HOMILY LENT WEEK 04 06 – Year II
Speaking with Authority:
Optional Memorial of St. Francis of Paola
(Jer 11:18-20; Ps 7; Jn 7:40-53)
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“Never before has anyone spoken like this man.” (John 7:46)
That exclamation by the temple police in todays’ gospel stands as a clear invitation for us to listen to the Word of God, revere it and let it penetrate our hearts as well.
What we see in both readings is the rather tragic tendency of human beings, when too comfortable and well off, to stubbornly resist at all costs, anything that might challenge us and upset the status quo.
In the first reading, Jeremiah suffers because of the “evil deeds” and infidelity of the people God had chosen as God’s own covenant people at Mt. Sinai – giving them a way to live life to the full – the 10 commandments – something no other nation had been given. God had revealed to him the often-hidden true nature of what they had done with that spiritual legacy – turned it into a self-serving, legalistic, sacrificed-based temple worship that actually ignored the greatest law of love and had even become an instrument of oppression for the poor of his day.
We know the all-too familiar story that stretches even into our own time – the people were stubborn, self-centred, self-reliant, disobedient, proud of heart, and lusted after the false gods of possessions, prestige and power. And they did not like any prophet like Jeremiah who rebuked them and tried to offer them what we could call today “fraternal correction.” All that brought him was scorn and misery.
His experience prefigures the experience of Jesus so closely one wonders if he is speaking about himself, or the messiah to come, much like Isaiah and his words about a suffering servant whose identity puzzled the Ethiopian traveller Philip encountered on the road after Pentecost.
In the Gospel, Jesus speaks with the authority of a prophet taking even the temple police off guard and disarming them so that they do not arrest him. The authority of Jesus comes from his relationship with the Father. He is grounded in the Father’s blessing of him, and the Father’s love for him, communicated in prayer.
This gives Jesus the power and strength to take off his outer garments (symbols of status and role – he doesn’t need them) and humbly wash his disciples’ feet at the Last Supper, the task of a slave.
That authority was intended to shake up the religious bias of the religious leaders of the time, and open them up to how God works outside the box in our lives. But like the people in the time of Jeremiah, they refused to budge. They were also stubborn, self-centred, self-reliant, disobedient, proud of heart, and lusted after the false gods of possessions, prestige and power. And they did not like Jesus who rebuked them like Jeremiah and tried to offer them more than fraternal correction. He was offering them a new world order, a new vision of reality, a new way of relating to God that would lead them to experience eternal life then and there.
It is ironic that the very religious leaders who should have been the first to recognize Jesus as the Son of God, were so stuck on their own version of self-serving religion based only on the letter of the Law that they excluded themselves from any possibility of compassion, forgiveness and love – there was only room for a prideful attitude of judgment and condemnation of all those who did not buy into their narrow, limited scope of religion. It was the temple police, the working class, the blue-collar workers, whose hearts were touched and transformed by the words of Jesus, so much so they returned to the religious authorities empty-handed, and just like Jeremiah, reaped the scorn of those same leaders.
In many ways, these leaders were similar to the ISIS movement of our day, which uses the Koran as a pretext to carry out horrendous “evil deeds” that are really just falling for the same false gods of possessions, prestige and power. This “false religiosity” is precisely what Pope Francis is trying to erase in the life of the church today – an externalism and clericalism that can easily use and abuse power and people, rather than serve them with selfless love and compassion.
Today we celebrate the optional memorial of St. Francis of Paola. He is the founder of the Minim Friars, minim coming from the Latin minimi, meaning “the least” in God’s household. Born in Italy, Francis lived from about 1416 to 1507. A hermit, his disciples became so numerous and were so dearly loved by the townspeople that they built the young order a church and a monastery. Living under an austere rule, the Minims spread throughout Italy. Francis was revered as a saint, prophet and miracle worker. Summoned to France by King Louis XI, Francis remained there until his death at 91. He was canonized in 1591 and is a patron of seafarers.
As we ponder these words, may we be stirred into a deeper relationship with Jesus that reflects his relationship with the Father, and open ourselves up to God working within our own lives, healing us of any legalistic and self-serving attitudes through the power of God’s word – for “never before has anyone spoken like this man.”
