Week 10 Saturday (Year 2)

Readings: 1 Kings 19:19-21; Psalm 15; Matthew 5:33-37

Communicatio facit civitatem is a memorable phrase in the writings of Thomas Aquinas, 'communication builds the city'. It is in his commentary on Aristotle's Politics, near the beginning, where Aristotle argues that it is in the capacity for language that the human being is clearly raised above the other animals. We can grunt and groan as the other animals do but we have the capacity, which they do not according to Aristotle, to treat, and decide about, matters of justice and injustice. We can be held responsible in such matters in ways that animals are not. That responsibility is linked with our capacity for language: moral responsibility, freedom of choice, understanding, real initiative and creativity - and language - these are distinctively human abilities and activities.

It comes to mind today thinking about the readings we have at Mass as well as the current situation in the world.

On one hand the readings - let your yes be yes, and your no be no. Be transparent, straightforward, honest, coherent. That's Jesus in the gospel reading. Elijah seems to be impatient with Elisha's hesitation, wanting to qualify his response to Elijah's call by a visit to his parents. It anticipates comments of Jesus later in the gospel: respond immediately, no turning back or turning aside. No spin then, no need for swearing, no being economical with the truth, no being clever in twisting things to mislead or deceive.

We are still in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus presenting the ethics of the kingdom that is coming. So we might be tempted to say that his teaching is fine for his ideal world but in the real world, well things are obviously more complicated. So too for Elijah - he is a bit of a fanatic anyway, isn't he, to be taken with more than a grain of salt.

All will be brought into the light, Jesus says elsewhere, and our confidence is that it will not be the light of mockers and jeerers, of cruel and merciless enemies, of the father of lies whose light is closer to darkness, but a warm and embracing light, a light that is penetrating and complete but also loving and merciful. 'Yes, I did that'. 'No, I did not'. 'I do not think so.' 'I am sorry'. 'I was wrong'. 'It is what I believe, and know, and want'. 'I love you'.

Meanwhile back in the 'real world' we have increasing violence, deepening polarisation, growing anxiety. What is true and what is false? What is accurate and objective and what is invented to stir up my fears and anxieties, to activate my prejudices and self-interest? We hear of 'fake news' and 'false facts', we are bombarded with images and opinions, we are preached at by moralists and commentators, told what we should think about this or that event, of this or that person.

The rise of social media opens the door to the proliferation of conspiracy theories. An unhappy archbishop writes that the growing polarisation is apocalyptic, presaging a great battle between a kingdom of light and a kingdom of darkness. The next step is to start pointing out who belongs to each kingdom and then we are in real trouble. There is, it is claimed, a 'deep state' and a 'deep church'. What can it mean? The ground on which we think we are standing dissolves beneath our feet, that awful sensation produced by an earth tremor when what was solid becomes liquid, the ground melts, the walls move, what seemed reliable might turn out to have been a pack of lies

Who is to be trusted in a world whose politics seems to take mistrust as its first principle?

A short homily - at least in its conception - now raises questions that seem too big. Perhaps it serves some good in naming a confusion and uncertainty that others will be experiencing. Where are we? Where are we going? Who is really pulling the levers? Where are the centres of power? What is true and reliable in all that is going on?

Communicatio facit civitatem, communication builds the city. Let your yes be yes, and your no be no. Talking - and first listening - to each other. Encouraging places of open conversation, if necessary seeking to establish such places. Easy to say, not so easy to do. Something along these lines has to be a better starting-point. But how to build trust when language loses all purchase on truth?

In an earlier 'cold war' moment one observer proposed that world leaders should meet naked whenever they met, to remind themselves of the fragility and vulnerability of the human creatures whose lives they were playing with. The virus could have done that for us, brought home our common vulnerability, across all races and colours, creeds and cultures, even across political divisions. Instead it seems to have heightened tensions and deepened divisions, its light cruel and merciless, exposing inequalities and failures all too clearly. It has shaken the foundations.

Perhaps it is too late for 'project humanity' as the apocalyptically inclined say (and perhaps hope!). Perhaps it is not too late. Perhaps trust can be built again from the ground up, with honest conversation in friendships, families and other smaller groups. Where yes is yes, and no is no. Where a community can still be established through communication. Where a moral strength might yet be established that would counteract and contain the inevitable abuses of power.

Week 10 Friday (Year 2)

Readings: 1 Kings 19:9a, 11-16; Psalm 27; Matthew 5:27-32

Elijah knows the rules about seeing God and not seeing God. When he realises that the Lord, absent from the mighty wind, the earthquake, and the fire, is present in the gentle breeze, he does not need to be told to cover his face. He does it on his own initiative, before going to stand outside the cave in which he has spent the night. Only Moses got to speak with God 'face to face', as a man speaks with his friend, but even Moses needs to be protected at one point from the full frontal vision of God and is allowed to see only God's back as he passes by.

'What are you doing here?', is the Lord's question to Elijah who, God knows already, has taken refuge there from the wrath of Jezebel. The emphasis seems to be on the 'here' - 'why are you here and not where you ought to be' seems then to be the implication.

Elijah, who has been cared for and defended by God so many times already, needs no further sympathy. There is no 'poor Elijah' from the lips of God but rather a simple direction to him to go back and get on with the work the Lord has mapped out for him. There are kings to be anointed and prophets to be called. The Lord's work is to continue, in spite of Ahab and Jezebel, and in spite of Elijah's loss of courage and his dip into depression. Elijah continues to have his role in the working out of God's providence.

There is consolation for us in seeing that even this fierce prophet had his moments of vulnerability. Zealous with zeal as he claims to be he still needs the re-assurance of that gentle breeze and the clear direction to get back to his work. The monks of the desert - perhaps in the same region as Elijah visited centuries before - were encouraged to get on with weaving their baskets and saying their prayers. They were to do this even, and especially, when they were tempted to lose courage, become depressed and give up the struggle.

Whatever my work is, whatever your work is, we are to get on with it and stick at it. God is always with Elijah, not just at Horeb, and not just in dramatic and critical moments of his life, times of wind, earthquake or fire. Likewise God is always with us, a gentle breeze respecting the limitations of our capacity to encounter God. We are to do our work, whatever it is, with patience and perseverance. It is how the Lord wants us to serve him and contribute to building his kingdom. Not in words crying 'Lord, Lord, look how zealous I am for you', true as that might be. But in actions and concrete deeds, each day, humble as those actions and deeds might be.

It may be that they are just twigs, these actions and deeds of ours, swaying in that gentle breeze that breathes on us. But they are twigs for an eagle's nest. And that's an image, woven by Yeats, that would have pleased the tough Elijah, familiar as he was with the ministrations of angels and ravens.

Week 10 Thursday (Year 2)

Readings: 1 Kings 18:41-46; Psalm 65; Matthew 5:20-26

Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor believed that Jesus had, naively, judged humanity too highly: 'it was created weaker and lower than Christ thought'. St John's Gospel on the other hand tells us that Jesus did not trust himself to them because he knew what was in everyone. No naivety in the Incarnate Word, then, only the fulness of truth, uncompromising justice, and endless mercy.

What kind of humanity is capable of living by the Sermon on the Mount? Its demands seem unreal even for personal relationships. For social and political decision making it seems even more remote and romantic. A political leader in Britain resigned some years ago saying he could not combine being a Christian and being a political leader. The saints who come closest to living it out in practice are precisely the ones who say that they are far from what it demands.

We might imagine that it is humanity redeemed that can live like this. Is it not the ethics of the kingdom that we find in Matthew 5-7, not an ethics for this fallen and corrupt world where even good people end up doing terrible things, perhaps even convincing themselves that they are acting justly? Is it not an ethics for super-humanity, people graced and gifted with the Spirit not just 'in principle', as all the baptised are, but in the realisation of the Spirit's gifts?

It is more helpful, though, to think that this is how we would live were we to be simply and truly ourselves. This is the ethics of 'normal' humanity, our best selves, the people God knows us to be, people with hearts of flesh rather than hearts of stone. Lovers find themselves not only capable of living like this for the ones they love, they rush to live like this for the ones they love. The response of people in many countries to help the people of Ukraine bears witness to this common ground of humanity that all share - people of all faiths and none, of all races and classes, clubbing together to help other human beings in desperate need.

We might say that it does not endure, that the old man re-asserts himself sooner or later. But we do get glimpses of life in the kingdom, of what a civilisation of love might look like, where those who are truly loved become capable of loving, and those capable of loving are truly loved. Then there is no question of murder, obviously. And there is a new sensitivity to words like 'renegade' or 'fool', a new sensitivity not just to our actions and omissions, not just to what we say, but also to what we think, to those thoughts of anger or revenge that are never far from our door.

There are of course many good reasons to be angry. There is great energy in anger. In this world it is put at the service of revenge and oppression. In the kingdom of God such energy is put at the service of justice and mercy. The Grand Inquisitor might have thought the Incarnate Word was naive but it is he who is out of touch with reality, blind to the reality of God's anger. We see the energy of that divine anger in the resurrection of the Son from the dead. And we pray that God will continue to manifest His anger at sin in precisely the same way, by bringing about a new creation, a new kingdom, a humanity restored to itself.

Week 10 Wednesday (Year 2)

Readings: 1 Kings 18:20-39; Psalm 15; Matthew 5:17-19

As children, at school, there was a lot to hold our attention in the stories from the Bible, especially from the Old Testament. There were so many big characters and colourful and dramatic stories. We had Moses and Samson, Joshua and Elijah, Jacob and David, supermen easily placed alongside Batman and Superman. There were mighty women also - Delilah and Deborah and Judith, to go with the super-heroines of the comics we read. It all fitted very easily with what we were also seeing in the cinema - cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, heroes and villains.

'When I was a child I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child' (1 Corinthians 13:11). The world was enchanted but also dualistic (even though we would not then have understood the term!), the children of light engaging in warfare with the sons and daughters of darkness, to save the world, save civilisation, save humanity.

'When I became a man I gave up childish ways'. Well, did I, really? It is still much easier to think in dualistic terms and we see it being done all the time - rich and poor, north and south, black and white, Christian and Muslim, left-wing and right-wing, conservative and liberal. It seems that even when the world loses its enchantment for us, and we become more skeptical about the arrival of any heroic deus ex machina to save the day, we still go on thinking in dualistic terms. 

The story of Elijah's confrontation with the priests of Baal is therefore one with which we will be very comfortable, at least from the point of view of its simplicity. One faithful prophet against four hundred and fifty pagan priests. An absent and/or powerless god who can do nothing with a dry bull ('perhaps he is on the loo', Elijah taunts) compared with an always present, always powerful, always ready to act Lord, the God of Israel, to whose devouring fire the bull soaked in water presents no difficulty. There are goodies and baddies, and it is clear who they are, the odds are stacked against the goodies, but they have the Superhero of all superheroes rooting for them and so all is well - 'the Lord is God, the Lord is God' echoes along the slopes of Mount Carmel and across the beautiful valley of Jezreel. (You can still hear the echo if you visit there today!)

Fast forward to another Galilean hillside and another prophet, speaking to a crowd of followers and others. It is less dramatic, less colourful, less noisy or smelly, there is no bull. Very soon Jesus will make a series of contrasts between the old law and his new law - 'you have heard that it was said ... but I say to you'. It is all too easy to place this within the simple familiar pattern with which our minds are most comfortable - old is bad, new is good; Jewish law bad, Christian law good; ancestors limited, we enlightened; former times primitive, our times sophisticated.

But this prophet will frequently challenge, subvert, upend our easy, lazy, dualistic way of thinking. It is as if this is the heart of his preaching. Who goes home justified? Who is chosen? Who enters first into the kingdom of heaven? Who will be first and who last? Who wins and who loses?

So he prefaces this series of 'you have heard ... but I say' with a warning which obliges us to think again and to think hard. It  directly confronts our tendency to separate into 'goodie' and 'baddie', our childish way of thinking. We can say simply that it calls us to think, to think deeply and consistently, perhaps to think seriously for the first time. His mission is all about metanoia, a change of mind, a revolution in how we think. So do not imagine, he says, that I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets. Think this instead: I have come to complete them, in every last detail. It you want to be great in my kingdom then keep these laws in every detail and teach others to do the same. (Is he being serious?)

It is not by being childish in our way of thinking that we are to be like little children so as to enter his kingdom, thinking the world is a showdown, understood simplistically, between the good and the bad (with you and I always among the good, of course).  It is all much more interesting, more complicated, more of a challenge to human imagination and thought, more dramatic spiritually - how to understand this world and the providence unfolding within it, how to stay with this prophet in all the confusion that can gather round, how to have 'the mind of Christ' and to stand with him as he brings all law, all prophets, all promises, all covenants, to unimagined completion.

Elijah and Moses, those two great superheroes of our childhood, will soon confirm this, appearing with him on yet another Galilean hill, pointing to him, only to fade away quietly, leaving only Jesus. And the quiet echo of the Father's voice, 'listen to him'.

Week 10 Sunday (Year B)

Readings: Genesis 3,9-15; Psalm 130; 2 Corinthians 4,13-5,1; Mark 3,20-35

Sometimes, in order to put a kind interpretation on a person'a behaviour, we say he is not himself, he is out of sorts. A more critical view would say that he is beside himself, or out of his mind. Even more critical: he is gone mad or crazy. We find all these analyses of Jesus's actions packed into today's gospel reading. The most radical and critical one of all is to say that he is possessed, he has been taken over by a demon or some other kind of evil spirit, that he is completely controlled by his own 'demons'.

But to say that the Spirit in Jesus is demonic is the worst view of all. It is bad enough practically, for how could the kingdom of darkness be producing the fruits of the kingdom of light? How could the kingdom of lies be serving the one who is Truth Itself? What makes it really evil is that it regards the One who is the way, the truth and the life as an agent of the kingdom of confusion, falsehood and death.

This conflict of two kingdoms was foretold at the very beginning, as we see in today's first reading, that there would be a continual spiritual warfare between the woman's seed and the seed of the serpent. The decisive battle of this warfare is about to take place in the life of Jesus Christ, when the father of lies does his utmost to confuse, distort, disturb and confound the work of the Lord of life and truth. It seems that he wins, hounding Jesus to death, but then he loses, and loses definitively, in the resurrection of Jesus from among the dead.

It is right to be critical and hesitant where people make claims to spiritual or supernatural wisdom or power. It is still the case that Satan can take the form of an angel of light and there are very recent cases of such abuse to confirm this. The Church recently issued new norms for evaluating such claims, norms that are founded on the fundamental principle articulated for us by Jesus himself: 'by their fruits you will recognise them'.

The Gospel of Mark is very honest in recording the reactions of Jesus' closest friends and family even when it does not show them in a favourable light. His family members are concerned about what is happening to Jesus and what he is doing. They offer the kinder analyses of his condition: he is out of his mind, beside himself, gone a bit crazy. His enemies go for the radical accusation: it is through the prince of devils that he casts out devils. Jesus not only rejects the latter accusation but shows how deeply wrong it is. It means inverting light and darkness, right and wrong, truth and lies. Who can be rescued from such a distortion if it once takes root in their minds?

But his new family, the new community he is gathering around him, is made up of anyone who does the will of God. That is the first criterion of membership, deeper even than ties of blood. We can put it alongside the other principle mentioned above: 1) do the will of God; 2) by their fruits you will recognise them. In analysing our own behaviour and what is happening to us in our relationships and in our work we can apply the same criteria. Am I doing what is God's will for me? And if I am not sure am I at least seeking to know what God's will is? And what about the fruits my life is bearing? Can I recognise them as fruits flowing from God's grace or are they the product of my own narcissism?

The warfare between good and evil, truth and lies, the kingdom of the serpent and the kingdom of the Son - our own souls are a battlefield in this war. But we have the guidance of Christ to help us understand what is happening and we have the presence of the Spirit to enable us to undertake the work, sometimes long and difficult work, of overcoming the kingdom of the serpent and seeking to undo the damage it has perpetrated.

Week 10 Wednesday (Year 1)

Readings: 2 Corinthians 3:4-11; Psalm 99; Matthew 5:17-19

One of the best preached retreats I experienced was given by Gordian Marshall, a Scottish Dominican who had spent much time working in Jewish-Christian relations. He spoke to us about the gospels as Jewish texts and it was, if the expression can be pardoned, a revelation. He helped us to see things that have become difficult for us to see, not just because we are (most of us) Gentiles but also because our mindset has been shaped by centuries of anti-Judaism, facile contrasts between the Old and the New Testaments, always at the expense of the Old. (If it were as simple as that why do we go on reading the Old Testament in our liturgies and acknowledging it to be, for us too, 'the Word of the Lord'?)

Today's readings invite us to reflect on this question. On the one hand Paul seems to endorse an 'anti-Judaist' interpretation of salvation history: the old dispensation, carved on tablets of stone and destined to pass, has faded. It has been replaced by a new dispensation, in the Spirit and destined to endure, whose glory surpasses the old. It seems straightforward: Christianity is better than Judaism.

But what Paul is saying here is itself Jewish teaching! We find it already in Jeremiah 31 which speaks of the new covenant that will be written on the heart rather than on stone, that will teach from within rather than from without, whereby all will know God. Jeremiah also speaks of the need for a 'circumcision of the heart' (Jer 4:4; 9:26), an interiorisation of the Law's teaching which is repeated many times in the Sermon on the Mount ('you have heard that it was said ... but I say this to you ...'). Likewise Deuteronomy (10:16; 30:6) and Ezekiel (44:7,9) speak of heart-circumcision, anticipating Paul who is eventually converted to this way of understanding (Romans 2:29).

These Old Testament texts clearly anticipate Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. In fact there is nothing in the content of the Sermon that is not found already in the Old Testament. Jesus stands firmly in the line of prophetic and wisdom teaching that we find in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Deuteronomy and Hosea.

When we think of the replacement of one covenant by another, therefore, we must think of it as radical, yes, but as organic, emerging within the living reality that is already there, like the fruit appearing on the tree. That is like the image Paul uses in Romans 9-11 to speak about the way in which the Christian faith depends, for its life, on Judaism: a wild olive branch grafted in, sharing the nourishing sap from the root. Do not consider yourselves superior, Paul says to the Gentiles (how was it that this came to be so comprehensively forgotten?): 'you do not support the root but the root supports you' (Romans 11:11-24).

Christians have done a good public relations job convincing the world that the Sermon on the Mount is the specifically Christian moral teaching. (It taught Gandhi to love Jesus although he was never convinced by Christians.) But its content is already fully present in Judaism. What is new is the Teacher who not only teaches but practises what the Law requires. Where is the Law fulfilled? It cannot be in a new text: the whole point is that the Law's fulfillment is not a text but a life in the Spirit. We might say the Law is fulfilled in the new commandment Jesus gives his disciples, to love one another as he has loved them. Yes, but it is that fulfillment not simply as a proposition or as a text or as a commandment articulated in words. St Augustine glosses Paul in today's first reading saying that even the letter of the gospel kills where it is read or taught without the Spirit.

What is new is the love itself, the Spirit, by whose power the Law is now heard and obeyed and fulfilled. This is the Spirit of Jesus who is (in spite of us) building the Church but who had already - it is in the Church's creed - 'spoken through the prophets'.

Week 10 Tuesday (Year 2)

Readings: 1 Kings 17:7-16; Psalm 4; Matthew 5:13-16

Ernest Hemingway wrote a short story which consisted of just six words: 'For sale: baby shoes. Never used'. Another great author of the last century, John Steinbeck, pointed out how we use very short words for the most significant human experiences: war, peace, life, death, love, hate.

Today's readings are simple in this way. Elijah is hungry and thirsty, the woman offers him what she has, meal and oil. Add a little water and there is bread. Jesus speaks about salt and light, simple words and simple realities but things of great power.

We have the simplest words for the most important things: God, Abba, God is love.

And yet we move towards complication. Why do we need to complicate our lives so much? Is this something sin wants to do, to pull us away from a simple appreciation of the gifts we have?

I had a vivid experience of recovering the simple during a Holy Week retreat at Quarr Abbey some years ago. The place was cold, the hours of praying were long, and the food was Lenten. After two days the simple breakfast of homemade brown bread, butter and coffee was the tastiest and most satisfying meal imaginable. I knew again what it meant to be hungry. I knew again what it meant to be tired and appreciated sleep. I knew again what it meant to be cold and appreciated heat. And - this is what we hope for in going on retreat - I knew again what it meant to be without God, and appreciated the need to seek Him.

We are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. It is perfectly simple and so easy to understand. But something else enters in. The salt loses its savour. When we experience empty blandness again we return to appreciating salt. The light is allowed to weaken and even to go out. When we experience darkness again we return to appreciating light.

The widow of Zarephath, who helped Elijah, gets honourable mention in the preaching of Jesus. Her jar of meal and jug of oil have been taken to symbolise the sacramental life of the Church. These sacred mysteries are always on offer - reconciliation and the Eucharist - to restore and sustain our life, to make us salty again, to make us radiant again.