NewCreation

Homily for Sunday 14 in Ordinary Time Year A

Welcome, my sisters and brothers, to the Gospel for the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time. It's a chunk of the end of the 11th chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel, actually a chunk which is also the reading for the Feast of the Sacred Heart, which was just 10 days ago. Of course, when the reading is in the context of the Sacred Heart, it's proper to stress the key words where Jesus is talking about his heart, how he is lowly of heart. But that's actually not where the Gospel fits in, in the broader sweep of things. If you remember, last Sunday the Gospel — it was the very end of chapter 10 of Matthew's Gospel — was about prophets. It was preparing Jesus' disciples to live dangerously and precariously, and explaining to them how that was going to be the sign that the one who had sent him was showing himself amongst them, and how they were going to receive the reward appropriate to that. Immediately after that, it says he had finished instructing his 12 disciples, and he went on from there to teach and preach in their cities. So as he's going to their home country, where they come from, the places where they know, the places where this dangerous living out is to happen, he performs mighty works. In the middle of this, John the Baptist, who is in prison, is getting worried. He's expecting something much more — well, violent; something that causes much more of a stir and an upset — in what Jesus is doing. And yet he appears to be moving very gently, and John the Baptist is disturbed by this. This is not what he was expecting when he prophesied. He prophesied about one who was going to come and be really quite violent — that was the one he thought that he was preceding. And so here he begins to wonder whether Jesus really is the one who is to come. "Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?" And Jesus then tells him about the signs. The signs are the signs of the Creator coming into the midst of these people, making things whole, new, fresh. It is the work of the Creator. But it's clear that people are still not entirely certain about that. They go out looking for signs; they're looking for signs in the desert with John. There's confusion as to what the coming of the promised one will look like. Actually, there's a good chapter of prophecy of that in our first reading today from the prophet Zechariah. The prophecy is rather unexpectedly that the Davidic son will come to you triumphant and victorious, but the triumphant and victorious one will be humble and riding on a donkey. Well, that's not what triumphant and victorious usually looks like. People who are looking for triumphant victory do not look for someone humble and riding on a donkey. This person will cut off the chariot from his name and the war horse from Jerusalem. "And the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations." In other words, there is something very subversive — subversively unviolent — about the arrival of this one. The language is the language of violence, but the presence absolutely isn't. And that's what causes people to be concerned: is Jesus really the one? Is he the one who is to fulfill all we've had prophesied? And Jesus actually then explains to them something about this world. He says, "No one's been greater than John the Baptist. From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and men of violence take it by force. For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John, and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. He who has ears to hear, let him hear." So Jesus is saying that there has been something of violence in the way the kingdom has come about, and has been assumed to come about. And then he's going to show something rather different, and people are going to find it very difficult to get. He's not going to be good enough for the good guys, or bad enough for the bad guys. He's not going to fit into any of the oppositional characteristics with which we're used to defining who's in, who's out, who's good, who's bad, who's come to sort us out. He's not going to fit into anyone. Then he starts to upbraid the cities where his works have been done — and his works have been ones of healing, ones of bringing into being; in other words, where the Creator has shown himself. Then Jesus starts upbraiding them with the language that suggests that they only know what we would regard as Old Testament language. He refers to his contemporary towns and cities, the places where his disciples came from, where he has been teaching, where he has done his work. He compares them to mythical bad places like Sodom, saying, "If the signs that have been done in you had been done in Sodom, they would have repented long ago." In other words, he's saying they don't get who he really is. Not even John the Baptist got who he really is — even John the Baptist had to second-guess and to ask again. It's only after Jesus has explained what he's doing — the signs that he's been working, which are the signs of the coming of the Creator — only after he's explained that, that he then says: "At that time Jesus declared, 'I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes.'" He's saying, "Do you know, actually I realize it — I realize that no one is going to get who I am." People seriously are expecting something to come with violence… sense to them. If I were to go all Sodom and Gomorrah on them, they seem to be unable to understand that it's tiny little gentle peaceful things coming into being that completely breaks their oppositional violence, because it shows them to be completely nude. Those are the things that show that I am the Creator. "Yea, Father, for such was thy gracious will. All things have been delivered to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, no one knows who I am except the Father" — the Creator who through me is bringing all these things into being and showing what they really are — "and no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal them." Why are you talking about this? Not the people who — in the midst of whom I've been doing these works. Tiny little babies get it. They haven't yet reached adult complication. But everyone else is stuck in notions of good and bad and violence. It's difficult for them to see that I am bringing things into being for them, on their behalf, and that this is what the Father looks like. He is showing people through me what he's like. It's only if I share with those people what I'm doing that they will get a glimpse of who the Father really is. It's this astounding gentleness that we find so hard to get. So then he says: "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." He's saying all of us tied up in our complexities, fighting about things — including our desperate keenness to be good — he says, "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart." My yoke is referring to the yoke of the Law. That was a standard way of referring to the Law. The Law was the yoke that you put upon yourselves. He's saying, "Take my yoke upon you." He's saying, "Learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart." Lowly is the word for meek. It's the same word which is used both of the humble one coming on the donkey and of meek Moses. Moses was the meekest of them. He's saying — Jesus is saying — you want to know what the real meekness behind Moses's meekness looks like? This is me. I'm not here to put demands on you. My yoke is easy, my burden is light. You're not going to be ridden by a foreign invader. You're not going to find yourselves forced into becoming someone you are not. by having to obey things that are extrinsic to you. "My yoke is easy, my burden is light." You will be ridden, you will be indwelled by my Spirit, which will enable you to become even more who you are than you're able to think you are. And this will be done so gently that even you will find it difficult to imagine that I am at work in you, bringing you to life. Such is the gentleness of my Father. And I will follow the Son of my Spirit.