Homily for Ordinary Sunday 20 C

Jeremiah was thrown into a cistern, where he would have died if Ebed Meloch hadn’t pulled him out. Jeremiah’s sin was being faithful to the word of God, which left him odd man out. Four against one. Jeremiah had to be gotten rid of.

I have Mass at St. Isidore on Sunday, August 17 @ 9:30/11:30 am

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Transcript

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke. 

Jesus said to his disciples, "I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish you were already blazing. There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished. Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. From now on, a household of five will be divided, three against two, and two against three. A father will be divided against his son, and a son against his father, a mother against her daughter, and a daughter against her mother, a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law." 

The Gospel of the Lord. 

Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. He has set his eyes on their hills, and is moving deliberately toward his destiny. This anguish that he feels has been building since the very beginning of the Gospel. John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness announcing, "I baptize you with water, but he who is coming will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire." 

In coming to light a fire on the earth and longing for another baptism, Jesus is both looking back to his baptism at the Jordan River and ahead to his crucifixion in Jerusalem. On the cross, in Luke's Gospel, Jesus said, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." Luke is connecting the baptism of Jesus when the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form, like a dove, and his death on the cross when Jesus breathes out his spirit. 

In the Acts of the Apostles, Luke's second volume, on the day of Pentecost, divided tongues as a fire appeared and rested on each one in the upper room. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit. The fire that Jesus yearns to kindle on the earth is the transforming fire of God's love. As we pray in this traditional Catholic prayer, "Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love." 

Jesus goes on to say, "From now on a household of five will be divided, three against two and two against three." We can understand Jesus' language as apocalyptic. Apocalypse means to unveil. Fire burns away the exterior so that we can see what has been hidden from the foundation of the world. Two against three and three against two is not the only way that five can be divided. It can also be divided four against one and one against four. 

René Girard is helpful here. We humans are great imitators. That's how we learn. But it turns out that we continue to imitate others by wanting what they desire. Advertising works by creating a desire in us for what others have. Since it's not possible for all of our wants to be met, we become rivals for the things we desire, and this rivalry leads to violence. We catch our desires from those closest to us. In other words, precisely the relationships Jesus specifies in today's Gospel, father and son, mother and daughter, and so on. Girard recognized a pattern in the way that human beings resolved this conflict. The community redirects internal conflicts and violence onto a chosen victim, an outsider, them, or those people, whom we all agree are the problem. When we get rid of the designated scapegoat, then we'll have peace. 

This process is often rooted in unconsciousness and a failure to recognize the arbitrary nature of the scapegoat's supposed guilt. So it only has the appearance of restoring peace. It doesn't take long for the crisis to erupt again, and the cycle is repeated over and over, offering up new victims. 

Jeremiah was thrown into a cistern where he would have died if Ebed Melch hadn't pulled him out. Jeremiah's sin was being faithful to the Word of God, which left him odd man out, for against one. Jeremiah had to be gotten rid of. In the Gospel of John, the high priest Caiaphas said this very thing about Jesus, "It's better for you that one man should die instead of the people, so that the whole nation may not perish." Girard argued that the Judeo-Christian scriptures, particularly the New Testament, are unique in their unveiling of the scapegoat mechanism and siding with the victims. 

Jesus takes the place of the one who is cast out in the words of the author to the Hebrews, "For the sake of the joy that lay before him." Jesus is not causing division, but in revealing the truth of scapegoating and its inherent violence, Jesus is announcing an end to social systems that bring an illusion of peace by pitting one against the other. From now on, a household of five will be divided three against two and two against three. In other words, there will no longer be divisions of four against one. This poses a threat to the status quo that benefits from the callous indifference to the needs of others. 

The only way forward is to resolve our conflict through the nonviolent path that Christ embraced. In the words of W. H. Auden, "We must love one another or die." 

The preacher in the letter to the Hebrews is imagining a marathon runner entering the stadium for the final leg of the race. The whole crowd leaps to their feet to cheer him on. "Since we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses," the preacher writes, "let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us, and persevere in running the race that lies before us while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith." Christianity is a companion journey. We need one another to help rekindle and focus our desire. "For the sake of the joy that lay before him, Jesus endured the cross, despising its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God."