23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
September 7, 2013
10 AM Liturgy
J.A. Loftus, S.J.
This weekend has been filled with many conflicting feelings
for me—and, I suspect, for many of us. Both yesterday and today
people of faith, of many different faiths, and in many different
religious traditions, have prayed so conspicuously for the gift of
peace. Our Pope Francis has begged for “a cry of peace to rise from
every land.” Today, if it were not a Sunday, would have celebrated
the birth of Mary. And Pope Francis invoked Mary, the Queen of
Peace, to shepherd our prayers to her Son. These have evoked
beautiful and touching feelings in me.
And yet the occasion of such feelings remains the horizon of
yet another military action in an already devastated and fractured
part of our world. We have come again to that awful brink. These
are surely the kinds of demons the gospels refer to that may only
be driven out by prayer and fasting. And so we do. And we have.
Yet many remain conflicted.
People of high moral fiber teeter on both sides of the
questions. Surely something must be done to avenge and
demarcate clearly the common worldwide condemnation of
chemical weapons. And yet…war again? More violence that we all
know only begets…more violence? There is no easy solution. But
there must be a solution. And soon.
People of faith often ask the same question posed by our
reading this morning from the Book of Wisdom. “Who, really, can
know God’s counsel, or who can conceive what the Lord really
intends? Scarce do we guess the things on earth, and what seems
within our grasp we find only with difficulty.” World Peace has
often seemed within our grasp. But we find it only with difficulty.
Christians often answer Wisdom’s question (“Who, really, can
know God’s counsel, or who can conceive what the Lord really
intends?) by invoking the name of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ.
But even he is not always compellingly clear. Today’s gospel, for
example, creates as many problems as it intends to solve.
Scripture scholars often call this section of Luke’s gospel the
discourse on “the hard sayings.” They are hard, indeed. “If anyone
comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and
children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, cannot be my
disciple.” “Whoever does not carry his own cross and follow me,
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cannot be a disciple.” “Anyone of you who does not renounce all
his possessions cannot be my disciple.”
We don’t often hear the word “hate” in the gospels, do we?
One of our very best New Testament scholars, our very own Dan
Harrington from the STM, calls these statements “an obvious
exaggeration.” But a check of the actual word used in Greek, misei,
reveals that it is always translated as “hate.” Even St. Matthew
might have ben scandalized. In his slightly later version of these
sayings, he tones it down to the message that you must love God
more than these others. But you don’t need to hate anybody.
It only makes matters more confusing that Luke has Jesus tell
a parable about waging war to make his point. The moral of that
parable is: You don’t want to wage war without first carefully
weighing the size and strength and persistence of your enemy.
That sounds like just what the U.S. Congress is doing for us these
days. You don’t suppose they have heeded the gospel but missed
the point, do you?
There are conflicting themes this weekend. I just finished
reading a current best-seller by a Muslim professor, Reza Aslan.
The title: Zealot: the Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. This is not
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about the Christ of faith but about the Jesus of history. And Aslan
presents an almost compelling view of that historical Jesus as a
political revolutionary who was executed for sedition and treason
by the Roman occupation army. This view is certainly supported
by Luke’s “hard sayings” today. It is a hard and harsh Jesus who
today sets out the real costs of discipleship.
Yet Jesus is also honored as the Prince of Peace who counsels
turning the other cheek, and walking the extra mile, and laying
down one’s life freely for God and your neighbor. Complicated
feelings and conflicting sentiments abound this weekend.
Remember that simple answers are usually available only for
simple questions. The questions facing us as persons of faith are
anything but simple. The questions facing the world community
today are anything but simple. Pope Francis is right! All persons of
good will need to respect each other’s opinions, and respect the
dialogue that must continue, and above all, respect life itself. War
begets only war. Violence begets only more violence. That much
alone do we really know.
Wisdom is the Holy Spirit of God whom Jesus offers to all who
believe. And only with Wisdom can the “paths of those on earth be
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made straight.” Let us continue to pray for each other and for
everyone throughout our fragile world. Peace is His final gift to us
all. Peace!
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