NewCreation

Homily for the Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 C Welcome, my sisters and brothers, to this the homily for the eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time. And today we start straight off from where we finished last time. You remember that last time we were looking at the ways in which Jesus was teaching us how we are reflexive and mimetic, and therefore how in judging someone else we are judging ourselves, how we shouldn't do that, and how God's goodness is shown by turning us towards others so that we can be as God is towards them. Well, he continues with that, but here Luke starts by saying he also told them a parable. But we're used, when we hear parables, for stories to follow, and this isn't a story in the ordinary sense. So I think that what he means here by a parable is a connected set of teachings in which we're invited to find ourselves, because I think that it's as we pick these apart and find ourselves in it that they come alive. So he says first: can a blind person guide a blind person? And the answer of course is yes, they can. Nowadays, with sticks and being able to do it, but that's obviously not what he meant. Here he's talking about eyes which in the Hebrew world were understood to be the seat of envy, according to the sort of eye you had — so you were envious. So here he's talking about: can two envious people guide each other, people who are utterly occluded by their envy? And the answer is no — of course they can't, they fall into a pit. Two envious people seeking to push each other along end up in a squabble. I need hardly say that we are in a very nasty phase of a brutal war, precisely going to this. They will both fall into a pit. We continue with the eye and the notion of envy, because we then have the step before that. "A disciple is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully qualified will be like the teacher." What's the difference? A disciple who wants to be above the teacher is someone who's envious of them. But a good disciple is someone who's not envious, but wants to imitate the teacher so as to be built up to be like them. If you are envious of them, then of course you're not imitating them properly — you're trying to grasp something instead of acquiring it slowly by peaceful imitation. So this is the reverse of the blind person. A good disciple is one who's allowing themselves to be brought into a place of equality by peaceful imitation that's not run by envy. And certainly the word for "fully qualified," which in Greek is katērtismenos (κατηρτισμένος), actually means "is brought to perfection," "is brought to the fullness of being restored or created." It's the sense – once again, the King James Bible is actually closer to the original. "Everyone that is perfect," everyone has been brought to the fullness of what they were supposed to be. Again, the eye. "Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye but do not notice the log in your own eye?" Well, of course this is exactly how rivalry works, how envy works. I get really annoyed by something in someone else, and everyone else except me can see that what really annoys me in them is in me – it's my issue. And of course this is actually exactly how rivalry works. You tend to blame other people for that which is most strongly in you. And if you're in rivalry with them, you fight in order to take it out of them and really screw yourself up. "Why do you see the speck?" – it actually in the original it says "brother," but of course that's a sexist word, because we don't have a gender-free word for brother or sister, so that's why it's translated as "neighbor" here. "When you see a speck in your sibling's eye" – I suppose we do not use that word – "but you do not notice the log in your own eye." So it's someone who is the same as you, but you don't see them the same as you. On the contrary, what you see is a problem to be sorted out, and you're unaware of how you are the problem. "So how can you say to your sibling: let me take the speck in your eye, when you do not see the log in your own eye?" Now please notice: this is not moral teaching, this is a description of how we are. This is an indication of, if you like, the central mimetic reflexive nature of being human, which Jesus is teaching about. He's not saying "behave in this way" – he's saying "isn't this who you are?" So he's saying, "You hypocrite" – and this is probably the first absolutely classic definition of "hypocrite," which means exactly what we now take it to mean: someone who is in judgment against themselves. You say something; this is in fact a judgment against you. "You take the log out of your own eye" – first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's eye. In other words, if you want to be in the position to talk critically with someone else, first the criticism must be applied to you. First you've got to sift through your pattern of desire towards them, and only then can you begin to talk about them; only then will you have started to become objective. In other words, he's giving us an account of who we are and how we learn to become objective. Then he says, just in talking about how we come to be who we are: "No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit." Figs are not gathered from thorns. Apparently, the Aramaic word behind this is the dog rose, sometimes even rose hip, which grows in abundance in certain parts of the Middle East, but with thorns. Figs are obviously not gathered from thorns, and he's not saying you might mistake them. They're two quite different things. Everyone knows that figs are on trees, trees which don't have thorns, whereas dog rose — rose hips — are small and thorny. Nor are grapes picked from blackberry bramble. And that's, again, the Aramaic word behind it is precisely blackberry, the kind of wild blackberries that we see on hedgerows, found in the Middle East also. And, of course, a blackberry looked at can look like a bunch of grapes. Each little round bit on a blackberry can look like a bunch of grapes. Of course, no one makes the mistake of thinking that's what it is. Everyone knows that a grape is something entirely different and grows on a vineyard, not on a bramble. Then it says — so he's talking about something that is, and something that should be obvious here — then he says: "The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good." Now, apparently the Aramaic word behind this is not "treasury," it's more like the notion of layers of sedimentation. The good person out of the layers of sedimentation of the heart produces good. The notion being that some layers of sedimentation, some silt, will be gold-bearing, in which case your heart becomes a treasury. Whereas the evil person — the deposits of silt, the sedimentation that builds up — produces evil. And of course the implication is that that sediment builds up over time. This is something in which we're involved. In fact, it's precisely our relationships of rivalry, or not, with others that leads to this building up of the heart in a way that it can be a bearer of treasure. So the sedimentation gradually builds us up, slow, deliberate. In other words, who we are is not simply a given; it's something in which we participate, and it comes to produce either good or evil depending on the sedimentation, the process of sedimentation. And then at the end, the mouth. So we've started with the eye, the rivalry, the heart, the ongoing process of sedimentation. And then our — again, slightly misleading — translation: "For it's out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks." Well, apparently, again, the Aramaic word behind this is not abundance, as though, "Oh, my heart is full, and let me speak." It's much more the overspill of the heart that the mouth speaks — something much closer, you know, like a Freudian slip, when you give yourself away, when you say something in a slightly unguarded moment and that shows who you really are. That, it seems to me, is what's being talked about here. He's saying your mouth is actually going to give away, by its overspill, this process that has gone on within you. And it is quite interesting: unlike our first reading, he doesn't start with the mouth. He's talking about the process of the building up to the mouth. And that's going to be the really difficult thing — dealing with envy, engaging in relationships such that there is a sedimentation of treasure building up in you, and then actually finding yourself speaking out of that. But it's interesting that he doesn't place the mouth as the control point; he places it as the spillover point, which is really quite interesting. And immediately, in the next verse, which is not in our Gospel today, he then says, "Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I tell you?" In other words, that would be the classic example of people using words that are not the overflow of having built yourself up according to what he has shown you in terms of how you relate to others. And he then makes the point that someone is like who comes to him and hears his words and acts on them, and that one is like a man building a house who digs deeply and laid the foundation on rock — so that's the sedimentation process going — and the other is the one who hears and does not act: it's like a man who builds the house on ground without a foundation; when the river burst, immediately it fell, and great was the fall thereof. So in other words, that's the silt sedimentation that doesn't bear treasure. But it's the "Why do you call me Lord, Lord?" — in other words, the word does not necessarily give a sign of what's going on, unless there has been an eye made good: the good eye that is able to imitate and learn, and the good heart that has been built up by sedimented goodness in relationship with others. Anyhow, I hope that that gives a slightly personal sense of this again very memorable set of Jesus's sayings, particularly linked to eye, heart, and mouth. And we will get back to readings from the ordinary readings from St Luke's Gospel after Lent, which starts next Wednesday on Ash Wednesday. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.