Homily
for February 18, 2007
Liturgical Year C - Cycle I
7th Sunday in Ordinary Time
By Fr. Tom Franxman Topic:
Happily ever after
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Gospel
Luke 6:27 - 38 Jesus
said to his disciples: “To you who hear I say, love your enemies,
do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for
those who mistreat you. To the person who strikes you on one cheek,
offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak,
do not withhold even your tunic. Give to everyone who asks of you, and
from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back. Do to
others as you would have them do to you. For if you love those who love
you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.
And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to
you? Even sinners do the same. If you lend money to those from whom you
expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to
sinners, and get back the same amount. But rather, love your enemies
and do good to them, and lend expecting nothing back; then your reward
will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself
is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your
Father is merciful.
“Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will
not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give, and gifts
will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and
overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which
you measure will in return be measured out to you.”
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In the golden age of radio, that is to say, the years just before the
Second World War, there was a children’s program every Saturday, aired
from New York and it was called, Let’s Pretend. The stories were all
chosen from the Grimm’s collection, the Brother’s Grimm and enacted by
the same young actors. As most of us have, we had these stories read to
us. The plots were all familiar but somehow or an other, entering into
the story, as it was scripted for radio, made it a little more real and
those of us who were addicted to it, never missed an episode. The
pretence that we seem to enjoy so much is of course, what lies behind
all fiction, whether you’re among the critics who say, “The novel has
shot it’s wad.” with Thomas Mann or James Joyce or whether you still
get pleasure out of fictional narrative, doesn’t make much difference,
it’s the same inclination. It is and we have to admit it, a kind of
escapism. We escape through fiction and, of course, the media,
especially the visual media still makes the most of that even though
the trash that usually appears there is not really worth watching.
However, we still carry in our hearts this inclination and why? Very
simple, because life carries with it burdens which we would rather
forget about. We want the distraction. We want the distraction into a
world in which we are drawn into the story because there are rewards.
There are “Happily ever after.” We know that really doesn’t quite
match. It’s one of the big criticisms that those who delved into and
majored in English literature, one of the big criticisms made of Jane
Austin. She was very adult in her handling of adult situations but then
at the end she dropped all pretense about being an adult and said,
“They lived happily ever after.”
That kind of jarred the reader and it still does because we are very
much drawn into the difficulties of her adult characters and their
treatment of each other but we know that they did not live happily ever
after.
I bring this up actually because this morning we used to call canon law
the bad part of the good news but it is also applicable to this
particular portion of Luke. The so-called sermon on the plain actually
lays before us the real price of being Christian. We might think that
martyrdom is that kind of price but martyrdom is not usually required
of us in order to live the life that Christ calls us to. What Luke says
is required of us and although everybody can say, in fact, it was part
of the rabbinical thought of Jesus’ time that it is appropriate, it is
important to do to others what you would want them to do to you but
that didn’t include you’re worst enemy. Nobody would be expected to do
that. Yes, in general to actually treat others but how about an enemy
who has drawn his sword and is running toward you? Can you forgive him?
Can you treat him as you would your best friend?
Therefore, we are actually facing something that is not easy to
solve. We would rather escape from it into the world of pretend and
many of us do in our adult life. We pretend that this particular part
of Luke’s gospel is not in the New Testament. That’s what we pretend
because we want to live once we have accepted Christ, we want to live
happily ever after but no Christian life has that ending. No Christian
life has that ending. Our life is with the Father, the Son and the
Spirit forever. We don’t expect that here on earth. That’s hard and we
do all kinds of things to make it possible for us to bear this and
actually put other things in its place. We like to make ourselves
important. We like to think that we know more about our faith,
scripture, or theology than other people do. We like to think that this
is how we want to appear as a better Christian than others do. To do
things, incorporate into our way approaching people, our fellow
Catholic, clergy, bishops, the Pope, the way that we would ordinarily
approach anyone who challenges our ability to be something superior.
That happens and unfortunately, and this is the unfortunate part,
people who act this way are actually known to their fellow Christians
as being just that. They think that they are very important and as we
all know there is no fool like an old fool.
We need to think about this occasionally. Every three years the passage
of Luke comes before us and we have to think about it, not as a price
we have to pay but as a bridge into the light of the Trinity.
Christ asks us to look upon the human race as his Father looks upon the
human race giving to the good and to the bad the kind of chance, the
kind of openness, the kind of, well, Godlike vision of what the whole
thing is about. If we, as we move toward the end of our lives, decide
not to stretch the folly of our youth, and to be the shame of age, if
we decide that, then we actually have taken that step. We will have
realized in our own lives and in our own position, whether this is a
pleasant life or unpleasant life. Regardless, it is still a happy one
because it does have a happy ending.