Homily for Thursday of the 28th Week in Ordinary Time (Year 2).
(Going through some old files, I came upon this reflection from my days studying philosophy at Loyola University Chicago.)
Today’s gospel is a difficult one to hear, frankly, because Jesus is not very nice. Building off of yesterday’s condemnation of the Pharisees as self-serving, Jesus today accuses them of complicity in the murder of the prophets. On the surface of it, his argument is not even particularly fair. Not only are the opponents he addresses guilty of murder, but they are charged “with the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world.” One yearns for the moderation of a good old-fashioned political attack ad.
One is tempted to whisper in Jesus’ ear, “Don’t you know you aren’t going to get anywhere by condemning people.” “You can’t just beat people over the head with the truth.” “All this fire and brimstone really isn’t that pastoral.” I could stand up here and try to spin Jesus’ words into something inoffensive, but they are offensive. In fact we know they are offensive because at the end of Jesus’ speech, the scribes and Pharisees plot to kill him. And you don’t try to kill someone for words that while perhaps a tad exaggerated, really are basically calls just to be nice. No one has ever suffered martyrdom over Chicken Soup for the Soul.
Now there is some chicken soup in the gospels, and thank God because we couldn’t listen to woes-to-you ever day. But we must be honest: there is also today’s reading, and yesterday’s; there is woe to you Chorazin, woe to you Bethsaida; there is the teaching on divorce; there is “enter through the narrow gate.” There is plenty, in other words, in the Gospel that is not all that nice. So what do we do with a reading like today’s? Do we pat ourselves on the back and thank God that we aren’t like those Pharisees? Probably to do so, makes it more likely that we will become like them in the future.
The challenge and the key to understanding today’s reading, I think, is to remember that even when Jesus is being not all that nice, he is still being loving. Perhaps, that is when he is being most loving. These hard sayings are part of Jesus’ work of redemption, just as the general confession and meditation on hell in the first week of the Exercises are ultimately connected to the Resurrection and Meditation to Attain Divine Love in the fourth week.
Jesus’ purposes in addressing these harsh words to the Pharisees are, I believe, twofold. The first is directed toward the bystanders—Jesus’ followers, those who are confused, those who are indifferent. Jesus is attempting to warn them away from destructive path of the Pharisees and toward the truth of redemption. We might draw from his actions the importance of vigorously—to use Ignatius’ word—defending the faith. When Paul VI gave the Society the task of confronting atheism, he certainly had in mind not only, and perhaps not even primarily, that we would convert atheists to faith in the true and living God; he also no doubt intended that through effective forms of witness and apologetics we would bolster the faith the people “on the fence,” Christians who were tempted by atheism. Today, of course, I do not have to tell you of the many aggressive forces that compete for the allegiance of the faithful, and the startling number of ex-Catholics in our country tells us how powerful the opposition is. Today’s reading is a challenge to confront it boldly.
But Jesus’ second purpose was no doubt directed at the Pharisees themselves. Jesus loved them too, and if chicken soup and subtlety could have gotten through to them, there is no doubt what he would have used them. Jesus’ ministry was ultimately that of the physician, the healer. The disease of the Pharisees, their hypocrisy and enmity toward Jesus, was a deadly one, so our Lord’s words to them in the gospel today are what aggressive chemotherapy is to cancer. Our task as followers of this not-nice but ultimately loving physician is not to be afraid of the operating room. Often, we will be the patients; sometimes, as his followers, we will be called upon to be physicians ourselves. The medical treatment will not always be pleasant, and sometimes it will be downright painful, but we can be assured that the end result is life. We must be willing to face the blood of the prophets because, as Paul tells the Ephesians today, “In Christ we have redemption by his Blood, the forgiveness of [our] transgressions.”
Readings: Eph 1:1-10; Luke 11:47-54
October 16, 2008
Arrupe House Chapel
Loyola University Chicago
