Journey's Weekly Homilies
33rd Sunday, Ordinary Time November
17, 2002
by Laurie
Volk
Our liturgical
year is winding down, Matthews Jesus ever ready with a wise taunt
back to the Pharisees, is unrelenting in his call to repent. His death is eminent. Tonight’s good news is further
exhortation to stay awake and be ready.
Our three readings lay out for us, the paths of
wakefulness, and readiness. In our first reading we partake of
wisdom literature.
The good wife,
keeping her home, is ready for feast or famine. The good wife
represents not some ideal woman, but each of us.
She is wise and grace filled, because her house is in
order, she can be present to people, rather than scurrying about,
she can trust her speech and actions to be of wisdom and clarity,
not of confusion and fear.
Paul speaks to us
of faith, faith in life after death. Should we lose our lives for
the sake of the good news, death will not have the final answer.
If we can have faith in resurrection, we can have faith in much
more, in wisdom, and in action supported by prayer and
contemplation.
The parable of
the talents is the gospel we heard tonight.
The most well known interpretation of this gospel is that
the money the master gives his servants, are the gifts that God
gives to us, and an urging to use them in service of god and
people. There are
some who say that this version of the story is wrong.
That the hero is the one who hid the money away. This
version is supported by a similar story in one of the Jesus texts
that did not make the canon.
I propose another
interpretation. The
story may not be about money or talent and the proper investment
of use of those things, but instead about the actions of the
servants. How did
they act with what they had been given?
Did they seek to serve the master even in his absence, or
did they hide out, pretend they were not only not of the world nor
where they in the world.
War makes us want
to hide what God has given us.
To proclaim with set jaw, and loud voice, that we are for
peace, we are for war, sure that those who think otherwise are
wrong. We do not make allowances for wisdom, for faith and our
actions are driven by fear of inaction, not by grace of one who is
prepared to speak and act in the way of wisdom.
In this time of
war and preparation for war, it seems we should know what it is
that we are to do. After
all the centuries of conflict and bloodshed, couldn’t it be,
that we of all people might have some insight, some world weary
wisdom, that might let justice and peace take precedence in our
lives. Might there be a path away from war and injustice?
I want someone,
somehow to give me an answer to that question, to show me they way
from confusion and befuddlement to standing before God and people,
to stand in wisdom and faith and solidarity, to proclaim with out
doubt, with faith that peace reigns and that the kingdom of God is
at hand. I long to see the lion lay down with the lamb, to see swords
hammered into plowshares. If only all it took were words, and
memories of ancient deeds to bring clarity and wisdom. We have
words, we have memories, and we have more input of why war and why
not war then we can sift through.
Finally we are left only with what wisdom flows through us,
with what faith dwells in us and what action our minds and bodies
will propel us toward.
Of course, I know
as well as you do that there is one who taught the way of
nonviolence, who preached the power of the weak, one who knew well
our human nature to fear, to keep still, to hide out, that we not
be found and held accountable. Jesus, fully human and fully God,
living in our midst, dying now in our midst, rising now in each
human one. That one Jesus, possessed of wisdom, faith and willing
to act, proposed an alternative to war.
The way of
nonviolence still most often eludes we human beings. We seek still
and eye for an eye, a life for a life
What is your
story of war? What are the memories and stories that make up your
decision about supporting or objecting to our currents wars of
terrorism and Iraq? Why
is it you stand for peace? Why is you hope for peace but support
war?
My stance is
driven by two memories. In
junior high I read “Johnny Got His Gun” by Dalton Trumbo.
It is the story of a soldier locked in his body unable to
communicate with those around him.
The terror of his experience began to form my stand against
war. I remember watching the lost days of the war in Vietnam on
TV, with tears streaming down my eyes.
What I saw is no longer clear to me, but the tears and
frustration of that time stay with me.
I had too cousins, one who was a conscientious objector and
one who served. One
is a successful activist, and one is lost to us to the world of
drug abuse and homelessness. Jesus and his message of nonviolence
also guide me.
I encourage you
to know what your was stories are, to make peace with them to see
what is there and if it stills rings true for you.
To see, if in light of who you now are, your stories still
tell you the same wisdom.
Peace starts with
in each of us. We
carry peace in this community.
War is a hard subject; it polarizes us and leaves us set in
the stone of hard hearts, not in the place of wisdom that flows
through us in speech and action. We are about peace in the city
that is our home, and finally crying out peace to the world is
also our responsibility.
May wisdom, faith
and action guide us through our lives.