LITURGY NOTES FOR THE SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER 2017
Sixth Sunday of Easter
May 21st 2017
Suggested formula for recognition of indigenous people and their land.
We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we stand
We pay our respects to them for their care of the land
May we walk gently and respectfully upon the land.
or
I acknowledge the living culture of the ……..people,
the traditional custodians of the land we stand on,
and pay tribute to the unique role they play in the life of this region.
or
We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land where we are now gathered,
(the ……) and recognise that it continues to be sacred to them.
We hail them: as guardians of the earth and of all things that grow and breed in the soil; as trustees of the waters – [the seas, the streams and rivers, the ponds and the lakes] - and the rich variety of life in those waters.
We thank them for passing this heritage to every people since the Dreamtime.
We acknowledge the wrongs done to them by newcomers to this land and we seek to be partners with them in righting these wrongs and in living together in peace and harmony.
Readings:
Penitential Rite
· The Spirit of truth inspires us to show our true faces to God and others: Jesus, have mercy.
· The Spirit of freedom inspires us to bring true liberation to our brothers and sisters: Christ, have mercy.
· The creative Spirit of love moves us to form communities in which we share our hope for a better world: Jesus, have mercy.
or
· Christ Jesus, you promised not to leave us without guidance: Jesus, have mercy
· Christ Jesus, you promised to be with us always: Christ, have mercy.
· Christ Jesus, you promised to send us the Advocate, your Holy Spirit: Jesus, have mercy.
Opening Prayer
Spirit Sending God,
your Son has promised
not to leave us orphans.
May the Spirit of Truth be with us and kindle in us
the love of Jesus,
that we make the Good News of his love
visible and tangible to all.
General Intercessions
Faithful to the command of Christ who calls us to love all people, let us be united in prayer with him: R/ Give us your creative Spirit, O God.
1. For the Church: that we may reveal God’s love for the world as we are emboldened to live and love as Jesus did, we pray: Give us your creative Spirit, O God.
2. For the renewal of God’s Spirit in our hearts: may God stir up into a flame the gift of the Spirit so that we may build up the God’s reign on earth, we pray: Give us your creative Spirit, O God.
3. For the people of Afghanistan as the violence continues, we mourn the cost of war, the consequences of conflict, and the lack of peace and stability: may people work for a peace beyond the absence of war to the presence of reconciled relationships, we pray: Give us your creative Spirit, O God.
4. For the people of North Korea, who have suffered from their own government and also at the hands of foreign governments for 70 years: we pray in hope that the new government in South Korea will be bold in reaching out to their sisters and brothers in dialogue and respect, sympathy and compassion in order to attain peace, we pray: Give us your creative Spirit, O God.
5. For a deepening awareness of the many ways in which God is with us: may we recognise God’s creative hand in our world, in the daily events of our lives, in the beauty of nature, of music, the arts and most of all in the in the kindness of strangers and people we encounter, we pray: Give us your creative Spirit, O God.
6. For a new spirit in our personal interactions: may we learn to listen with care to others, to listen to their stories with reverence and gentleness and recognise that we brothers and sisters, we pray: Give us your creative Spirit, O God.
7. For the wisdom of caring for the earth by having a reverence for creation and the courage to preserve the precious gifts of water, land, and climate for the good of future generations, we pray: Give us your creative Spirit, O God.
8. For the gift of hope: may we find our grounding in God’s love and presence despite the hardships and difficulties we encounter, we pray: Give us your creative Spirit, O God.
9. For those among us who help us to find hope: may the Spirit strengthen them to continue to bear witness to the hope they live, we pray: Give us your creative Spirit, O God.
10. For the unity of people who call themselves Christian: may God’s Spirit heal the wounds and misunderstandings of the past and lead all to work for greater unity of mind and service in the face of human suffering, we pray: Give us your creative Spirit, O God.
11. For people in leadership that they may seek to find ways to correct injustice, work to promote and build peace and promote the common good of all their people, we pray: Give us your creative Spirit, O God.
12. For peace in a world of war, violence and conflict: may the poorest and most vulnerable who are impacted most and suffer displacement, victimisation and loss of life: may peace come to their lives and communities, we pray: Give us your creative Spirit, O God.
13. For those who are persecuted: may those who follow their consciences, who refuse to abide by the agenda of the powers, and those who stand up for integrity be strengthened by the power of the Spirit, we pray: Give us your creative Spirit, O God.
14. For those who have power of our resources: may they be enlightened by God’s spirit of compassion for those who do not receive a fair share of the world’s resources and may those in power ensure that the hungry eat, that the sick find medical care, that those lacking education receive education, we pray: Give us your creative Spirit, O God.
15. We pray for those who have died … (names) especially those who have died in war, conflict and preventable diseases… (Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza and the West Bank, Ivory Coast, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tibet, Timor Leste, Iraq, the Ogaden): may those in mourning and overcome by grief find comfort in friends, those who minister to them, we pray: Give us your creative Spirit, O God.
16. For those who share in this Eucharist: may all be continue to reach out to others in their neighbourhoods, communities and beyond, we pray: Give us your creative Spirit, O God.
Concluding Prayer:Spirit-sending God, generously pour out your Holy Spirit on our world and our Church and lead us forward in hope. .
Prayer over the Gifts
Spirit Sending God,
may your creative spirit of power and truth
change these gifts of bread and wine
and make Jesus present here in our midst.
Through the Holy Spirit of love
re-create us and give us new and vibrant hope
that we may do your liberating will.
Preface [Alternative]
God is with you.
And also with you.
Let us lift up our hearts.
We lift them to the Living God.
Let us give thanks to our God.
It is right to give our thanks and praise.
It is indeed right to give you our thanks and praise, O God,
and to bring our gifts into your presence
in gratitude for the constant love you have promised us.
The world and everything in it was made by you.
Life and breath are your gifts to all living things,
and in you we live and move and have our being.
Everywhere and always you have been within our reach
and have inspired us to search for you.
In Jesus Christ you have shown yourself to us,
the unknowable revealed in the known.
He was put to death,
but you raised him from the dead
and gave him life in the Spirit.
Through his resurrection,
you have raised us from the saving waters,
and now your blessing abides with us
even in suffering
and your Spirit assures us of your coming justice.
Therefore with .....
©2002 Nathan Nettleton www.laughingbird.net [adapted for inclusive language]
Deliver Us
Deliver us, God of Truth, from every evil
and keep your Church free from persecution.
When we witness to our faith,
let your Spirit of truth help us
to bear witness to you without fear,
with the courage of the One who was put to death
but whose spirit stayed alive,
our risen Saviour, Jesus the Christ
Prayer after Communion
Spirit Sending God,
you have restored us with the Body of Jesus
and you continually renew our hope
in the coming of the Spirit.
May we be strengthened by this Spirit
to bear witness without fear
to Jesus’ dynamic presence among us.
Further Resources
‘The civilized have created the wretched, quite coldly and deliberately, and do not intend to change the status quo; are responsible for their slaughter and enslavement; rain down bombs on defenseless children whenever and wherever they decide that their ‘vital interests’ are menaced, and think nothing of torturing a man to death: these people are not to be taken seriously when they speak of the ‘sanctity’ of human life, or the ‘conscience’ of the civilized world.’
James Baldwin Collected Essays (1998), from chapter one of ‘The Devil Finds Work’
In the struggle of Good against Evil, it's always the people who get killed.
Eduardo Galeano
The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake.
Meister Eckhart
‘Since world war two we've managed to create history's first truly global empire. This has been done by the corporatocracy, which are a few men and women who run our major corporations and in doing so also run the U.S. government and many other governments around the world.’
John Perkins, 2005, author of the book titled ' Confessions of and Economic Hit Man'
No one has yet fully realized the wealth of sympathy, kindness, and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure.
Emma Goldman
I don't want to betray my children;
I don't want to fail to do the necessary for Jesus,
living on in his members.
It's Jesus who is in this unhappy situation.
‘Whatever you do to one of these little ones, you do to me.’
I don't want to be a bad shepherd or a dumb watch-dog.
I'm afraid of sacrificing Jesus for a quiet life
and a strong taste for tranquillity,
for my cowardice and natural shyness.
Charles de Foucauld
Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy.
Wendell Berry
If you do not hope,
you will not find what is
beyond your hopes.
Clement of Alexandria
Dorothy Day 1897-1980
When Dorothy Day died in the cramped Lower East Side room she called home, hundreds of thousands of people mourned. Archbishops compared her to Gandhi and Martin Luther King, The New York Times spoke of the ‘end of an era,’ wealthy admirers organized a memorial mass, and homeless men wept. Who was this ancient, shriveled woman who owned nothing but a creaking bed, a writing desk, an overflowing bookshelf, a teapot, and a radio?
‘What we would like to do is change the world—make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended for them to do. And, by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, of the poor, of the destitute…we can, to a certain extent, change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat, there is nothing that we can do but love, and, dear God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbour, to love our enemy as well as our friend.
Source: ‘Love Is The Measure,’ The Catholic Worker, June 1946.
‘Whenever I groan within myself and think how hard it is to keep writing about love in these times of tension and strife which may, at any moment, become for us all a time of terror, I think to myself: What else is the world interested in? What else do we all want, each one of us, except to love and be loved, in our families, in our work, in all our relationships? God is Love. Love casts out fear. Even the most ardent revolutionist, seeking to change the world, to overturn the tables of the money changers, is trying to make a world where it is easier for people to love, to stand in that relationship to each other…There can never be enough of it.’
‘All our talk about peace and the weapons of the spirit is meaningless unless we try in every way to embrace voluntary poverty and not work in any position, any job, that contributes to war, not to any job whose pay comes from the fear of war....We must give up our place in the world, sacrifice children, family, wife, mother, and embrace poverty, and then we will be laying down life itself.’
‘The sense of futility is one of the greatest evils of the day...People say, ‘What can one person do? What is the sense of our small effort?’ They cannot see that we can only lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time; we can be responsible only for the one action of the present moment.
‘It is not love in the abstract that counts. Men have loved a cause as they have loved a woman. They have loved the brotherhood, the workers, the poor, the oppressed…but they have not loved ‘personally.’ It is hard to love. It is the hardest thing in the world, naturally speaking. Have you ever read Tolstoy’s Resurrection? He tells of political prisoners in a long prison train, enduring chains and persecution for the love of their brothers, ignoring those same brothers on the long trek to Siberia. It is never the brothers right next to us, but the brothers in the abstract that are easy to love.’
Dorothy Day ‘Meditations‘
Do not go where the path may lead,
go instead where there is no path
and leave a trail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
There are victories of the soul and spirit.
Sometimes, even if you lose, you win.
Elie Wiesel
Yesterday is history,
Tomorrow is a mystery,
Today is a gift.
That's why it is called the present.
Unknown
I pay no attention whatever to anybody's praise or blame.
I simply follow my own feelings.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Kindness in words creates confidence.
Kindness in thinking creates profoundness.
Kindness in giving creates love…
Perfect kindness acts without thinking of kindness.
Laozi, 570-490
It is disturbing to witness a globalization that exacerbates the conditions of the needy, that does not sufficiently contribute to resolving situations of hunger, poverty and social inequality, that fails to safeguard the natural environment. These aspects of globalization can give rise to extreme reactions, leading to excessive nationalism, religious fanaticism and even acts of terrorism…. All of this is far-removed from the concept of an ethically responsible globalization capable of treating all peoples as equal partners and not as passive instruments. Accordingly, there can be little doubt of the need for guidelines that will place globalization firmly at the service of authentic human development — the development of every person and of the whole person — in full respect of the rights and dignity of all.
John Paul II, May 2, 2003
In teaching us charity, the Gospel instructs us in the preferential respect due to the poor and the special situation they have in society: the more fortunate should renounce some of their rights so as to place their goods more generously at the service of others.
Paul VI, Octogesima Adveniens, A Call to Action
Those who sit atop the social and economic pyramid always speak of love, while those at the bottom always speak of justice.
James Carroll
A Christian Prayer for Peace
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they shall be known as
the Children of God.
But I say to you that hear,
love your enemies,
do good to those who hate you,
bless those who curse you,
pray for those who abuse you.
To those who strike you on the cheek,
offer the other also,
and from those who take away your cloak,
do not withhold your coat as well.
Give to everyone who begs from you,
and of those who take away your goods,
do not ask them again.
And as you wish that others would do to you,
so do to them.
Author Unknown
Daniel Berrigan 1921-2016
At the height of the Vietnam War, Daniel Berrigan, poet and priest, poured napalm on draft files at Catonsville, MD, and landed in a federal prison. Berrigan's words at the time galvanized a protest movement that eventually turned the tide against war: ‘Our apologies, good friends, for the fracture of good order, the burning of paper instead of children, the angering of the orderlies in the front parlor of the charnel house. We could not, so help us God, do otherwise.’ For the next forty years Berrigan kept at it, serving time behind bars for acts of civil disobedience against war and nuclear weapons, penning dozens of books, and inspiring new generations of questioners and seekers.
‘There is no peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war-at least as exigent, at least as disruptive, at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison and death in its wake.’
‘We have assumed the name of peacemakers, but we have been, by and large, unwilling to pay any significant price. And because we want the peace with half a heart and half a life and will, the war, of course, continues, because the waging of war, by its nature, is total--but the waging of peace, by our own cowardice, is partial. So a whole will and a whole heart and a whole national life bent toward war prevail over the mere desire for peace…’
‘One is called to live nonviolently, even if the change one works for seems impossible. It may or may not be possible to turn the US around through nonviolent revolution. But one thing favors such an attempt: the total inability of violence to change anything for the better.’ [my emphasis]
‘Never, ‘for the sake of peace and quiet,’ deny your own experience or convictions. The only kind of dignity which is genuine is that which is not diminished by the indifference of others. Pray that your loneliness may spur you into finding something to live for, great enough to die for. Never measure the height of a mountain until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was.
‘The pursuit of peace and progress cannot end in a few years in either victory or defeat. The pursuit of peace and progress, with its trials and its errors, its successes and its setbacks, can never be relaxed and never abandoned.’
Dag Hammarskjöld 1905 - 1961
The human capacity for evil is a constant in our world. However, we can tend to neglect that human goodness, decency, love and compassion are also abiding realities. This poem by Michael Coady expresses this:
Though there are torturers
Though there are torturers in the world
there are also musicians.
Though at this moment
men are screaming in prisons
there are jazzmen raising storms
of sensuous celebration
and orchestras releasing
glories of the spirit.
Though the image of God
is everywhere defiled
Mozart and Beethoven
forever bring us healing
a woman in west Clare
is playing the concertina
and a drunk man on the road
is singing for no reason.
Michael Coady
Courage does not always roar.
Sometimes, it is the quiet voice
at the end of the day saying,
‘I will try again tomorrow’.
Anonymous
The process [of mass-media deception] has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt.... To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies - all this is indispensably necessary.
George Orwell, 1984
Like the effect of advertising upon the customer, the methods of political propaganda tend to increase the feeling of insignificance of the individual voter.
Erich Fromm, psychoanalyst and social philosopher, 1900-1980
‘The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity - much less dissent.
Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.
Mark Twain. The Mysterious Stranger, 1916.
Of course, it is possible for any citizen with time to spare, and a canny eye, to work out what is actually going on, but for the many there is not time, and the network news is the only news even though it may not be news at all but only a series of flashing fictions.
Gore Vidal
Noam Chomsky
Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that numbers of people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running and robbing the country. That's our problem.
Howard Zinn,
With numbing regularity good people were seen to knuckle under the demands of authority and perform actions that were callous and severe. Men who are in everyday life responsible and decent were seduced by the trappings of authority, by the control of their perceptions, and by the uncritical acceptance of the experimenter's definition of the situation, into performing harsh acts. A substantial proportion of people do what they are told to do, irrespective of the content of the act and without limitations of conscience, so long as they perceive that the command comes from a legitimate authority
Stanley Milgram, 1965
They are torturing people. They are torturing people on Guantanamo Bay. They are engaging in acts which amount to torture in the medieval sense of the phrase. They are engaging in good old-fashioned torture, as people would have understood it in the Dark Ages.
Richard Bourke, Australian attorney
Modern (man) likes to pretend that (his) thinking is wide-awake. But this wide-awake thinking has led us into the mazes of a nightmare in which the torture chambers are endlessly repeated in the mirrors of reason.
Octavio Paz
The civilized have created the wretched, quite coldly and deliberately, and do not intend to change the status quo; are responsible for their slaughter and enslavement; rain down bombs on defenseless children whenever and wherever they decide that their ‘vital interests’ are menaced, and think nothing of torturing a man to death: these people are not to be taken seriously when they speak of the ’sanctity’ of human life, or the ‘conscience’ of the civilized world.
James Baldwin, The Devil Finds Work
What the world needs is not dogma but an attitude of scientific inquiry combined with a belief that the torture of millions is not desirable, whether inflicted by Stalin or by a Deity imagined in the likeness of the believer.
Bertrand Russell
The healthy man does not torture others.
Carl Gustav Jung
We don't torture people in America and people who say we do simply know nothing about our country.
George W. Bush[Interview with Australian TV - October 18, 2003]
These things I believe: That government should butt out. That freedom is our most precious commodity and if we are not eternally vigilant government will take it all away. That individual freedom demands individual responsibility. That government is not a necessary good but an unavoidable evil. That the executive branch has grown too strong, the judicial branch too arrogant and the legislative branch too stupid. That political parties have become close to meaningless. That government should work to insure the rights of the individual, not plot to take them away. That government should provide for the national defense and work to insure domestic tranquility. That foreign trade should be fair rather than free. That once a year we should hang someone in government as an example to his fellows.
Lyn Nofziger
Cowardice asks the question - is it safe? Expediency asks the question - is it politic? Vanity asks the question - is it popular? But conscience asks the question - is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them. There is almost no kind of outrage—–torture, imprisonment without trial, assassination, the bombing of civilians.. . which does not change its moral color when it is committed by ‘our’ side. The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.
George Orwell
Peace, in the sense of the absence of war, is of little value to someone who is dying of hunger or cold. It will not remove the pain of torture inflicted on a prisoner of conscience. It does not comfort those who have lost their loved ones in floods caused by senseless deforestation in a neighbouring country. Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where the people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free.
HH the Dalai Lama
Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of the colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change. Each time a person stands up for an idea, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, (s)he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
Robert F. Kennedy
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed — and thus clamorous to be led to safety — by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H.L. Mencken,1880-1956 American journalist, satarist, social critic, anti-establishment figure.
A tyrant… is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.
Plato - (429-347 BC), The Republic
I hate it when they say, ‘He gave his life for his country.’ Nobody gives their life for anything. We steal the lives of these kids. We take it away from them. They don’t die for the honor and glory of their country. We kill them.
Admiral Gene LaRocque
Suffering and joy teach us, if we allow them, how to make the leap of empathy, which transports us into the soul and heart of another person. ln those transparent moments we know other people’s joys and sorrows, and we care about their concerns as if they were our own.
Fritz Williams
It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.
Samuel Johnson
We frail humans are at one time capable of the greatest good and, at the same time, capable of the greatest evil. Change will only come about when each of us takes up the daily struggle ourselves to be more forgiving, compassionate, loving, and above all joyful in the knowledge that, by some miracle of grace, we can change as those around us can change too.
Maíread Maguire
War would end if the dead could return.
Stanley Baldwin
[Hu]mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to {hu]mankind…War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.
John F. Kennedy
Reflections on the readings
Peter: asks its hearers to be ready to defend their hope to anyone who asks - but is done with gentleness and reverence. How can we do this in the midst of suffering? The gospel passage reminds us of God’s nearness. Jesus tells us this in terms of not leave the disciples/us orphaned. Through the power and presence of the Spirit presence (Advocate/paraclete) who functions as a guide in truth, intercessor and encouragewe take this message into the world as well.
Jesus embodies a God who never forgets her children (Is 49:15) and a God who protects orphans and widows (Ps 68:5). Jesus’ impending departure will not leave them bereft of his love.
Today’s readings bring together joy and healing [Acts], hope [I Peter], and relationship and solidarity between God and us, and among ourselves [John]. This unity/solidarity becomes real in our treatment of people expressed by love in action/justice and peace. Many people despite great difficulties in their lives and communities living under various burdens and oppressions still have an uncanny ability to laugh in the face of fear, stumbling and trials and mock the darkness around them, e.g., the paintings and painted crosses from El Salvador with so much brilliant colour express hardship and joy. A book called The Laughter of the Oppressed asks about the significance of laughter among oppressed people citing Jewish people during the Holocaust, African Americans [slave and free], people in impoverished shanty towns and favelas, or persecuted religious minorities. We might think of the social ridicule and laughter of gay and lesbian minorities who poke fun at those who vilify them.
The ‘advocate’, the Spirit, will be unconditionally present to offer both comfort and courage regardless of what church and society say about the acceptability or dignity of people. ‘Advocate’ literally means ‘called to the side’ of another; like an ‘advocate’ or ‘defense attorney.’ It can refer to one who appears on another’s behalf.
The kind of consolation provided is not one that wraps us in a warm, fuzzy cocoon where we can feel safe forever. It is more like the loving nudge a mother bird gives her fledglings to take wing. Fr Timothy Radcliffe says, ‘This is what the Holy Spirit does, thrusting us out of our ecclesiastical nest into mission.’ And as Pope Francis recently told the Bishops of Quebec that mission, that proclamation of the gospel, will get ‘messy. Too often, the Church has made God’s presence appear contained.
To be able to be thrust out, the Consoler/Comforter assures us that we will never be abandoned. We always have a home. Remember: in John's gospel, Pentecost occurs when the risen Jesus bearing his wounds breathes the Spirit into the community of believers locked away behind closed doors (20: 19-23). The disciples were not where they were meant to be – they were not meant to stay safe, self-protective, fearful and comfortable behind closed doors.
The church cannot contain God’s presence. Pope Francis says that each Christian and every community must discern the path that the Lord points out, but all of us are asked to obey the call to go from our own comfort zone in order to reach all the 'peripheries' in need of the light of the Gospel. [The Joy of the Gospel #20.]
The Bible is filled with the call to justice and is highly political: real people live in slavery, real people are oppressed, real people suffer violence, real seek liberation, peace and fairness. God is passionate about how we relate to one another whether for good or ill. Jesus showed us how to reach out to the persecuted, belittled and ostracised in the community. He came to bring wholeness to a broken world and equality to an unequal world. The cry for peace with justice comes to us from all directions within our country, other countries and the church. We can be left feeling overwhelmed and discouraged when we try to consider the world’s problems. But, Jesus says today, if we love him we will love our neighbour – who includes those not so nice people, ugly people or even very bad people. It is not sentimental. It is not always leave us with a good feeling. For those who act justly - there is often no gratitude. The poor and suffering do not know of our attempts to stand alongside them.
Jesus isn't speaking about how we feel towards others. No one can command us to ‘feel’ love for another, especially a person we barely know - strangers? or enemies? It is not about liking a person but deciding and acting to do what is for another's good. Being a neighbour is a not a state of mind or disposition but the result of radical action. In the story of the Good Samaritan, we were asked who was the ‘neighbour’. What the story shows it is the one that each of us transgress social, ethnic, political or cultural boundaries to be with. It is a going over to the other without being certain of the response one would receive. To talk about love of the other, love of the enemy, is only worth anything when one goes over to the other and does something. This is the only way we reshape ordinary life and create a new political space.
Ched Myers puts it like this:
‘After all the heaving breathing we do about God, it’s quite simply where one places one’s body that really counts. In other words, what part of town you live in, who you hang out with, who you work alongside. And above all how many social boundaries you cross in order to be with Jesus.’
(from an address given at Greenbelt Festival, ‘Hope is Where Your Arse Is’, 2007)
To know what God looks like – we look into the face and heart and mind of your neighbour, the eyes of the person next to you. Any prayer for peace or justice needs to be connected with the way we act for that peace or justice. From the people I know who have acted for peace with active nonviolence, it happens when they put their bodies and sometimes their lives in that space. As we pray for a society where there is no hunger or homelessness or violence we must also seek to feed, shelter and make peace. Prayer is about changing us – not God. We cannot do as is often done at grace before meals where we ‘spare a thought’ for the hungry, or lonely or homeless – and then woof in.
The ‘Advocate’ role - a supporter or defender; who ‘stands alongside another’ - is needed where peoples’ voices continue to be silenced. As the ‘Spirit of truth’ it reminds us to do what Jesus says and does in ever new situations we encounter: ‘If you love me, keep my commandments.’ To love as Jesus loved is to stand alongside the other.
This ‘Spirit of Truth’ helps us discern the truth from the many sounds and voices that clamour in ears – the sounds and voices of looking after number one; where dog-eats-dog; where violence is condoned to settle conflict; where greed is fostered and consumerism fills the void within us; where ‘radio shock jocks’ can diminish us in our humanity when they call us to be less than we can be.
Over the years, as the government continued to process asylum seekers off-shore in a third country causing them great physical, social and psychological harm, people of faith and no faith gathered to protest this injustice and abuse of people. Even on Palm Sunday, they were labelled ‘lefty’ or ‘bleeding hearts’ or ‘opportunists’ or ‘troublemakers’ or ‘being political’. The labels apply to the ‘usual suspects’ who protest the injustices with regard to Indigenous health; youth homelessness; neglect of the mentally ill; care and reverence for the Earth; food shortages; world debt; unfair trade practices; uncritical support for militarism over foreign aid. These advocates ‘stand alongside’ people who suffer injustices. Such protests indicate that we have to do life differently: not take things for granted and question views and practices that leave us complacent and insulated. We hear that another world is possible. In fact, another world is inevitable. The Advocate that Jesus gives calls us to listen – we do that by listening to the voices of people who want to draw attention to whatever, pains, oppresses or threatens them.
The Creed says Christ ‘descended into hell’ to rise again. Who do we descend into ‘hell’ with? Who do we help rise from their ‘death,’ however big or small? We cannot merely accept Jesus’ rising intellectually. He is a living/vibrant person bearing the wounds of his passion. We have before us the images of Christ who daily experience more of his crucifixion than he his resurrection. Those images are made real before our eyes as we see the ‘wounds’ of people around us and overseas. Joy comes only when we turn outwards - turn to others. It might be by offering hope to the broken child who has few options left; the smile brought to the face of a child who has rarely felt love; to hug a once-vigorous adult who is living with a terminal illness; making the effort to just be reasonable and kind to a person we do not especially like.
The ‘Advocate’ confronts those who invade or destroy our earth; it threatens those systems that promote grasping and acquisitiveness; it confronts those who make war or abuse the weak and the helpless or neglect the refugee; it challenges those who set up distinctions between themselves and others based on religion, or practices, race, sexuality or gender. It undermines the that part of our lives that controls, dominates, shrinks us.
To ‘love one another’ means we will at times be hated… the world (system) does not relish confrontation or abide people who because of their love [justice] destroys barriers, labels, stereotypes, definitions that keep us imprisoned in another ‘world’ – the world opposed to God. It is this ‘Advocate’ – standing alongside us – that calls us to continue our journey and strive to question, confront and challenge; to descend into ‘hell’ with others, and together rise from our deaths whether large and small. Is this now how Jesus will be recognised and seen by people? Is this not how he will become real not only for us but for others? God is screaming and calling out to face a hard truth – in the suffering of people God does scream at us and at our systems and institutions that cause suffering and perpetuate it: inequality, that racism and prejudice. Waiter Wink, in his book, The Powers That Be: Theology for a New,’ Millennium, ‘We end, then, with that divine cry ringing in our ears, exhorting us to engage these mighty Powers in the strength of the Holy Spirit, that human life might become more fully human.’
For those of us who live in times of relative security and peace, we have a calling and responsibility to be agents of God’s comfort compassion, justice, tenderness and strength to those who are most vulnerable in our everyday lives. On a wider scale, it also means refusing to be silent or turning a blind eye to places of suffering in the world. As 20 million people are at risk of dying of starvation in Northern Africa, our voice, our vote, our rage needs to hit the floor as our government cuts foreign aid even more but makes more money available for military expenditure. The Spirit thrusts us forward to work every day to help build a world in which God’s presence is more easily recognised by all, and in which no one suffers without a companion to offer care, protection, provision and healing.
(Acknowledgment: some of the thoughts on neighbour were taken from David Benjamin Blower, Sympathy for Jonah: Reflections on Humiliation, Terror and the Politics of Enemy-Love, Resource Publications, Eugene, Oregan, 2016)
