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Christian Community and Charlottesville

19 Saturday Aug 2017

Posted by mcummins2172 in homily, Uncategorized

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Catholic Church, Charlottesville, Christian community, Christianity, Church, racism, sad logic of sin and death

COMM-2

In light of the violent and tragic events that have occurred in Charlottesville, VA a dear friend asked me what can one person do “on a regular basis to fight racism and some of what’s going on in this country/world?” It is sad and frightening what is going on in our country and what we see happening in our world. We must reaffirm that there is no place for bigotry, prejudice and violence in our country, our world and in our hearts as Christians and, I think, we must do this as we also reaffirm and in many ways, rediscover, the value and unique power of Christian community.

In Matthew 18:15-20, we read that our Lord gives his disciples some instructions on the reality and role of Christian community. “If your brother sins against you,” our Lord says, then go and tell him the fault, if he fails to listen then take one or two others along with you and if he still refuses to listen then tell the Church and if he fails to listen even to the Church, “then treat him as you would a Gentile or tax collector.” It is worthy to note that Jesus often entered into relationship with the Gentile and tax collector throughout his ministry and that he sought their healing and salvation. Jesus then gives to the community the authority to bind and loose. “Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Our Lord then doubles down on the unique power and authority of the church community. “Again, amen, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

The power of the Christian Church, the power of our Christian faith, is a weak power. We do not have the force of arms or military or police might, neither do we have economic or even (in our increasingly secular age) social might. What we do have is the presence of Christ in our midst and the gift of the Holy Spirit. This alone is that power that can bind and loose and that can open and call forth the grace of heaven through prayer.

Like many people, I have viewed the imaged coming out of Charlottesville including the video that recorded and interviewed a group of white supremacists during these sad and horrendous days. I was truly shocked by the vitriol, hatred and anger expressed by these people and I was also extremely saddened for them because I saw people locked in fear and hate. Theirs is a pseudo-community. Despite the bravado and the appeals to white unity there is no community there. They are people locked in a sad echo chamber stoked by the negative isolation of social media, resentment, fear and ignorance. They are imprisoned in their hate.

To this pseudo-community we are called to be community in Christ – the only community that can both bind and loose and here is found our unique and weak strength. Because Christ is with us and the Holy Spirit has been given us we can both bind and loose. Through the living of Christian community, we can work to truly bind those forces in society and in the human heart that seek to separate and isolate each one of us in resentment and fear. Through the living of Christian community, we can even help to loose those brothers and sisters who have become bound and imprisoned by resentment and fear. This has been my prayer and my hope since I have viewed those sad images coming out of Charlottesville. Pseudo-community only leads to a sad mockery and false caricature of true community as well as human dignity. All the pseudo-communities of our time must be met by the true community of the disciples gathered in prayer, truth and the mercy and the grace known in Christ.

In Christian community we are united by the presence of Christ and by the gift of the Holy Spirit. We are also united in the recognition that we are all sinners who stand in need of a savior. Scriptures tells us that “perfect love casts out all fear” (1 Jn. 4:18). This is the dynamic of true Christian community – not a community where everyone looks the same and thinks the same – but a community where we come to know the perfect love of Christ and where we are set free from those fears that bind us. Christian community is a community of sinners being set free by the perfect love of Christ!

There are many sad and broken things that lie at the root of the violence and hatred given expression in Charlottesville the past few days. One of these, I believe, is a crisis of true community in our society. People are isolated, people are lost, there is pain, uncertainty and fear and in such circumstances the false appeal of pseudo-community can be strong and alluring. This is all the more reason for us to strive in humility, love and grace to be Church – the community where Christ is present and where the Holy Spirit is given and the only true community that has the power to bind and to loose.

Thoughts on the Sunday readings: “We would like to see Jesus.” (5th Sunday of Lent – B)

21 Saturday Mar 2015

Posted by mcummins2172 in Christ, faith, law of love, law of reciprocity, life in Christ, sad logic of sin and death, sad logic of violence

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Christ, dying to self, faith, law of love, law of reciprocity, sad logic of sin and death, sad logic of violence, seeing Christ

face_of_jesus_610x300“We would like to see Jesus.”  This is the request of some Greeks from today’s gospel.  (Jn. 12:20-33)  “We would like to see” the one who teaches with authority.  “We would like to see” the one who is compassionate, who welcomes the sinner, who goes out to meet others, who weeps for his friend who has died.  “We would like to see” the one who has come not to judge but to save.  “We would like to see” this teacher who says that there is a different way to live.  “We would like to see” the one who says “no” to the logic of violence and isolation.  “We would like to see” the one who does not live according to the law of reciprocity but rather according to a different law – the law of love.

We all know the law of reciprocity.  It is so present, so seemingly uncontested, that we easily take it for granted that it is just the way things are.  The law of reciprocity says an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth!  If you do this to me then I can do that to you!  It is a law that perpetuates the cycle of violence.  It is a law of strict justice/retribution alone.  It is a law that leads one into viewing other people solely in terms of being competitors, even adversaries, rather than brothers and sisters.  Due to this, it is a law that isolates and breaks people, communities and nations into opposing camps.  It is also a law that ultimately binds and enslaves.  Jesus never lived according to the law of reciprocity, rather he lived according to the law of love and because of this Jesus is the freest person that has ever walked the face of the earth.

Behind this simple request of these Greeks is a profoundly fundamental yearning and recognition of the human heart – the desire to live differently, to escape the logic of violence and the tyranny of reciprocity.  We yearn for this.  On our own, we cannot achieve it.  “Sir, we would like to see Jesus.”  We need Jesus because he alone can forgive what needs to be forgiven within ourselves, because he alone can make new of what has been made old through sin.  Without Jesus we are left under the law of reciprocity – it is the best we can hope for.  With Jesus, we can learn and we can live the law of love and we can gain that freedom that Jesus himself knew.  We can be made free!

On the surface it seems that Jesus does not answer the request of the Greeks brought to him via Andrew and Philip.  Rather than saying, “Bring them here,” he goes off into a reflection on the Son of Man being glorified. But this reflection is his response!  “You want to see me?  You want to see the one who lives a different way, the one who does not live according to the logic of violence and the law of reciprocity?  You will see this and so much more!  Watch what happens on Golgotha, watch what happens within the tomb itself!  Watch what happens within “this hour”!

Then he give us God’s answer to that deepest disconnect of the human heart.  “You wish to see me because you also want to be free of the law of reciprocity, you also want to overcome the sad logic of violence and isolation.  You want to live differently.”  “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, in produces much fruit.  Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.”

Freedom, a different way to live other than the dictates of reciprocity, is found when a person lets go of self and lives for others … in Christ.  This last part is often overlooked.  Sadly, even by teachers of Christianity sometimes.  Jesus is not proposing a vague philosophy open to any person apart from him.  The request of the Greeks was, “We would like to see Jesus.”  Jesus – not his teachings, not his ideas but the person.  When we die to self and live for others within the reality of Christ’s own sacrifice then the logic of violence and isolation can be overcome.  Christ goes on to say, “Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be.  The Father will honor whoever serves me.”  

Life can be lived in a different way.  The sad logic of violence and isolation is not inevitable.  The new law of love is possible!

“We would like to see Jesus.”

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