Week 20 Wednesday (Year 2)

Readings: Ezekiel 34:1-11; Ps 22; Matthew 20:1-16

‘It’s not fair, he’s got a bigger slice than I have.’‘It’s not fair, she’s got more!’ ‘It’s not fair, I wanted the blue one!’

Cries of childhood echo in my head. The parable of the workers in the vineyard (today's gospel reading) tells of a group of workers some of whom have worked all day, others for part of the day, and a few for just an hour. At the end of the day the owner pays each of them the same amount. The ones who worked all day feel, naturally, that ‘it’s not fair’. The owner of the vineyard was quite just in giving them what had been agreed at the beginning of the day. But still, there’s something about it ....

Most of us, I imagine, will feel that the ones who worked all day have a point. The ones who came later were actually paid more per hour of work. How galling for the first group to hear the owner pointing out that he was being perfectly fair, knowing that, strictly speaking, he was but at the same time feeling hard done by.

It is very difficult to combine the ideas of justice and mercy. As we understand and experience them they seem to be incompatible. How can you be completely just while showing mercy (because mercy sounds to us like ‘letting someone off’, ‘agreeing to overlook something’ or even ‘letting someone get away with something’). How can you show mercy and still be strictly just (because not to insist on one’s rights, or not to insist on what we are owed sounds like a decision to forego justice).

The same problem comes up in the story of the prodigal son where the older brother feels that the younger one is getting away with murder, having a great old time in another country, wasting his inheritance, and then coming home to be received like a long lost crown prince instead of the irresponsible wastrel that he was. Matthew’s parable of the workers in the vineyard deals with the same issues as Luke’s parable of the prodigal son.

What issues? Well, in the context in which Jesus first told these stories, the main issue was the reaction of the Pharisees and others to the fact that he was welcoming sinners and eating with them. The Pharisees are the ones who have laboured all day in the Lord’s vineyard, the sinners are the ones wandering in when the day is nearly over. Or the Jews are the ones who have laboured all day — God’s people from centuries back — while the pagans are the ones wandering in late in the day. This was the import of Jesus’ preaching, linked especially with his frequent assertion that he had come not for the healthy but for the sick.

So a first question is whether we think of ourselves as sick or healthy. In relation to God, do we regard ourselves as belonging with the righteous who have been working hard all these years or do we feel that we belong with sinners who are today given the re-assuring message that ‘it’s never too late’?

A second question is how we regard other people, especially those whom we might think of as having wandered away from God, and from the ways of goodness. What if they return, even at the very end? Is it a cause of rejoicing for us, a joy we share with them, or do we feel a bit peeved that they’ve got away with so much, and feel like crying out to God that ‘it’s not fair’?

Part of envy is the feeling of exclusion from what another person is enjoying. But the gifts of God are not like other kinds of gifts. As children we knew very well that the more the cake and chocolate was divided the less there was for each one. With God’s gifts — grace, compassion, love, mercy — the more they are divided the more they increase because each one who truly receives these gifts of God and appreciates their meaning becomes in their turn a source of grace, compassion, love, and mercy in the world.

We cannot get our minds and hearts around God’s ways so as to contain or comprehend them. ‘God’s ways are not our ways and God’s thoughts not our thoughts’, says Isaiah. Many scripture readings remind us that God is not like us. Our standards of fairness and reasonable dealing are turned on their heads the more we enter into the world of God, contemplate the mystery of his love, and try to live according to his spirit. ‘The last will be first, and the first, last.’ Only love can teach us the truth of this paradox.

Week 20 Tuesday (Year 2)

Readings: Ezekiel 28.1-10; Deuteronomy 32.26-36; Matthew 19.23-30

We tend to read all biblical passages with the same level of seriousness, a kind of respect for the Word of God I suppose. But there is comedy in the gospel reading today. First of all we are asked to think again about that strange idea, a camel being forced through the eye of a needle (a bit like the joke about getting an elephant into a paper bag: follow the instructions carefully). It is impossible for human beings that a rich person will enter the kingdom of heaven (rich meaning not just wealthy but powerful, successful in worldly terms).

Peter speaks up and, as usual, gets the wrong end of the stick. What about us, who've left everything to follow you, what will we get? What are the 'economics' of the situation from our point of view? There is, perhaps, a note of exasperation in Jesus' reply: okay, if you are still thinking in such terms then imagine yourselves sitting on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel: this may in fact be another joke which we will only 'get' when we come to the punchline.

But it is a comment we take very seriously and read very solemnly and it may seem irreverent to suggest that it is some kind of tease on the part of Jesus. It does, of course, have a deep truth in it: the Church is founded on the apostles' and on their preaching. But this is another moment in a long struggle Jesus has with the disciples as He tries to teach them who He is and how His mission is to unfold. You must become like a little child, the one who wants to be great must be the servant of all, the one who exalts himself will be humbled ... and still Peter is wondering about the exchange rate: what, for us, in return? The love Jesus has come to establish for us does not ask that question.

The first reading, from the prophet Isaiah, is a warning to men who think they sit on godly thrones. The prince of Tyre thinks of himself in that way. He has been successful in business and politics, is rich and powerful, thinks he has the mind of a god, but his heart grows haughty and what he thinks is his great wisdom (greater than that of Daniel, Isaiah notes) is actually profound foolishness. The challenge for Jesus is to convince people that the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. It continues to be the challenge for preachers of the gospel: how to explain this paradox, the apparent contradiction on the path along which God leads those who seek Him?

Back in the gospel reading, the banter continues and there is a sting in the tail. Of course - Jesus adds to his comment about the apostles sitting on thrones to judge Israel - it is still the case that the first will be last and the last, first. In the 'divine comedy' that unfolds Jesus ends up on the cross and that is the throne of his glory, the throne from which He judges the world. The apostles, as he predicted, did end up also on crosses and gibbets and other platforms of execution, bearing witness to the love they had found in Him and joining Him in judging the world, by their witness, as martyrs. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. Now that is funny and peculiar, the mystery of true love revealed in the cross of Jesus.

Week 20 Monday (Year 2)

Readings: Ezekiel 24.15-24; Deuteronomy 32.18-21; Matthew 19.16-22

The prophet Ezekiel interprets the death of his wife in relation to the breaking of Israel's relationship with God. It is a loss as radical and as significant as the death of a spouse. But strangely the message to the prophet is that he is not to mourn in the usual ways to show the people that they are not to mourn their loss of God either.

What can it mean? Perhaps it means that such mourning by the people could only be hypocritical considering how they have been living. It would be a case of 'crocodile tears' as the saying goes. The condition of their relationship with God is so bad that any mourning about God's departure from them will be unreal. The flash of anger at the end of the reading, continued in the verses of the psalm, seem to support this: 'you shall rot away because of your sins', the reading ends. In effect, God is saying to them 'you are dead as far as I'm concerned'.

The rich young man in the gospel reading is called to a radical following of Christ. He is not just to keep the commandments as all are called to do, but is to sell what he has, give it to the poor and then follow Jesus along the way he is taking.

Once again, through this encounter, we hear the voice of the Lord saying to his people, 'being in relationship with me is a serious business'. It involves radical choices and commitments. What makes it possible for a person to do what Jesus asks? Even among those who are 'officially' consecrated to follow Him in voluntary poverty, how many actually arrive at the interior freedom and trust which such a consecration involves?

'You have forgotten God who gave you birth', the psalm says. We find our sense of identity and meaning in various places - possessions, a partner, esteem, success - when our identity and the meaning of our lives is found in God fundamentally, the Creator who has brought us to birth and from whom we receive all that we have and are.

We make various attempts to break free from that dependence, to be autonomous over against God, but these attempts are bound to fail because they are built on sand, they are unreal and untrue. Only by receiving and living the radical call of Jesus, whatever our state in life, will we enter into true freedom. That is the freedom that comes from accepting our full and permanent dependence on God for absolutely everything.

Week 20 Sunday (Year A)

Readings: Isaiah 56:1, 6-7; Psalm 66; Romans 11:13-15, 29-32; Matthew 15:21-28

How are we to understand this story in which Jesus is rude to a Canaanite woman whose daughter is possessed by a demon?

There is a feminist interpretation that says that Jesus, as a limited human being needs to be helped, in particular by the women who come into his life, and that here we see him being helped by the Canaanite woman to realize the full extent of his mission. She calls him, as it were, beyond the boundaries of his own understanding and imagination.

I don’t think this is to be simply dismissed. We do, often, have difficulty accepting the full humanity of Jesus and what it entailed. We are probably much happier, for example, accepting that Jesus needed to be taught how to pray by Mary and Joseph than we are with the suggestion that he needed to learn something about his mission from the Canaanite woman.

If we work with the belief that Jesus knew exactly what he was about and understood what his mission was and how he was to pursue it, how are we to explain the strange conversation that takes place between him and this woman? In the first instance he remains silent. (As he did also when confronted with the woman taken in adultery in John 8.) The disciples encourage him to do something for her, whether to help her or just to get rid of her is not clear. Jesus then makes the statement about being sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Whether he says this to the woman or to the disciples is, once again, not clear. The woman repeats her request: ‘Lord, help me’. Notice that she makes exactly the same prayer as Peter in last Sunday’s gospel: ‘Lord, save me’. In situations of great need we don’t need to be told how to pray. Then Jesus makes this strange statement in which he seems to imply that she is a dog. But is immediately taken by her answer about the dogs at least getting the scraps that fall from the master’s table. And so he acknowledges her faith and heals her daughter.

Here’s a suggestion as to what might be going on here. I spent a short time in Trinidad but learned that the people there liked what they call ‘piquant’. It is a French word that has hung around and refers to an exchange between people that is witty and clever, moving towards being daring and even (to one who does not understand what is going on) insulting. I can remember one or two conversations of this kind where each party is expected to give as good as he gets – there is excitement and fun in the conversation but an onlooker might not understand what is happening and might even feel uncertain about it.

Might it be that the Canaanite woman and Jesus are immediately attuned to each other – they were able to see each other’s eyes, for example – and that their exchange is of this kind, a kind of verbal sparring that both sides will enjoy. They are then enacting a parable for the sake of the disciples in order to teach them something about the universal mission of Jesus.

There is plenty in the prophets about the universal reach of God’s promises to Israel and we cannot imagine that Jesus is unaware of this. The first reading at Mass today is an example. In fact placing it alongside the story of the Canaanite woman, the Church is inviting us to see this prophecy fulfilled in this encounter. The pagans, represented by the woman, will come to the temple, Jesus, and their prayers and sacrifices will be acceptable to the Lord. The text is quoted later in Matthew’s gospel, when Jesus drives out the moneychangers and says it is to be a house of prayer for all the peoples.

The second reading too is about this, Paul grappling with the fact that the Jewish people as a whole had not accepted Jesus as the messiah. Romans 9-11 is the great New Testament text for thinking about this question, the starting point for thinking about the relationship of Christianity with the Jewish people. And of course it is not only Jews who have from time to time looked down on other people (or been looked down on by them) – there are many nations that have done this.

But Jesus in his encounter with the woman takes the opportunity to teach the disciples something about the call of human need, that there is no limit and no boundary to where the light of the gospel and the healing love of Christ are to be brought. Wherever there is human need the gospel is to be preached.

And the missionary learns from the missioned, if we can put it like that. We might be tempted to think that we know what people need and that we are the ones to provide it. But Jesus, remember, does not presume to know that: ‘what do you want me to do for you?’ My first assignation as a priest was to Edinburgh where I studied at the University and helped out at the chaplaincy. I was 24 years of age and supposed to be an ‘elder’ in the community! I learned what I was to do as a priest from the people who came to me, they taught me what a priest was to do, the ways in which he was expected to serve. There must always be this dialogue, between the teacher and the taught, the missionary and the missioned, the helper and the helped. We do not realize the gifts we carry until those we serve help us to realize them. Their need will call us beyond the limits we may have set to what we think we have to offer.

I must acknowledge that Fergus Kerr’s homily on the Torch website helped me in thinking about this gospel. And I conclude with a quote from him:

Isn’t this wonderful little story an invitation to reflect on the possibilities of liberation that pagans may hope to find in Christianity, and the necessity, if they are not to be disappointed, that we Christians discover possibilities in ourselves that call us beyond our inherited boundaries?

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary -- 15 August

Readings: Revelation 11:19; 12:1-6, 10; Ps 44 (45); 1 Corinthians 15:20-26; Luke 1:39-56

Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in fantasy literature, in magic, stories of imagined worlds, other levels of living, other possibilities for human beings. From Harry Potter to science fiction, from Lord of the Rings to The Matrix, from The Chronicles of Narnia to stories about vampires, from Dr Who to many other films, television shows, and novels.

In one sense we can think of the assumption of Mary as nourishing this human desire, this thirst for another level of life that goes above and beyond routine, daily experience, above and beyond what is immediately available to something more mysterious, more interesting.

The first reading, from the Book of Revelation, presents us with a symbolic and dramatic story, apt to nourish the artistic and poetic imagination. The child just born is Christ, his mother is Mary or also the Church, the community of the followers of Christ, destined to travel a difficult road in this world, a road rich with possibility but also dangerous, filled with obstacles. It is a fantasy, certainly, but a true fantasy if we can put it like that. It gives us an accurate diagnosis of the fortunes of the Christian believer in the world. It speaks of the promise which is our treasure as well as the difficulties of the way.

In the second reading Saint Paul teaches us that the new life, the life of the Resurrection, already given to Jesus in the moment of his rising from the dead - that this new creation, this new world, is not just for Christ but has been won by him for us. The great grace of the Christian faith is precisely this: to accept the promise of a level of living, of a possibility, that goes above and beyond even our imagination. Once again it is the assumption of Mary that gives us the guarantee of this, that the new creation is not just for Christ but is also for all who belong to him, in the first place to Mary, but eventually for all his people.

In the gospel we hear the great prayer of Mary, the Magnificat, praising God for his many gifts. Mary, an historical and particular individual, a unique individual, is full of grace. It is also a symbol of the Church, of us also who are with her in the Church. We can say that Mary is the Church in its perfection. She symbolises this perfection and realises it. And she does this not just as an 'idea' or 'symbol' but as the historical, flesh and blood, particular human individual that she was and is.

Already in this world we can see the first signs of this new creation, sparks we might say of the glory that is to come. Wherever there is compassion, or work for justice, care of the poor, unexpected generosity, faithful love, the initiative and creativity of charity - in all of this we see the presence of the Holy Spirit, the Gift of God, the Source of all God's graces.

The clear revelation of all this is yet to come. For now our thirst continues since we must continue our pilgrimage in this world. But we do so in the hope of the Resurrection. We do so strengthened and encouraged by the grace and the prayers of Mary, already assumed into heaven.

You will find here another homily for the Feast of the Assumption of the BVM

Week 19 Friday (Year 2)

Readings: Ezekiel 16:1-15, 60, 63; Psalm 12; Matthew 19:3-12

Jesus speaks of marriage past, present and future. How it was meant to be 'from the beginning' is his first response to the Pharisees' question about divorce. In the intention of the Creator divorce is not envisaged, but rather that a man and his wife should be together in an inseparable union. In the intention of any couple getting married, unless there is some deception being perpetrated, divorce is not envisaged, but rather that the couple, from the significant beginning of their relationship which we call 'falling in love', will be together in an inseparable union. That intention and that union are blessed in the Catholic Church to become a sacrament, a sign and a realisation of the presence of the Kingdom of God.

But experience shows .... is the next comment from the Pharisees, not in so many words but in effect. Moses allowed men (sic) to divorce their wives. He did, Jesus replied, because of the hardness of heart that can creep in to destroy relationships and break marriages. But that is not how God intended it. There should not be divorce, Jesus says, it is equivalent to adultery.

Now it is the disciples' turn to appeal to experience. If you take that line, they say to Jesus, not in so many words but in effect, then it is not expedient to marry. As the Pharisees present Jesus with past experience, the disciples present him with present experience, and together they say something like 'human nature being what it is, your ideal is not going to work in some cases'.

Jesus echoes his own radicalisation of the law in the Sermon on the Mount: 'I say to you'. And the requirements of God's law become more difficult, more demanding, because what is asked must come from within, from the heart, arising from love of the good and not from fear of consequences. This is the ethic of the kingdom, the future reality which Jesus is inaugurating in the present. There are those who can already live according to these demands, he says, for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. But they are those whom love, the Spirit of God who is love, has made able to receive this teaching.

What if our morality is not something we can generate out of our own natural resources but a gift to be received? And what if we live between the past of which the Pharisees speak, the present of which the disciples speak, and the future of which Jesus speaks? It would make faithful marriage also an eschatological sign, a sacrament making present in the Church, the life of the world to come.

Hardness of heart is a permanent threat, always lurking at our door, ready to poison and distort our commitments and our relationships. It is only the Spirit of God, the Spirit of love, who will soften our hearts and keep them gentle. And so keep them capable of faithful love. Not all can accept this word, Jesus says, his teaching about marriage, and for some it is actually better that they not marry. But whoever can accept this ought to accept it.

Traditionally this has been applied in the Church to the vocation to celibacy. But considering the changes concerning marriage that are happening in the world around the Church, it seems that we must find also in these words of Jesus an encouragement of those called to marriage, understood as it has been from the beginning. If we are to receive this teaching, and live in accordance with it, then whatever our particular vocation in the Church, we need the Spirit of love to come to dwell in us. Only by the power of that Spirit will our commitments and promises share the strength and fidelity of the everlasting covenant which the Lord has made with his people, the covenant of which our promises and commitments are sacramental and charismatic signs.

Week 19 Thursday (Year 2)

Readings: Ezekiel 12:1-12; Psalm 78; Matthew 18:21-19:1

They just don't get it. It's a phrase we often hear. We hear it about bishops, for example, and other religious superiors in relation to sexual abuse and other kinds of abuse.

They just don't get it. It has taken so long for people to realise the implications of such abuse and the consequences of the way in which such abuse was responded to in the past. It's a bit like within a family the problems that come from alcoholism or drug addiction.

What will it take for the person who is so addicted to get it, to realise the problem? What will it take? Will it take something traumatic, something dramatic, something very serious before a person comes to understand the truth of their situation? In the prophet Ezekiel, we see in the first reading today, he has to do crazy stuff in order to bring something home to the people. They have eyes, but they're not seeing. They have ears, but they're not hearing.

How is he to get through to them? He has to do something crazy. They see the crazy things that he does. Notice how often the phrase, 'while they looked on', is used in the first reading.

He does these crazy things, packing up, moving out, going into exile, digging a hole in the wall, walking off into the darkness, then coming back and saying, 'have you understood what I've done, what it means'? Many of Jesus's parables are crazy scenarios as well. They are exaggerated situations which are meant to shock us, disturb us, make us think 'that's crazy'. And then the mirror and the light shines back on us and we say, okay, maybe not so crazy maybe more normal in our sinful world than we like to think.

So the parable today is crazy. A man is forgiven a debt of thousands and then the next moment refuses to pardon a fellow servant who owes him a pittance. What will it take to get through to someone like that? What will it take to break open a heart that's hardened in that way, that's so focused on its own interests and has no capacity at all to open in compassion to somebody else? Is it only some supreme kind of torture that will be necessary to get through?

We think of ourselves as reasonable, open and honest people. We see the craziness in Ezekiel's behaviour and we see the absurdity of the parable, the situation presented in the parable. But these are a mirror for us, a light shining back on us and shining back on us with questions like these. What are the things I do not see and hear because I do not want to see and hear them? What are the things that disturb and challenge me to the point where I look away, turn my attention to other things and don't want to think about them anymore? What are the things or people to whom my heart is closed so that I could be, if necessary, as brutal, as insensitive as the unjust steward, as indifferent as he is in spite of the many blessings I myself receive?

What will it take for me to get it, to see what I need to see, to hear what I need to hear, to open my heart to the people and in the ways in which I need to open my heart? When will I finally get it? When will I allow the Lord to take away my blindness, to open my ears and to strengthen my heart? When or how will we come to understand how to do forgiveness in a way that is completely truthful about the past, in a way that is truly healing of that past, and in a way that is creative of new possibilities for the future?

That's the most important question coming out of the readings for us today. It can only be by staying with Christ on his journey from Galilee to Judea and on to Jerusalem through his cross to the resurrection. That's the road to forgiveness. That's the road to reconciliation. That's the road to healing and that's the road to new life.

You can listen here to this homily