Hi everyone – here’s my homily for the 22nd SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – Sept 2, 2012. The readings for today’s Mass can be found at: https://usccb.org/bible/readings/090212.cfm . Thanks as always for reading and all your feedback and comments! Please keep all of our returning and new students at Montclair State University in your prayers as we start the new Academic Year. God Bless, Fr. Jim
So I must confess, I’m a little shaken and disturbed. Still not quite sure what to think or do about something and it has left me quite shocked and upset. I didn’t even see it coming.
You see I’ve been unfriended by someone on facebook.
It’s true… hard to believe I know. The sad thing is I was never notified that our friendship had ceased or ended. I simply went online looking for this person to wish them well with the start of the new Academic Year coming up… because they are sort of a colleague I was hoping maybe we could work together on something. But when I came to their page I saw it no longer displayed the person’s wall or postings or anything. It had simply an “Add Friend” button. And I couldn’t even message the person anymore unless I asked them to add me and granted my request.
I’m sure this person’s not the first person who has “unfriended” me. But the thing that, all kidding aside, was upsetting was that 1) this is someone who works in “academia”, purportedly the most open-minded of people we’re going to find in the country; 2) we had actually communicated quite a bit online about various theological and political things – sometimes we agreed, sometimes we disagreed – but I always felt the dialogue was intellectual, not emotional, and that we could maybe, possibly learn something even if we disagreed. The 3rd reason this was upsetting was that we had gone through this one time before. A year ago we had gotten into a back and forth debate on the facebook wall about an issue – he had “unfriended me” (while also questioning my understanding of Catholicism because I had simply “liked” a politicians web page…)
As I have attempted to pick up the shattered pieces of my life from the experience of being “unfriended”, it struck me that these kinds of things probably are going to happen to us more and more…. not just on facebook, but in real-life friendships, relationships. People seem more and more polarized, tense over a whole host of issues and stances. And it strikes me that one major area that we’re likely to see this in is if we’re actually serious about our faith. If we truly are living as followers of Jesus Christ – then He is clear, not only will some “unfriend” us, in fact in all four Gospels Jesus is quoted as telling us the world will hate us because of Him. For a lot of us, I think we keep trying to think that’s not going to happen… Not here where we have freedom of speech, where differences are celebrated, where diversity is welcome. Yet for the Christian who is authentically so, who believes what Jesus says is truth – both in the scriptures and in the tradition, in the proclamation of His Church – those battle lines are becoming more and more apparent. Not only does the world “hate” us or “unfriend us” but then turns around and calls us hateful for not conforming to the world’s demands, for not following the leadership of those whose hearts are not focused on Christ. And that’s just something we cannot do.
We see this happening in this disagreement in the Gospel. This isn’t just about hygiene, or disregarding Jewish religious traditions or rituals. Jesus doesn’t have a problem with those things in and of themselves (he’ll in fact say ‘I have come not to abolish the law but to fulfill it.’) What is offensive to him are that the Pharisees, the scribes – basically the people who were some of the authorities, officials of Judaism, who considered themselves experts in living a good Jewish life; experts in holiness. And like little kids who see another little kid messing up and are excited to tell the teacher, we hear them today saying “Uh, Jesus… JESUS – do you see that? Your disciples are eating their meals wrong, they’re ‘unclean’ – they didn’t wash their hands right.” True, it’s gross that they didn’t wash their hands correctly (I guess even back then before they had soap or hand sanitizers, they had figured that much out).
But notice, even the Pharisees admit they were going beyond a hygiene issue. They were upset that the disciples weren’t following the exact letter of the “law” of their ancestors. They were pointing out that the disciples weren’t being attentive to some of the minor traditions that had been past down to them. They took these minor infractions and made this leap, this judgment, and condemned the disciples, saying, “Jesus your disciples aren’t good Jews. Jesus, these ones who follow you, who are your closest friends, they aren’t holy people. Jesus, these people are in fact ‘unclean.'”
Jesus’ response to these fault-finding Pharisees is, “Is that what’s really most important?” Because the Pharisees were hung up on how they looked, how they appeared; they were concerned that they be applauded for following the minutest letter of the law. Meanwhile, in their hearts, they had no deep love for God or were even trying to find Him. That sounds harsh, but think about it, if they had been, then Jesus’ words, his very presence would have spoken to their hearts. They would have begun to see the fulfillment of what they had longed for. They would have joined the disciples who had left everything, including their egos, and were following God’s son, growing in love of Jesus day by day as they listened to him so that they could grow into the true sons and daughters God the Father had created them and was calling them to be – that would have been more on their minds than some minor violation of protocol.
Following Jesus whole-heartedly makes the “Pharisees” of every age incredibly uncomfortable. When you make the choice to come to Mass rather than sleeping in, or watching the football game… When you say by your actions that “No, not everybody cheats” and work hard in school while others develop elaborate schemes to somehow beat the system… When you uphold religious values, beliefs, traditions that are mocked at as antiquated…. When you stand up for those who are poor, marginalized, defenseless against those desiring to increase their wealth, their fame, their power at the others’ expense – when you make all these statements because, in your heart, you hear Christ calling you to do so as you follow him, that puts you at odds with the Pharisees of this world. It will cause you to be hated, and even worse unfriended by many. Yet, Jesus is promising us a love, a friendship far greater in making us God’s beloved sons and daughters.
He is offering us the ultimate friendship, the ultimate grace, the ultimate opportunity to draw good, even from others’ misunderstanding or even hatred of us. God is offering us the ultimate friend request.
Accept it.
