NewCreation

Homily for Sunday 12 in Ordinary Time Year A

Hello and welcome to the homily for the 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time. I'm in the house of a friend in Mexico, and with a bit of luck this will be my last weekend in Mexico before going back home to Spain. So next time I speak to you, I hope it will be from my home in Madrid. This Sunday the texts allow us to focus in on something actually very current, and that is conspiracy theory. It seems odd to say this, but I want to point out how much conspiracy theory is related to the reverse of Christianity. You see, conspiracy theory is when people know too much too soon. It's a shortcut to knowledge. They know something — they know the secret cause of this or that or the other — rather than the slow, patient, evidence-gathering science. And one of the ways this comes about is because we're very good at accusing. You accuse, lots of people accuse, and then you scapegoat someone, and then all the people who've accused and scapegoated are right, and they justify their righteousness by explaining why that one was wrong. And what Christianity is about is the undoing from within of the scapegoating mechanism, and thereby of all conspiratorial thinking. In our texts today we see two rather beautiful ways in which this is worked through. The first is in the passage from the prophet Jeremiah, where we get someone who's still in the world where conspiracy theory is possible. Rather, Jeremiah is literally in the midst of the threat of a lynching, the threat of being cast out, being scapegoated. He says: "For I hear many whispering. Terror is all around. Denounce him, let us denounce him." All my close friends — yes, in the verse of course — "are watching for me to stumble. Perhaps he can be enticed and we can prevail against him and take our revenge on him." Here is someone whose every step is having to be careful. He's watching to see – they're out to get me. But then he holds on firmly. He says, "But the Lord is with me like a dread warrior." He has the impression of the Lord helping him like a really fierce warrior who's going to face down all those who are ganging up against him, all those who are out to get him. And because the Lord is facing them like a fierce warrior – that's the image he uses – they will be greatly shamed, they will not succeed, their eternal dishonour will never be forgotten. "But you, Lord of Hosts, you test the righteous, you see the heart and the mind, let me see your retribution upon them, for to you I have committed my cause." In other words, here is someone who's partially aware of the lynch mob, partially aware of the "they're all out to get me," aware that that is not from God, but not yet aware that God has nothing to do with that whole world of envy and vengeance. Jeremiah is at a mid place, working through that. But when we get to today's Gospel, one of the wonderful things about it is that we're hearing someone speaking out – Jesus, that is – speaking out completely freely, entirely outside the world of that "out to get me, I must be careful, they may get me, what should I do." Then: "Have no fear of them, for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered." He's aware that the world of lies, the world of fake… News, fake stories, far too airtight forms of accusation against people — all of that is going to be exploded. "Nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known." That's been one of my lines that I've held on to throughout dealing with gay matters in the Church. All this secret, closety nonsense — it's all against the Gospel. "Nothing is secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul." In other words, don't be frightened of those who are out to get you. It doesn't matter. What you really need to be afraid of is going along with them, believing it, allowing your soul to be destroyed as well — because then you're completely worthless. "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?" You just think — humans have very little value for sparrows, or at least they did at that time. I have no idea how much money sparrows are worth now. Sparrows, to humans, are pretty worthless. And he says, "Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father." I think that's a lovely image. He's saying: what is worthless to the lynch mob, to those who are out to get you — forget those two sparrows. Not one of them can fall to the ground apart from the Father. They are so much more. They're held in the sky and they fly. They have a beauty, a dynamism, all of their own. That's what they really are. They're worth much, much more than the tuppence for which humans value people. "The hairs of your heads are all counted. So do not be afraid. You are of more value than many sparrows." In other words, be able to trust the fact that you're loved, and you'll be able to stand up to all this nonsense of those who are out to get you — those who make you frightened, those who seem to have locked you into a place of closeness where you can't get out. And notice: this is not just something that's incidental to Christianity. This is what is absolutely at the heart of Christianity. Jesus has come in our midst by going to his death, showing the lynch mechanism, the scapegoat mechanism, the human sacrificial mechanism up for what it is. He's in the midst of that, standing triumphantly and saying, "Look, it doesn't…" "Shut us down" – come and take part in the opening up with me. "Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven." In other words, learn to stand with the lynched one. It can't run them, and it can't run you. If you're able to do that, you're automatically flying in heaven. You're no longer a caught sparrow being sold for tuppence; you're a flying sparrow, worth much, much more than a flying sparrow. "But whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven." You see, take part in the lynch mob, take part in the whispering and the gossiping, and being the group that makes its goodness over against someone condemned – and they said you'll have taken part in the very reverse of what I'm all about. So no: stand free. That's the gracious gift. Even St. Paul, in the passage to the Romans, talks about the same thing. The sin of Adam was one thing – some sort of disobedience to the law – but the free gift of the real Adam, the Adam of whom the first Adam was merely a type, the free gift is so much more than that. It was not really putting right a law; it was coming into our midst to undo the whole of the sacrificial mechanism by which we build ourselves up, including all its lies, its gossip, its fake accounts, its far too quick resolutions of things – to enable us to stand free, not to be frightened, to learn to speak freely, to think healthily, and to be able to work out what this creation is that we're in, and how we can best participate in it. In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.