Andrew Porter St.

William Catholic Church 18 August 2013 Jer 38:4-6, 8-10 Heb 12:1-4 Lk 12:49-53 Welcome to St. William Church, A Peacemaking Community! Here, every Sunday, we begin Mass by saying a little prayer for peace peace in our hearts, in our homes, in our city streets, and in our world. In saying this prayer, we are following in the example of Jesus, our great teacher of peace and nonviolent resistance right? Jesus said to his disciples, I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing! Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. Luke has actually softened Jesus declaration as it appears in the gospel of Matthew, I have not come to bring peace, but a sword (Mt 10:34). Strong words indeed, from the Prince of Peace! In fact, it turns out that peace is not really a central theme in our gospels! The word appears most often in Luke, who uses it 13 times, but mostly during colloquial greetings like go in peace or peace be with you. Peace occurs six times in John, five times in Matthew, and just three times in Mark, the evangelist who lived closest to the time of Jesus. Of course, it is true that Matthews Jesus (but not Lukes) says, Blessed are the peacemakers (Mt 5:9). So I suppose the sign out front can stay. And that phrase that Joe will recite in a few minutes, peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you, comes from the gospel of John (Jn 14:27) so I guess were in the right to spend 45 minutes afterward peace-ing each other, as we often do. But the fact remains that the New Testament contains many ambivalent and inconsistent attitudes about violence. Later in Lukes gospel (22:36) Jesus instructs that one who does not have a sword should sell his cloak and buy one; but a few verses after this, when one of his disciples cuts off the ear of the servant of the high priest, Jesus says stop, no more of this! and heals him. What can this juxtaposition of attitudes mean? On this question, I must count myself as clueless as Jesus disciples. What I can say with confidence is this: Jesus hearers did not care about peace in anything resembling the way that I, and perhaps others in this church, care about it: That is, in terms of wishing for an end to conflicts involving brown people far away. Instead, I imagine that Jews in Palestine at the time of Jesus cared about peace in something like the way that Muslims in Palestine care about it today. They find themselves under the fist of an utterly oppressive occupying power of vast military superiority, which is denying their sovereignty, ignorantly maligning their religion and forcing them to doubt seriously the justice of their God. The question on the minds of the community of Jesus hearers was not the dreamy one, how can we attain world peace? Remember, they were already enjoying the glory days of the Pax Romana! Rather, their question was the more urgent

one, how will we survive? Where will we place our hope, and what are the most effective tactics for resistance at our disposal? I do not know what Jesus answer to those questions was, but I know it must have been radical enough to get him crucified. Joseph Herzog opens his book Parables as Subversive Speech with this problem: If Jesus was a teacher of heavenly truths dispensed through literary gems called parables, it is difficult to understand how he could have been executed as a political subversive and crucified between two social bandits. Our other readings for today also place this problem front and center: How are we to resist injustice? And how far are we willing to go? Jeremiah, who spent his life condemning the rampant social exploitation within the kingdom of Judah and prophesying its destruction, finds himself stuck in the mud, condemned to die for his subversive behavior. And if you continue a few verses further in our reading from Hebrews, the author appears to be chastising his hearers for not being willing to shed blood for the cause (whether it is their own blood or others is not clear). I will leave open the question of whether one can ever be justified in shedding blood, because, as I mentioned, it is not the question that Jesus is asking in todays reading. Instead, his question for us today is this: Are you ready to help set the earth on fire? Are you committed to do what you know is right, even at great risk to your own person, even if you know that by doing so you will set yourself against your parents, your children, your friends, the authorities? Your church? Let me be clear, this is the most faithful and radical Roman Catholic church I have known in my life. Theres literally nothing like it up in Boston, that liberal cesspool where gay marriage is legal and where Ted Kennedy served for decades. But because we are such a close family, I know I can speak in shorthand about social justice to you all, and know that most of you probably are on board with what I am saying. But what are we putting at stake as a community for what we believe? It is certainly pushing the lines to let me speak up here today, or to invite Dawn Dones, or Joan Frisz. But even so, we must choose our words wisely, we must be willing to compromise, we must be careful not to step on anyones fancy pink cape! Our guest homilists must be introduced. Again, let me qualify this by saying that I believe what we do at St. William is courageous. At the same time, I cant help but think: Joan Frisz needs no introduction! Dawn Dones needs no introduction! They are perfectly capable of speaking for themselves. Our reading from Hebrews today reminds us that we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses. My question, as a middle-class, educated white heterosexual man in the USA, is this: Am I really prepared to join the cloud of witnesses? I have negotiated this difficult space over the last years: As a farmers apprentice in Louisville, I learned that local economies can vivify neighborhoods, but I was troubled that fresh, local produce is not widely available in neighborhoods like this one; as a Peace Corps volunteer in South America, I tried to be a helpful presence in my community, but I realized that I was representing the U.S. government, which is, in my view, a decidedly unhelpful presence in so many communities the world over; and now, I am at Harvard Divinity School in Boston, studying about religion and social justice, at an institution which represents the elite more than any other that comes to mind. Is it possible to utilize our own privilege, in order to

subvert the societal order that provided us with that privilege? Or, in trying to do so, are we simply playing into the hands of the system? Or are we fooling ourselves in imagining that we are serious about it? I remain troubled by this question, which I raise today because I have not as yet developed a satisfying response to it: What are we putting at stake for what we believe? Do we believe what we believe strongly enough to be lowered into a mud pit for it? To be persecuted, or excommunicated, or crucified? And, if the answer is yes, then what are the most effective tactics of resistance at our disposal? Within our religious tradition, do we believe that women are equal human beings? Do we believe that LGBTQ people are equal human beings? And if so, what are we going to do about our church hierarchy that, despite a sincerely welcome change in tone and style, continues to deny the holiness of gay sexuality and exclude women from positions of power? Do we believe that the people of color who live in this neighborhood are equal human beings? If so, what will be our presence in a neighborhood in which the poverty rate is 42%? What are we going to do about a society in which more young black men are in prison than in college, and in which the median wealth for black families is $5,000, compared to over $100,000 for white families? A couple of weeks ago, my fiance Shannon and I went to a rally for Trayvon Martin. It was held at Waterfront Park, and there were a couple of hundred people there, athough we were among only a few white people present. But we came, each of us holding a black balloon, as we were instructed. Christopher 2X, who has been an important advocate for the black community in Louisville, presided admirably over the event, but he lost control over the balloon release itself. He was trying to lead us all in a chant, when all of a sudden, someone near the center of the crowd released her balloon without being prompted. And all at once, everyone followed. We all released our balloons into the air, hundreds of them being carried up into the clouds. And, all at once below, we became a cloud of witnesses, a cloud of people, heavy with drops of sorrow but buoyant with hope, suspended by one another and by the breath of the spirit, a spirit who decided that the time for the balloon release was now. Not once Ive paid off my student loans, or later, once weve saved up enough to retire, but now. In that moment and moments like those dont last forever I felt that I was a part of the cloud of witnesses. But I want to stay there. I want us to stay there as a church. How do we do this? If there is any community of Catholics who can come up with a validly Christian answer to this question, it is this community. In the meantime, let us pray that with the spark of justice we kindle together inside of these rickety old walls, we may have the courage to do as Jesus commanded, and go outside and set the world on fire. Amen.