of making him a saint is to make him more widely known and his contribution to faith and culture more easily accessible. It is not just the dictators of our age but even the duly elected leaders who govern our lives who could learn about ‘places of encounter’ in contrast to ‘places of exclusion’. We still live with too many walls – both physical and mental – that exclude others and so hold us back from welcoming those who are different and benefitting from the meeting.

13 October 2019                     Sunday 28 C

2 Kings 5:14-17                      2 Timothy 2:8-13                    Luke 17:11-19

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[1] Dermot Mansfield SJ, with quotes from Newman, Heart Speaks to Heart, Veritas  p 127

HOW LONG, LORD?

HOW LONG, LORD?

How long, Lord, am I to cry for help

While you will not listen;

To cry, ‘Oppression!’ in your ear

And you will not save?

                             Habakkuk 1:2

A visitor to Zimbabwe, coming from the airport, will notice solar-powered street lamps lining the new dual carriageway and they will be impressed.  But they will also notice that some of them have been felled like trees and lie forlorn at the side of the road, their solar panels removed. The image conjures up rhinos abandoned in the bush with their horns sawn off.

The visitor will pause to sympathise with those who laboured to beautify the road of welcome to the country, even as they labour to understand why people would want to sabotage the assets of the country for immediate gain. I puzzled over his question some years ago when I was directly involved in dealing with trying to guard the transformers in our area which were being drained of their special oil.

Our visitor may come from a country where the infrastructure works well and there is less temptation to raid public property for private profit.  But the one who steals the solar panels may reason; ‘some are benefiting from the assets of the country by stealing left, right and centre and why shouldn’t I?’

I have heard two other reports recently of ‘helping oneself’ without regard for the common good, though I cannot verify them. One was about people diverting money meant for the cyclone victims to their own pockets and the other about those who block medicines coming from India and other countries that are much more affordable than those carrying the international brand labels. The medication is exactly the same but it is produced under licence – a generous gesture? - in developing countries.

‘It is of the nature of sin that its effects are never confined within the individual, but reach into the tissues of human society.’[1] Once we allow corruption to enter our country it will take root and prosper from the highest to the lowest. ‘Why should I not do it?  Everyone else does’.

‘How long, O Lord, …?’ Habakkuk expresses the frustration of waiting for some relief from this pervasive influence which affects our social, economic and political life. Well, the answer must be: as long as it takes for us to wake up and, not only cry to the Lord for help, but do something about it ourselves.  Jesus cannot impose integrity on us.  We have to want it and act. Then the Lord will bless us and crown our efforts.

6 October 2019                       Sunday 27 C

Habakkuk 1:2-3, 2:2-4            2 Timothy 1:6 … 14                Luke 17:5-10

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[1] Michael Ivens, SJ, Understanding the Spiritual Exercises, Gracewing 1998, p 52

THEY WILL TAKE THE JEW BY THE SLEEVE

THEY WILL TAKE THE JEW BY THE SLEEVE.  Zechariah 8:20-23

October 1, 2019. St Theresa of Lisieux (Ruva Diki) (+1897)

‘In those days ten men of nations of every language will take the Jew by the sleeve and say, “We want to go with you, since we have learnt that God is with you”.’ Currently, our daily first readings are on the theme of the rebuilding of the temple and the promise of the new Israel. There is joy in this reading from Zechariah as the prophet glimpses the fulfilment of the long process of preparing for the coming of the Lord and the ‘glory of Israel’. The image is of an elder brother or sister leading their younger sibling to their first day at school. The gospel for today, on the other hand, tells us of Jesus ‘resolutely’ taking the road to Jerusalem with his disciples. His journey will lead to his suffering and death. The people they meet, and the disciples too, are either confused or unwelcoming.    

A DEPORTATION

A DEPORTATION

As we entered the plane there was a disturbance. A man was crying out in a loud voice; ‘I’ve been here sixteen years. Hello! Hello! No! No! I will do anything!’ And so it went on for twenty, thirty, fifty minutes. He was being deported and this was his final protest. The plane was delayed almost an hour and the authorities seemed at a loss as to what to do.  Eventually they relented and he was taken off the plane.  He immediately calmed down and turned towards us and thanked us for our patience.

I am sure his problems are not over but at least he won that round.  I admired his courage in making such a vigorous non-violent protest and I also noted the respect of the officials. In no way were they rough with him. But they clearly did not know what to do.

I had a long plane journey to reflect on migration and our modern inability to open our doors to strangers. This is not the place to enter into a thorough discussion of this complex issue. Moving from one place to another has been normal since the days our ancestors moved out of Africa to populate the earth.  America is the creation of a stream of migrants who travelled - freely or forcibly - from Europe and Africa from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries. Barak Obama’s father arrived there relatively recently – as did Donald Trump’s mother. It is beyond dispute that migrants benefit their adopted countries. 

But there is a growing perception that migration must now be radically reduced. There is suddenly a great fear that we have too many migrants and they will disturb our way of life if we welcome all who want to come.   Imagine a world where all borders are abolished!  Impossible? It is not a fantasy: it has happened among the 27 countries of the European Union. It has caused strains but it has worked. We are straining towards greater integration all over our planet.

There was an impenetrable ‘border’ between the rich man and Lazarus in Luke’s gospel (chapter 16) and the story Jesus tells bodes ill for the man who ignores the poverty at his door. In fact Jesus tells us elsewhere that when we are having a feast we are to invite the poor and those who cannot reciprocate (Luke 14:12).       

Yes, it is complex and it will not be easy to find a way forward. But the migrant – the man on the plane or the mother and child in a boat on the sea – challenge us to look at our attitudes. Can we imagine a different world than the one we have now? It would be a world where the good things of the earth are shared equitably and where justice becomes a universal passion.1

29 September 2019     Sunday 26 C

Amos 6:1, 4-7             Timothy 6:11-16         Luke 16:19-31

DRESSED FOR ACTION

DRESSED FOR ACTION

I feel sorry for the soldiers patrolling the streets of Srinagar. They have to enforce their government’s will against the will of the people who are furious and frustrated.  ‘If I raise the Indian flag voluntarily that is integration’, one of them said, ‘but forcing me to do it is sheer occupation.  We are back in the middle ages when kings invaded and made the people bow to their will’.

So I pity the soldiers who will have to be alert to survive the hatred and hostility.  Why should it be like this in 2019?  We should be alert to things more worthy of our energy: how to welcome new life, for example. New life means daring to grasp a moment of growth as it comes. ‘Be like people dressed for action and have your lamps lit’ our gospel for Sunday tells us.

Edith Stein was Jewish and born in Germany in 1891.  She grew up a devout Jew and was always proud of her identity and heritage.  She was bright and soon soared in the academic world and worked with renowned philosophers like Edmund Husserl. But she was alert and open to life in the spirit.  She read Teresa of Avila and was so touched by her that she became a Catholic Christian. She pursued her studies and became a teacher but lost her job when Hitler’s anti-Jewish laws came into effect.

She became a Carmelite sister and took the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. As the gathering storm against the Jews gathered force her community moved her out of the country to the Netherlands. Then the Dutch bishops issued a pastoral letter condemning the Nazi policies and they responded by rounding up the Jews and sending them to the death camps. Offered an escape route Edith refused saying to leave her fellow Jews would be for her ‘annihilation’. With hundreds of others she was killed in the gas chambers on 9 August 1942, aged 50.

Edith Stein was aware that she would die.  She had spent her whole life alert to all the influences that flooded in on her and had responded. She is renowned for her writings but even more so for her courage and faith and she was canonised by John Paul II just before the turn of the century.  I mention her because she is an example of the kind of alertness that moves and draws us. She sought the fullness that life offers.

I fear for the soldiers of Srinagar. All they can be alert to is holding on to life itself. For them as of now there is no room for anything more nourishing.  

11 August 2019                  Sunday 19 C

Wisdom 18:6-9                  Hebrews 11:1…19                            Luke 12:32-48

I WILL BUILD BIGGER ONES

I WILL BUILD BIGGER ONES

‘I will pull down my barns and build bigger ones’. The farmer had a good year and his ambitions soared. But he wasn’t able to handle success. He started to focus on ‘bigger and better’ only. He ignored any other consideration. He cleared room in the Amazon forests without thinking of the effects.

In other words, he thought only of himself. He became greedy. An adage of the socialist movement is, ‘the world can provide for people’s needs, but not for their greed’. I am old enough to have witnessed the surge of Communism in the nineteen forties and fifties and how it was contained in the sixties, the surge of nuclear weapons – the ‘arms race’ - in the seventies and how it was restrained in the eighties, the surge of multinational corporations in the eighties and nineties and how it was tamed in recent decades. But I am deeply worried about the present surge of ‘progress’ which is destroying our planet.

‘Record-breaking’ temperatures are recorded day after day. The ice caps are melting and methane gas is released at levels never reached before. The Secretary General of the United Nations says ‘the will to tackle the crisis is fading’. We are like people on the Titanic who see the danger ahead but do not change course.

When Jesus gives us the parable of the greedy farmer who thinks nothing of the future – least of all that he might die that night – he observes, ‘a person’s life is not made secure by what he owns’ and he says ‘beware of avarice of any kind’.  And elsewhere, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’.

How can we change our way of thinking? The advertisers want us to buy newer and better gadgets all the time. People do not even think of repairing fixtures, machines, plumbing etc. It is too complicated and time consuming. Throw it away and buy a new one.    

You, who are reading this, have heard all this many times.  But our gospel today does ask why we are ‘so slow to believe’? All the evidence is mounting up and we – well, a powerful number of us - still carry on creating the conditions that are inexorably destroying us.  We are like smokers who say, ‘you have to die of something’.  That is hardly good enough.  It is not me, as an individual, who is dying: it is everyone on the planet. And we are destroying our – that is, the generations that will follow us - future too.

Can we contain, restrain, tame this thing? It is the question.

4 August 2019                                                    Sunday 18 C

Ecclesiastes (Qoheleth) 1:2, 2:21-23         Colossians 3:1-5,9-11                      Luke 12:13-21