Journey's Weekly Homilies

Journey Catholic Community                                         Hos 6:3-6
10^th Sunday Ordinary Time 6/9/02                                 Rom 4:18-25
Homily:  Nancy                                                                Matt 9:9-13

There’s a story in my family history which involves my two youngest girls, Jessica and Joy.  When they were 9 and 6 years old, they were steeped in parish life at Holy Trinity Church and school out on the west side.  I had spent the previous 8 years as Director of Music at that parish.  We had been singing some of the same songs we sing here at Journey for many, many years.  They had both been in my children’s choir.  Like our children here, they knew all the words by heart.  They were on the swingset in our backyard, both swinging as high as they could go, trying to touch their feet to the lower branches of the close by tree.  As they were swinging they were singing at the top of their lungs, “We are called we are chosen, we are Christ for one another. We are promised to tomorrow as we are for him today…”  In their competitive spirit, the youngest, Joy, began to try to out sing her big sister, and changed the words in order to call attention to this fact.  She was singing, “I am called, I am chosen, I am Christ…”   Jessica stopped her swing completely, stomped her feet on the ground and said, “You can’t sing that!  You CAN’T BE Christ for yourself!”

As a mother, I was thrilled to hear all of this through the screen door.  As a Christian, I was confronted by a truly basic fact, one that I cannot now forget, because of the wisdom of faith in my young children.  You CAN’T BE Christ for yourself.  We are called to be Christ for one another.  There is a similar challenge in the gospel for today.  In today’s gospel we find two possibilities for faith.

First:

The Pharisees and the scribes put a question to Jesus’ disciples.  Matthew writes that they asked, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”  In Mark, when this story is told, he writes, “ Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”    But in Luke, the question to the disciples reads, “Why do YOU eat with tax collectors and sinners?”  In Matthew and Mark, the Pharisees’ criticism is directed against Jesus himself.  In Luke, their criticism is directed against the disciples.  

SO…There is, and there ought to be, connection and continuity between the work and witness of Jesus of Nazareth and the work and witness of Christian people.  The congruence between Jesus and his people implies that Jesus and Jesus’ people are up to the same business.  It should be clear to all who look at us that Jesus and Jesus people are doing the same things, offering the same message.

Why do you suppose there’s a doubt about this being true in our world?  One conclusion we could draw is that we are not doing our job;  we are not doing and saying the same things Jesus did and said.  Remember Jessica’s insight, you can’t be Christ for yourself.

You are meant to be Christ for your neighbor.  Your life is the only Bible most people will ever read.  The unbeliever, the doubter, the wistful agnostic could be able to look at you and say, “That person is like Jesus.”  AND the resemblance ought to cut both ways: in praise AND in criticism.  If we are praised by the world for being like Jesus, then we can just as logically be criticized and condemned by the world for being like Jesus.  He was not an easy man to live with.  He told the truth.  He stood up and said what needed to be said when things were NOT right in his world. 

Jesus burned with compassion, Jesus lived fully by his sense of justice.  You’ve seen the poster, haven’t you?  “If being a Christian were a capital offense, would the court find enough evidence to convict you?”  And lest this become a “What Would Jesus Do?” homily, let me remind you that the gospel itself today brings us Jesus actually quoting from the reading from Hosea. And this is our second possibility for faith.  God’s word to us is clear.  Jesus tell us, “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’” 

Here Jesus repeats an old theme in the prophets of Israel:  Israel was too concerned with ritual niceties, too absorbed in requirements of their holiness, and therefore were ignoring the demands of compassion.  Jesus reminds us that our God wants a people who put mercy even above morality.  For Jesus, here, is not simply offending trite ritualistic sensibilities; he is offending against popular morality of the day.  It’s not merely that Jesus refuses to wash his hands before he eats:  he is eating with the wrong crowd, the moral and religious outcasts of his day.  Jesus comes down on the side of mercy and compassion for the people involved, not the moral judgements.

This narrative compels me to examine what I know of morality, when the real needs of real people come into question.  If I had to choose between keeping myself ritually clean and helping the man lying along the roadside, stripped and beaten, there’s no question in me about what I would do.  But the question is much more difficult when it appears as if the needs of people are conflicting with (what I find) to be a genuinely moral, ethical principle.

The children abused by the priests are victims.  This is a moral ethical principle.  The man committing the crime is wrong and should suffer the strongest consequences for his wrong-doing.  But, I don’t know how to pray for the victims of the crimes without praying for the criminal at the same time.  I don’t know how to justify violence being done in my name by a military being paid for by my taxes.  I remember Bishop Hunthausen years ago…I remember him saying that we should withhold our taxes, we should boycott the military expenditures.  It was both illegal and unpopular to speak about it, but I knew at the time that he was right.  I did not have the courage to do it.  I wish I had.  I want to do it now.

And I want some way to go to Dallas and stand outside the building where the bishops are meeting next week, and shout out to them that they must stand up for justice and mercy in all the questions being shoved into their faces.  There is no way to find mercy for the victim without praying for and searching for forgiveness for the ones who committed the crimes.  We are ALL in need of forgiveness.

From Romans we hear the story of Abraham again, today.  “In hope Abraham believed against hope…he did not weaken in faith…but he grew strong in his faith…fully convinced that God was able to do what God had promised.”  I hold this standard up for us as Journey Community on this day:  like Abraham, that we believe against hope, that we not weaken in faith.  Like Abraham, let us live fully convinced that God is able to do what God promised.  And every day we are moving toward this, every time we forget for a moment that we are the Body of Christ, the face of Christ in this world, try to remember Jessica’s strong message to her little sister: “You can’t be Christ for yourself.”   //    We are called to be Christ for one another.