Week 30 Sunday (Year B)

Readings: Jeremiah 31:7-9; Ps 125; Hebrews 5:1-6; Mark 10:46-52

I got quite a shock preparing a homily for this Sunday when we were reading Mark's gospel some years ago. At the beginning of the gospel reading we are told that Bartimaeus is 'beside the way' whereas at the end we are told he is 'on the way'. It brought to mind the difference between bystanders or spectators who are beside the way, and agents and participants who are on the way. (Although poor Bartimaeus is neither literally a bystander, since he is sitting, nor a spectator, since he is blind.)

A good friend whom I had known for twenty five years worked on the theme of the bystander, taking his cue from Thomas Merton's book, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander. This friend was Breifne Walker, an Irish Spiritan priest, who lectured in moral theology in Ghana, Ireland and Nigeria. Breifne had been working on what he called 'the self-implication of Christian discipleship', that to be a Christian and to stand by when faced with oppression or injustice of any kind, is a contradiction. The Christian bystander is rightly guilty, then, and I wondered if I could make something of this in thinking about Bartimaeus and his being called to discipleship.

I had not seen Breifne for over a year. Looking for his work on the internet, I discovered instead, to my dismay and great sadness, that he had died some months earlier, at the relatively young age of 61. News of his death had not reached me: this was the shock I received while preparing my homily to discover by chance that he had died. I could not then not speak of him when I preached, remembering his quiet but persistent arguing for justice, and his stubborn refusal to stand by and turn a blind eye to injustice no matter how powerful its perpetrators or how complex its causes.

We are told that Bartimaeus is 'the son of Timaeus'. It seems unnecessary and it may simply be the evangelist unpacking the name for his readers. But St Augustine, for one, thought it was significant, and indicated that the blind beggar belonged to a family of some importance so that his present condition represented a great fall in social and economic status. Perhaps his condition is a kind of acted parable for the benefit of James and John. Just a few verses earlier Jesus had said to them what he now says to Bartimaeus, 'what do you want me to do for you?' They get it all wrong as regards glory and being at the side of Jesus. The blind man sees more clearly that what he needs is simply to be with Jesus and to receive his mercy.

In his commentary on this text, St John Chrysostom says that God does not make a promise to blocks of wood. God saves human beings but has chosen not to do that without their conscious and free participation. Hence the dialogue, the conversation, between Jesus and Bartimaeus. Jesus does not presume to tell him what he most deeply wants but instead asks him 'what do you want me to do for you?' In his writing about liberation, Gustavo Gutierrez (who died just a few days ago) says that the poor must be allowed to speak for themselves about their situation. This is to act towards others as God has acted towards us, inviting us to pray to Him telling Him what we need. We may need further education in our desires as James and John do, blinded as they are by a mistaken understanding of power and glory. The blind man's prayer is more enlightened and comes from a place of genuine need: 'that I might receive my sight'.

Clement of Alexandria says that the blind man represents all of us in our condition of spiritual blindness, being brought to faith in Christ so that we see our situation and we see the one who is leading us forward towards the Father's kingdom. The beggar who begins sitting by the way is transformed into a disciple, one who now follows Jesus on the way. My friend Breifne delighted in all this. He devoted his life to thinking and teaching about justice and clear-sightedness, about virtue and discipleship. May he, and Gustavo Gutierrez, rest in peace and become together full participants in the kingdom of their Lord. And may we all be changed from bystanders and spectators into active and courageous followers of Christ.

How can we claim to love God whom we do not see if we fail to love our fellow pilgrims whom we do see?

Week 30 Tuesday (Year 1)

Readings: Romans 8:18-25; Ps 125 (126); Luke 13:18-21

What is the point of comparison in the parables? What is it about the activities described that provides an analogy with the kingdom of God? One parable involves a man and the other a woman, so it's not that. One is about gardening and the other is about cooking. One happens outdoors and the other indoors. And so on ...

It seems that the point of comparison, taking the two parables together, is a relatively insignificant thing - the mustard seed or the yeast - which, given the right circumstances, has the power to stimulate and effect extraordinary change. They are both silent, almost invisible, things. The mustard seed is just a speck of dust and the yeast disappears without trace into the flour. But where each of them does its work, the consequences are formidable.

Paul in the first reading gives us other images from nature. He describes the process of the kingdom's growth in terms of birth. It is no longer something silent and almost invisible. Instead he speaks about the entire creation groaning in one great act of giving birth. All who possess 'the first-fruits of the Spirit', he says, groan inwardly as they wait for their bodies to be set free.

The scale is hugely different, between the yeast and the tree produced by the mustard seed, and then between them and the entire cosmos suffering the pangs of birth. But 'the first-fruits of the Spirit', the power stimulating that birth and its pangs, is another way of speaking about the seed and the yeast, the presence of the kingdom of God 'deep down things' and the guaranteed working out of the call of that presence.

We are saved in hope, Paul says. Benedict XVI used that phrase to name his encyclical on hope, Spe salvi. In hope we are already the tree in whose branches the birds of the air build their nests. In hope we are already the batch of bread leavened all through with the leaven of Christ. In hope we are already the children of God brought to birth through the work of Christ. Hope is always 'already and not yet'; otherwise, asks Paul, why do we talk about hope? The process is underway and, given the right circumstances, its outcome is inevitable. The seed sown in the Christian heart by baptism, the first-fruits of the Spirit, given the right circumstances, will produce the tree of virtuous living, generous charity, and compassionate mercy.

Like the mustard seed and the yeast, the first-fruits of the Spirit have the power to stimulate and  effect extraordinary change. We need simply allow these supernatural forces to do their work in us. That work is painful: there is no growth without pain just as there is no birth without blood. But there is no comparison between the struggle of the seed, or the yeast, or the Spirit in us, between that suffering and the glory that is brought about through that struggle. Look at the tree the seed becomes. Look at the batch of bread the yeast produces. Look (in the lives of the saints) at the freedom and glory of those who live by the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.

Week 30 Tuesday (Year 2)

Readings: Ephesians 5:21-33; Psalm 128; Luke 13:18-21

The readings today give us three domestic parables. It goes without saying that Jesus is wiser than Paul and perhaps we see it in a practical way here in the fact that his parables are so simple whereas Paul seeks to spell out the analogy based on marriage. In doing so he gives many hostages to fortune.

The two parables of Jesus could hardly be shorter. To what can the kingdom of God be compared? It is like a mustard seed which a man sows, it grows into a big shrub, and the birds come to make their nests in it. It is like the yeast which a woman adds to three measures of flour and eventually it is all leavened. That's it. No allegories, no commentaries, think about either of these situations and meditate on how the kingdom of God is like it. They are rich and wonderful.

Paul gives a much fuller explanation of the ways in which the relationship between Christ and the Church can be compared to marriage. His intention also is to keep us focused on the mystery of Christ and the Church, the mystery of the kingdom of God. The analogy he offers has a long biblical history. God is the husband of Israel and she is his wife. Jesus speaks of himself as the bridegroom inviting his disciples to continue to use the analogy, now in speaking about the relationship between Christ and his body, the Church.

But things get in the way of our meditating serenely on this passage. It has been used in the course of the centuries to support discrimination against women. There are some places where it is now considered unsuitable for celebrations of marriage. Social and political arguments about the equality of the sexes and the roles of men and women gather around as we listen to this reading and distract us from its main focus. Here is another domestic parable, an analogy, that teaches us important things about the kingdom of God. But its use over the centuries, and some of its phrases, make it a stumbling block.

One might begin to list the points that weigh against a discriminatory interpretation of this 'profound mystery': be subject to one another (it is mutual, not one-sided), out of reverence for Christ (the focus is on Christ), love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her (this is the counterpart to the wife's obedience which represents our obedience to Christ), a husband loves his wife as his own body (the union is the most intimate possible), nourishing and cherishing her as Christ nourishes and cherishes the church (the mystery is the love of Christ for the Church).

The sowing of a mustard seed and the placing of yeast are rich subjects for meditating on the mystery of the kingdom, but neither has become a sacrament of the Church. Marriage, however, the fundamental domestic reality, is a sacrament of the Church, In some ways it is the paradigmatic sacrament since all the sacraments establish, express, and celebrate the nuptial relationship between Christ and the Church, the covenant of life and love that binds the believer to Christ in the Church.

Acknowledging the difficulties this text generates for us we must, nevertheless, continue to listen to it and to meditate on its teaching, to try to glimpse the mystery. I can never hear it without thinking of the old Anglican marriage service during which the woman said to the man, but not he to her, that she will obey him. What a shocking thing, we might now say. But the man said to the woman, but not she to him, that he will worship her. Is that even more shocking?

Week 30 Sunday (Year C)

Readings: Ecclesiasticus 35:12-14, 16-19; Psalm ; 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18; Luke 18:9-14

Of all the parables of Jesus, this one sets the most wonderful traps for us. The easiest one to fall into is to think that we are more like the tax-collector than we are like the Pharisee, that we belong with the poor and humble person at the back of the church. Jesus tells us that this is the best place to be because it is the tax-collector who goes home justified. A very good illustration of this trap is the teacher who, introducing her class to this parable, was horrified to hear herself saying at the end of the lesson, 'so, children, let us thank God that we are not like the Pharisee'. We have then swapped places with him, proud to be like the publican who went home at rights with God, feeling self-righteous that we are not like the (self-righteous!) Pharisee.

Another strategy then is to say 'well actually I am a bit of a Pharisee'. And I am actually in a more difficult situation than the publican who is an obvious sinner whereas I am tempted to think that I am better than him. And so my sins are more difficult, and probably more interesting. He  struggles with fleshly sins (greed, lust): my difficulties are more in the area of pride, much trickier. My sins are more sophisticated than those of the tax-collector, more difficult to articulate clearly, more subtle in the demand they make for contrition and confession. I need more help with repentance because of my pride and self-righteousness: so you see I am the one who is really in the position of the tax-collector, a poor sinner crying for help!

A compromise, though walking straight into another trap, is to think that as a group we are more like the Pharisee while individually I am well aware of my sins. Critics of the Church ceaselessly tell us how hypocritical, self-righteous, and rejecting of others we are. So I might be tempted to say that, as an individual I am like the tax-collector, humble and contrite, whereas as one of the group I too am a Pharisee. But Jesus does not offer us this option: it is a matter of this individual, the Pharisee, and this other individual, the tax-collector.

So what option is left, what other strategy might there be for receiving this parable? The only workable one is to stay with Jesus on his journey to Jerusalem no matter what our hearts and consciences are saying to us about ourselves. There are many knots, many paradoxes, many reversals spoken about by Jesus on that journey: the first will be last and the last first; the one who exalts himself will be humbled and the one who humbles himself will be exalted; the prodigal is welcomed home with great joy to the dismay of the faithful elder brother; love your enemies and hate your families.

The logic of all this does not surrender itself to hard thinking. It is the logic of love, of the service of others, and of growing self-knowledge. We see the sense of it only in practice, in walking the way of Jesus and entering, with him, into the centre of these paradoxes. His journey culminates in the Great Reversal, the central mystery at the heart of creation and of human history, the death of the Son of God and his resurrection from among the dead (when the last is first and the humbled one is exalted).

Jesus himself struggles with these knots, reversals and paradoxes in his prayer in Gethsemane. Today's first reading tells us that the prayer of the humble person pierces the clouds, and reaches the throne of God. Here in Gethsemane is the one truly just person, humble and obedient, brought to his knees by the weight of sin, evil and death which he is facing. The vocation he has received, the will of the Father for him, means he must engage with sin, evil and death, facing them directly, entering into them (in the case of death) and into their consequences (in the case of sin and evil).

It is striking how the prayer on Paul's lips in the second reading sounds much like the prayer of the Pharisee in the parable: I have kept the faith, I have finished the race, I have competed well, all that remains for me is the crown of righteousness. This is not the prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane though we can imagine that it might well be his prayer on Easter Sunday. The striking difference between the prayer of the Pharisee in the parable and the prayer of Paul the Pharisee is that Paul does not compare himself with others as the Pharisee compares himself with the tax-collector. Paul looks only at God and at himself and in that way understands his spiritual condition. It is another part of how we must receive this parable: there is no need to compare ourselves with anybody else, all we need worry about is how we stand in the sight of God, how we are in the light of Christ.

If we remain faithful to the way of Jesus, seeking to be with him in prayer and to serve him in love, then the unfolding circumstances of life will bring us inevitably to places where all we can do is pray humbly. Another great lesson of today's parable is that it is not any particular kind of person who is heard by God, it is a particular kind of prayer that is heard by God. And that prayer can come from the heart and lips of anybody, poor or rich, struggling or successful, tax-collector or Pharisee.

Our relationship with God, and so with others, cannot be evaluated in any mathematical way. It is what the Pharisee tries to do, measuring out his service of God, even going beyond the call of duty so as to be on the safe side. Sadly, we are also told, the Pharisee prayed to himself. The tax-collector, whose life has brought him to a place of humility and poverty, does not compare himself with anybody else nor does he try to work out the mathematics of his situation before God. He simply kneels, in solitude, and prays to God, speaking out of his poverty, the simplest possible prayer whose power pierces the heavens.

You can listen to an earlier version of this homily here.

Week 30 Wednesday (Year 1)

Readings: Romans 8:26-30; Psalm 13; Luke 13:22-30

The readings present us with a number of puzzles. The first one is between the first reading and the gospel. Paul teaches us that even if we do not know how to pray as we ought the Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. God who knows everything in our hearts hears the pleas of the saints expressed by the Spirit, pleas that are according to the will of God. The gospel by contrast presents us with a picture of God refusing to open the door to some of those who come knocking: 'I do not know where you come from', he says.

This is doubly confusing for it not only sets up this contrast between the two readings today but it seems to contradict what Jesus taught earlier in the gospel, in particular 'knock and the door will be opened to you'. It must mean that what is being asked for when the door remains closed is not according to the will of God, it is not an interpretation by the Spirit of the desires of the human heart. So what is wrong with it? What enters in to deflect this prayer and make it powerless? Is it another example of the prayer of the Pharisee that we heard about last Sunday, a praying which is only 'to himself' and not to God?

It must be that there is something wrong with the question, 'will those who are saved be few'. Like the Pharisee praying in the Temple, the questioner has his eye on other people. He does not ask 'will I be saved' which seems to be the only relevant question in this regard. A particular kind of interest in the question of salvation is a distraction from the main business of following Jesus. To make it a speculative question, one for the theological armchair, is indecent when it is an urgent question, a real question, about the well-being of human beings, now and in the world to come. For the Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar this question is not only indecent, it is contrary to the supreme law of charity. Charity, loving all men and women as Christ loves them, obliges us to hope for the salvation of them all, their eternal well-being. If I want to ask this kind of question it should only be in relation to my salvation that I should ask it.

Balthasar learned this, of course, from the gospels. So in today's passage Jesus turns the question back on the questioner: 'will you be saved?' Do you know the way to the door? Do you know how to live so that when you arrive at the door you will be recognised as a member of the household? So we must not presume - a presumption implied in the original question, it seems. Worry about your own salvation, and what is needed now, if you are to prepare for it.

There is much about doors in the New Testament, the door that will open when we knock and today's door that will remain closed when we knock. In John's gospel Jesus describes himself as the door, the way by which the sheep enter and leave the sheepfold. In the Book of Revelation he is the one who comes knocking on our door and it is up to us to open: 'behold I stand at the door and knock'.

Once again Jesus presents a paradox: 'some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last'. If we want to play a certain game, and enter into the mathematics of salvation, then we are, once again, standing alongside the Pharisee in the Temple measuring his performance against that of the Publican. Which of them is first and which last? Instead let us travel with Jesus towards Jerusalem where these puzzles, paradoxes and questions find their mysterious resolution. The Cross of the Lord, the tree of life, is also the key that unlocks the mystery of the divine love and mercy. This is how the door is opened, by him sacrificing himself for all who are unworthy to enter. Through him they are redeemed and made children of God by the Spirit, and so they can turn up at the door and be recognised as part of the household, sons and daughters of the Heavenly Father, adopted as brothers and sisters of the Lord by the gift of the same Spirit. We will not then arrive confident and presumptuous, comparing ourselves with others, and wondering about their salvation. We will arrive speechless and hesitant, not knowing how to pray as we ought, overwhelmed by the gift we are receiving, the infinite mercy of God. The Spirit will then bear witness with our spirit that we are indeed children of God, no longer servants and slaves but sons and daughters, no longer outsiders but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of heaven.

The Magnificat antiphon for 20 December gives us another related image. Jesus is the Key of David, the one who comes to lead the captive from prison, to free those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. Through the work of Christ, all human beings - this is our hope - are made able to take a place at the feast in the kingdom of God.

Week 30 Thursday (Year 1)

Readings : Romans 8:31-39; Psalm 109; Luke 13:31-35

Like the closing movement of a great Mahler symphony the last part of Romans 8 concludes not just that extraordinary chapter but the whole of the first part of the Letter to the Romans. The crescendo is dramatic, heart-warming, extraordinary, profoundly moving.

'With God on our side who can be against us?' is the first part of this closing movement. We have met those who are against us, sin and death and the law, but we have also met the response of God to these enemies of humanity: the sending of His Son to die for us and the gift of His Spirit to transform us. There is no contest in the end. The only one entitled to condemn us is the one who died for us, was raised from the dead, and now stands and pleads for us. (Stephen in Acts 7 also speaks of Jesus standing in the presence of God: it is the position of the advocate, the one pleading a case on another's behalf.)

'Nothing therefore can come between us and the love of Christ'. This is the second part of the final movement. An intimacy has been established between humanity and the love of God, a direct contact, an unmediated presence. St Thomas Aquinas says that this is why we do not expect any further revelation from God. What more is to be revealed? What more is to be achieved? He turns to Hebrews rather than Romans but to make this same point: there is nothing that can come between us and the mercy seat of God. Jesus has carried his own blood into the heavenly Holy of Holies - no greater sacrifice can be imagined, no closer connection, no greater intimacy, no deeper communion. On the strength of what Christ has done we can face into any trouble, from within or from without, any need or want, any threat or attack.

'For I am certain ...' Paul begins the final section, 'that nothing ...', and he gives a litany of the created powers and forces that might conceivably come between us and the love of God. But none of them can do that, not death or life, no angel or prince, nothing that is or is yet to come, no power, height, depth, or anything at all in creation can ever come between the human soul and the love of God made visible in Christ Jesus our Lord.

It seems that there might be one thing that could do it and Jesus speaks about it in today's gospel reading. 'I longed to gather you as a hen gathers her brood, but you refused'. 'You would not' is another translation, or 'you willed it not'. Is it really the case that the created, and so finite, human will is capable of preventing what God, in His infinite goodness, wants us to have? It seems that it is so, that we really are free with this kind of potentially self-destroying freedom. And it would be hell, that choice, to place ourselves outside the intimacy achieved by the blood of Christ.

St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Edith Stein, uses a lovely word to illustrate her confidence that God fully respects human freedom. Our freedom is the supreme way in which He has made us to be like Him, capable of love, but also that which makes hell possible, a final refusal of that love. In her own version of Paul's crescendo she says: 'Human freedom can be neither broken nor neutralized by divine freedom, but it may well be, so to speak, outwitted. The descent of grace to the human soul is a free act of divine love. And there are no limits to how far it may extend.'

You have seduced me, Lord, and I have let myself be seduced: so the prophet Jeremiah. Outwit me Lord, and let me be outwitted, is a prayer one might make using Edith Stein's words. In the strength of this prayer we can return to Paul's certainty. If God is for us, who can be against us? Not even we ourselves. Nothing can come between us and the love of God in Christ, no, not even we ourselves. For the intimacy into which we have been brought is love, and love is only true where it is free, freely given and freely received. And, as Paul tells us elsewhere, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free.

So let us welcome Jesus in his desire to gather us in. Let us be joyful in the gift of the Son. Let us say, 'yes, Lord, I will it, to receive your gifts, to be outwitted, to be carried along into the glorious music of your eternal love'.

Week 30 Sunday (Year C)

Readings: Sirach 35:15-17,20-22; 2 Timothy 4:6-8,16-18; Luke 18:9-14

You will find homilies for today here and here