Friday 29 March 2013
Friday 22 March 2013
Saturday 16 March 2013
The Men Caught in Denial
Last year there was an article in the Broome Advertiser
about a girl who had been convicted of lewd behaviour. This had occurred with
man in Chinatown, but surprisingly, only she had been charged. The man, who was
unnamed in the report, was untouched by the scandal. The woman carried the
whole burden of the public humiliation and guilt, while the man was able to
hide behind anonymity. Others, who pointed accusingly at the young woman, were
able to feign outrage at her and her actions in an effort to deflect attention
from their own sins. When I spoke with her after the Court appearance, she
tried to shake off the knowledge that she had been used in a game bigger than
herself, had been treated as an object, a statistic in a ‘get tough’ campaign,
rather than a person.
The woman in depicted in the Gospel of John is the similar.
The Pharisees are looking for opportunities to trap Jesus,
and the convenience of the woman caught in
flagranti is an opportunity too good
to pass. She is thrown, partially dressed, into the middle of the scene. Under
the Jewish law she faces death, but her life is not important to them, her
dignity is denied, and her partner ignored. This is not about her, this is
about point scoring: “She is being
instrumentalized for the purposes of the scribes and Pharisees so that they
might have some charge to bring against him.”[i]
Jesus realises that there is a person on front of him, not
an exhibit. He changes the parameters so that it becomes personal. We don’t
know what he wrote in the ground and it probably does not matter, but it
provides the circuit breaker for the story. One commentator suggests that the
writing in the dust signifies that judgments cannot be made from above or from
outside ourselves: before standing in
judgment over one another, they should look at their own behaviour.[ii]
He looks up and asks if there is anyone present who has not sinned, which some
have interpreted as referring to sexual sin.[iii]
There is stunned silence.
In the midst of this terrible scene, the Holy Spirit enters.
The accusers notice that there is a
human being in front of them, not an object. St Augustine writes: This, unquestionably, is the voice of
justice, justice that pierced those men like a javelin. Looking into
themselves, they realized their guilt, and one by one they all went out. Two
remained behind: the miserable woman, and Mercy.[iv]
Unable to confront their sinfulness, the men slink away.
Jesus, the incarnation of mercy, addresses her as a person,
not an object, and she reverently addresses him as Kyrie, Lord. Jesus does not ignore her sin, for it is real, just as
our sins are real. Christ, who has entered her life, now allows her to see,
through gentleness and compassion, that she needs healing for her brokenness.
We too need that same healing for our brokenness and sin.
Are we to stand and accept his forgiveness, or walk away like the Pharisees?
Homily for the Fifth Sunday in Lent Year C, 17th March 2013, OLQP Broome.
Thursday 14 March 2013
Monday 11 March 2013
Saturday 9 March 2013
Possibility of Healing
 |
| 'Jealous Tree', Roberta Fernandez, Mulan, WA. 2005. |
When this painting was given to me by a young woman from Mulan, a community on Gregory Salt Lake in the Great Sandy Desert, the heart shapes intrigued me. I discovered that they are special leaves of a vine that grows alongside clay pans They are called jealous leaves. When the young woman told me the story of the painting she explained:
When you get jealous of someone, you need to go out, find some
of these leaves and eat them, and the bitter taste makes you forget your jealousy
and anger. Then you can go back home quietly.[i]
The leaves indeed do taste bitter, and the process of obtaining
them makes a person reconsider why they were jealous, or for that matter, envious
or angry. The process does the healing, and the eating provides the ritual
context. It is a local representation of the famous parable of Jesus to which
we have just listened.
The parable can be called that of the Lost Son, the Prodigal
Son, the Loving Father or the Unforgiving Brother. Each of these emphasises a
part of the story. The younger son was attracted by the bright lights, by what
was over the fence, by what others had seemingly without strings attached; he
did the unthinkable and sold his ancestral inheritance, (sold the family castle,
if you will) even while his father lived. In Jewish culture of the day, doing
so meant that he wished his father was dead. He departs the scene. The older
brother stews in anger at the younger brother for his treachery, but does not
deal with it and this anger slowly consumes his spirit. The younger brother
finds life is not so wonderful away from family, love and support, but he knows
he has well and truly burnt all his bridges. He has no place to move, and
eventually stoops to the lowest of low and lives with ritually unclean animals.
Only the father has not been ruined by jealousy, anger and envy. We are told that he waited patiently.
That is where the story would stop if the spirit of God was
not present. I like to think that the father walking up and down, looking over
the horizon, waiting for his son. Every now and then, when his feelings become
a bit raw and considering the hurt done to him, I picture him stooping down to
pick up a bunch of jealous leaves. Chewing the leaves, the bitterness reminds
him of the reality of the situation: Yes he has been wronged, but he still has
a son somewhere out there, as well as an angry son at home whom he needs to
help cure. The father is wise beyond belief.
So as the Spirit touches the son to return, the father he
wished dead uses his God-given serenity to welcome and forgive him. Amazing! The
older brother, however, did not accept the spirit, at least not by the end of
the parable. The anger that has consumed all his energy now paralyses him
outside the house.
In our journey through Lent the father leads us on a journey
of life.
Lent is the time to practice eating jealous leaves, the time
to drop our jealousies, envy and anger. Lent is the time to allow God to work
within our lives, whether they are like the seemingly normal life of the elder
brother with hidden unresolved issues, or whether they are younger brother,
whose faults and follies are obvious to all. The fact is that most of us have a
way to go before we can claim to enjoy the serenity of the father. To many of
us it seems impossible in this life, and maybe it is, but the journey of Lent
attests that we don’t need to allow our weaknesses and sin to hold us back. Through
prayer, fasting and giving, with the help of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, healing
is possible and transformative.
Around 450, Pope St Leo the Great urged his flock:
Dear friends, what the Christian should be doing at all times
should be done now with greater care and devotion, so that the Lenten fast
enjoined by the apostles may be fulfilled, not simply by abstinence from food
but above all by the renunciation of sin.[ii]
This week, walk out and find a jealous leaf, chew it and see
where it leads you in your faith journey!
Sunday 3 March 2013
Maybe Later
The burning bush is a symbol of
God’s presence. It is new, light, warm, catchy, and Moses is cautiously
attracted. It is clear that God is here, and Moses knows it. God calls Moses by
name, and he responds and says: "Here I am" (cf. Ex EX 3,4). After that God reveals more
clearly both himself and his compassion for all his people. “Gradually he leads us to discover the
practical way in which we should serve him: ‘I will send you’.” [i]
That is the point when most of us freeze or run.
Homily for the Third Sunday of Lent Year C, 3rd March 2013. OLQP Broome.
Ngulampa is a great word in the Yulparija language of the Western
Desert. It has been described as similar to the Spanish word maňana, (meaning tomorrow or an
unspecified time into the future), but with none of the urgency of that word.
Basically, ngulampa means: Go away
because whatever you want me to do, say or think is not as important as what I
am doing now, and by the way, I probably will never get time to do what you
want me to do. I think that most of us would like to have an eight letter word
to encompass all of those thoughts!
Moses was filled with the spirit
of the Lord when he came down from the mountain with this great commission, the
Israelite people said: Ngulampa, or
its equivalent in Hebrew. They were interested in talking, not doing. Specifically,
they were interested in whinging about their present conditions so much that
they could not see God in their lives or country. Their eyes were not on their
spiritual or physical survival, and as St Paul tells us, the desert was
littered with their bodies.
Eventually God sent his Son who
carried the same message. It is the message that has been given not only to the
people of Jesus’ time but to all of us. He spoke the parable of the fig tree,
which reminds us that God has given us the means to grow. He has cultivated us
by means of the word among us and the preaching of his church. The decision
given to the Israelites is the same given to us during this Lent. Do we answer
God’s call or say: Ngulampa,
translated by one of the Bidyadanga people for me as: “straight away one of
these days.”
Yesterday one of the cardinals was reported as saying that more time to talk and consider among themselves was needed before
the conclave could begin. I get the feeling that he is trying to say ngulampa , that it can be put off almost
indefinitely. For the past three weeks the world has been talking about who the
next pope will be, so now is the time for the Cardinals to go into conclave and
see what the Holy Spirit has in store. They will go into conclave sometime this
week, we will pray for them whilst they are in conclave, and maybe we will have a new pope next by weekend. They have their work
to do, and so we do as well.
Lent, this wonderful season of
the church’s year that invites us into greater union with God is almost half
over. The time for our conversion is now, the time for our penance is now, the
time for approaching the Sacrament of Reconciliation is now, the time for our
giving is now, not tomorrow or next week, because we know that tomorrow or next
week rarely come. We are ready to do whatever God has prepared us to face.
Active Christians do not say ngulampa, do not say no to God. We are
here so that God will strengthen us in the presence of each other to move
forward. May he guide and strengthen us all.
Friday 1 March 2013
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