Homily for Tuesday, 2 July 2019

Readings of the day: Genesis 19:15-29; Psalm 26:2-3, 9-10, 11-12; Matthew 8:23-27

Tuesday of the 13th week in Ordinary Time

Why is God, especially in the Old Testament, sometimes so cruel to people?

I ask this question in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek way, aware that the rejection of most of the Old Testament as part of our Bible because the God of the Old Testament was perceived as cruel, while the God of the New Testament (in Christ especially) was perceived as kind and merciful, was actually a heresy of the early Church. This heresy was called Marcionism, after its supposed proponent, Marcion of Rome.

We find many passages in the Old Testament that highlight God’s kindness and mercy, and passages in the New Testament in which God, or Jesus, become angry or even appear somewhat cruel (the overturning of the money changers’ tables in the Temple, or Jesus’ curse of an innocent fig tree in the Gospels come to mind).

But the reading we hear today from Genesis would have been excellent support for a Marcionite frame of mind back in the day. God is not (and was not, by Marcion) seen as cruel specifically because of God’s destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. After all, Sodom and Gomorrah had been warned repeatedly to turn from their sinful ways, but chose not to do so. In this sense, Sodom and Gomorrah could be understood to have brought their destruction on themselves rather than God having chosen to destroy them. As an aside, nobody really knows the specific sin of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah that led to their destruction. Despite the weight of legendary tradition, the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was not necessarily or probably anything sexual.

But what about Abraham’s nephew Lot’s wife? Besides (we might think) her fairly innocent act of looking back at the burning Sodom and Gomorrah, what did she do that was so wrong so as to deserve God turning her “into a pillar of salt”? Surely here God seems unduly harsh toward Lot’s wife, right?

Well, if in turning Lot’s wife “into a pillar of salt” for looking back at Sodom and Gomorrah, God was not unduly harsh or cruel, God, or especially the author of this story of Sodom and Gomorrah, is quite “punny,” here and elsewhere in our Scriptures.

If we look back a chapter in Genesis to Abraham pleading with God to save Sodom and Gomorrah for the sake of any righteous people there, Abraham at this point looks toward Sodom and Gomorrah (šāqap in Hebrew). To describe Lot’s wife looking back at Sodom and Gomorrah, another verb is used in the Hebrew text of the reading we have heard today: tāḇeṭ. Yet another set of Hebrew play-on-words is used to describe the destruction itself of Sodom and Gomorrah, possibly a darkly humorous reference to the vulnerability of the Dead Sea region of the Holy Land to occasional fiery and sulfurous volcanic activity and earthquakes. To this day, a tall column of salt near the Dead Sea and Mount Sodom is called “Lot’s Wife.”

All this is to say that the God of the Old Testament is not unduly cruel compared to the God of the New Testament. Take that, Marcion! God, or the Biblical authors, simply have a way with play-on-words that becomes lost in contemporary-language translations. If anything, as in Sodom and Gomorrah, the choice is ours to turn from sin or not. But failure to turn from sin has consequences for us: We incur our own destruction. And, as any “punny” Italian would say, “Traductore traditore”: “The translator is a traitor”!

Homily for Thursday, 1 January 2015– Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God

World Day of Peace

Readings of the day: Numbers 6:22-27; Psalm 67:1-2, 4-5, 6-7; Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:16-21

This homily was given at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish, Sherwood Park, Alberta, Canada.

“The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.”

What makes this prayer special to me? We hear it in our first reading today, from the Book of Numbers. They are the words with which Moses and Aaron are to bless the people of Israel, who are re-entering Israel after escaping Pharaoh’s Egypt. When I was still living in Edmonton, before I joined the religious order I belong to now, the Basilians, I lived with two roommates. Often, when I made a pun or bad joke, one of my roommates would pretend (at least I think he was pretending) to be upset, and then he would make the sign of the cross over me and say this prayer from Numbers: “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.” Unfortunately, attempts to exorcise the pun demons have so far failed miserably.

This beautiful prayer from Numbers is also engraved on a plaque on the wall in our dining room where I live now, with the Basilians at St. Kateri Tekakwitha Parish in Rochester, New York. “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.”

Is our world today not in great need of the Lord’s peace, perhaps even more so than in Moses’ and Aaron’s time, or in Jesus’ time? Our world is in need not so much of peace as in the mere absence of conflict and violence; it is in need of peace that begins and resonates from our hearts. Is this not the kind of peace that resonates from the heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen and Mother of Peace; Mother of the Church; Mother of God whose feast we celebrate today? Is this not the kind of peace for which we pray on this day, the first of our year, World Day of Peace?

Our Gospel reading today, from Luke, says that the “shepherds… went with haste to Bethlehem” to find “Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger.” And then “they made known what had been told them about this child” by the angels who had sent them to the newborn Christ. What was the message the shepherds “made known” to everyone near them, who were then “amazed” at what they heard? What was this message that our Gospel says our Mother Mary “treasured… and pondered… in her heart”? Was it not the message of the birth of our Savior, “Son of God and Son of Mary”; our Prince of Peace?

Perhaps the shepherds announced and Mary “treasured” and “pondered… in her heart” the same message the angels sang to the shepherds in the fields. It is a message of peace. It is the message that, except during Lent and Advent, we announce every Sunday and Holy Day near the beginning of our Mass: “Glory to God in the highest, and peace to people of good will”… “On earth peace among those whom [God] favours.” Peace to each and every one of us. This is the message we announce to one another and that we are invited, after our Blessed Mother Mary, to treasure and ponder in our hearts every time we give the sign of peace before receiving our Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ, in communion.

And yet to announce this message of peace is one thing; it is another to live by it. How, then, do we live by the message of peace we announce; the message of peace first announced to the shepherds and “treasured” and “pondered” in the heart of Mary; the message of the LORD’s peace from the Book of Numbers; the message of the birth of our Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ?

We could ask ourselves: Am I at peace with God? And am I at peace with my fellow people; with God’s world; with God’s creation? This could be for us a little examination of conscience on how we are living the peace we are invited to announce to our world; the peace for which we pray especially on this World Day of Peace.

Am I; are we at peace with God? Do I show reverence toward God’s name when I speak? Do I not only attend Mass but participate with joy in this gift of the Eucharist that God has given us; this gift of receiving the real presence of Christ, the Prince of Peace; of making this presence of Peace one with ourselves? Do we pray regularly, even if our prayer is a brief, informal giving of thanks for God’s gifts to us every day, or (this is not wrong) do we question God in prayer when we have felt God to be distant from us? Or do we pray even if our prayer is a simple moment of silence, to treasure; to ponder God’s presence; God’s peace in our lives and hearts as Mary once did?

Am I; are we at peace with one another?  How peaceful are my relationships with other people, especially with those closest to me: My family; my parents; my brothers and sisters; my children; my wife or husband if I am married; my relatives and close friends? I do not mean by this that we need to like everybody. With due respect to Facebook and other social media, clicking “Like” on every posting and sometimes living this way in our relationships does not bring true peace. Gossip or silence while we feed into our anger with other people is also not true peace; this is a sin against peace that can masquerade as peace. No, God asks us to love one another (especially the people we have trouble liking); to be at peace with one another.

If at times we have not been at peace with God and with one another, please let me try to encourage you with this: As long as there is love in our world; as long as there is goodness and kindness in our world (of which there is so much, visible right here in this parish, Our Lady of Perpetual Help); as long as there is a God who is the source of love, goodness, kindness, and peace, there is a chance at peace. But I also encourage all of us to meet God in God’s goodness, kindness, and peace.

How do we do this? We meet God and God’s goodness, kindness, and peace by acknowledging thankfully areas in our lives where we are at peace with God and one another, and by reconciling those areas in our lives where we are not fully at peace. By this I do not just mean receiving the sacrament of reconciliation often. And yet, as in the sacrament of reconciliation, if we need to receive or to give reconciliation in our relationships with one another and with God, it is never too late for reconciliation; for peace.

And may this be the measure of true peace: When we, like Mary, Mother of God and Queen of Peace whom we celebrate on this World Day of Peace, can treasure and ponder God’s peace deep within our hearts. We will have true peace when the peace in our hearts shows itself as peace among ourselves; as holy peace when we greet one another: Peace be with you. “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.”