HOMILY WEEK 22 01 – Year II
Prophets Speaking Truth to Power with Love:
Memorial of the Passion of St. John the Baptist
School Year Opening Mass – St. Charles Parish
(Jeremiah 1:17-19; Ps 71; Mk 6:17-29)
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When I was to be ordained as coadjutor archbishop of the Archdiocese of Keewatin-The Pas in 2005, the papal nuncio at that time insisted it had to be on a memorial or feast day. The only day we could find within the time frame he gave us was this memorial of the beheading of St. John the Baptist. Needless to say, we did not inform anyone of that fact on that day – it just didn’t seem appropriate. A year later, I was able to mention it to those gathered for the Eucharist on my first anniversary.
We might ask the same question today – is this memorial fitting for the opening of a school year? I would answer yes, in that the readings invite us to be grateful prophets of joyful hope and unconditional love to our students.
On the note of being grateful, Gustavo Guitierrez, a founder of liberation theology, imparted an important lesson to his hearers during a Jordan lecture series at Newman Theological College some years ago. He said if anyone wanted to go to Latin America because we were angry at the injustice there, not to go – they already had lots of angry people there. And if we wanted to go out of guilt at having so much when they have so little, not to go – they have lots of guilty people there already. But if one wanted to go because we were grateful for the blessings God has given us, then to go – they could always use more grateful people there. So, we are invited to be grateful prophets of joyful hope and unconditional love.
John the Baptist, the cousin of Jesus, is hailed as the last and greatest prophet of the Old Testament, serving as a bridge between it and the New Testament. As such, he has some lessons to teach us about being prophets.
By our baptism, we are all anointed to be priests, prophets and kings. One definition of a prophet is one who speaks truth to power, but that is only a partial definition. A fuller definition is one who also speaks on behalf of a divine vision of wholeness, and who speaks out of love and concern, not anger and bitterness. So, what are some lessons John can teach us today about being prophets?
A first striking aspect of John is that he leaped for joy in his mother Elizabeth’s womb when Mary, pregnant with Jesus, greeted her. It was like he intuited that Jesus, the Messiah, came with a two-fold role, to redeem and to sanctify, to forgive and to heal. So, we can come to Jesus for forgiveness of all our sins, and healing of all our shortcomings, and that is a source of joy that we as prophets can share with our students.
Second, John, the son of a priest, should have been in the temple following his father Zechariah’s footsteps, but we find him ministering in the wilderness, preparing the way for Jesus by imparting a new message of repentance or metanoia, which means putting on our highest mind, changing our way of seeing the world. We can also strive to open our minds and the minds of our students to the radical newness of Jesus’ presence among us, the new life he came to give us.
Then John pointed to Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Most religions at that time had a ritual of a scapegoat. When tensions in a community became too heavy to carry, the people symbolically loaded their sins and problems onto a goat or sheep, sometimes crowned with thorns and clothed with a purple robe, which they drove into the wilderness to die and ritually take away their dysfunction. This ritual would work for a while, helping them feel lighter, but soon the old habits and tensions would return just like before.
As a prophet, John knew Jesus was different. He would baptize us with the Spirit and fire. Jesus, as the true scapegoat and Lamb of God, does not take away the sin of the world by somehow carrying it off so that it is no longer present inside of the community. He takes it away by transforming it, by changing it, by taking it inside of himself and transmuting it. We see examples of this throughout his entire life, although it is most manifest in the love and forgiveness he shows at the time of his death on the cross – “Father, forgive them, they know not what they so.”
We can compare Jesus to a water filter that takes in dirt and impurity and gives back only clean, pure water. To quote Ron Rolheiser, “Jesus took away the sin of the community by taking in hatred and giving back love; by taking in anger and giving out graciousness; by taking in envy and giving back blessing; by taking in bitterness and giving out warmth; by taking in pettiness and giving back compassion; by taking in chaos and giving back peace; and by taking in sin and giving back forgiveness.”
As prophets, we, students, teachers, administrators and staff – are asked to continue to give flesh to God, to continue to do what Jesus did. Our task too is to help take away the sin of the world. We do this whenever we take in hatred, anger, envy, pettiness, and bitterness, hold them, transmute them, and eventually give them back as love, graciousness, blessing, compassion, warmth, and forgiveness.
Finally, John was beheaded because he spoke truth to power out of love and concern for King Herod, who had lost his way and fallen into sin. This was a radical act that became an ultimate sacrifice for John. We are also called to speak the truth to our students especially, the truth of who our God is and the values that Jesus taught us – to have a deep respect for life and our human sexuality, to live the Beatitudes that opposes the world’s obsession with the false gods of an over-attachment to possessions, prestige, power and pleasure. To live the truth that God is love, and we are to love our God back through prayer and worship, to love others as we love ourselves, to love others as Jesus loved us, with a sacrificial love, and above all, to love our enemies by forgiving them from the heart.
Sharing and living these values may marginalize us, as it did John, and invite us to be radical disciples ready to endure some suffering, resistance, even hostility for the sake of gospel values. When that happens, if we can accept that suffering as Jesus did, without bitterness or resentment, just love and forgiveness, then we are just like Jesus on the cross. We can claim his peace and joy for we are already living in the Kingdom of God.
Perhaps the truth our students need to hear the most is the truth of how much God loves them, that they are beloved sons and daughters of God, precious and honoured in God’s sight, not because of anything they have done, but just because God loves them. This truth, believed and integrated into their lives, will ground them securely in God’s love, and allow them to be truly free to love and be loved, and to say no to the false gods to which so many young people get addicted.
Our role as prophetic educators is to be a source of faith and hope to our youth, to bless them and give them life. Benedicere, to bless, is to speak well of another, to give them affirmation and life, as Archbishop Emeritus Adam Exner did for me at the end of a retreat I gave, which he, my former superior, spiritual director and professor, took at the age of 93. In the thank-you card, he had written, “The student has surpassed the teacher – I am proud of you.” I was shocked, then felt energy, love, blessing – I could have flown out of the room. That was an archetypal blessing of an elder archbishop being humble, stepping aside and blessing a younger archbishop so he could be more generative. One can’t put a price on that – I will take that blessing to the grave. And that is our task – to be grateful prophets of joyful hope and unconditional love to our students.
The Christopher Leadership Course that we used in our archdiocese for 40 years, has a way of blessing the participants. For the adults, we responded to their talks with PEP – Praise, Evaluate and Praise. We would praise them for a personal quality, offer a way they could improve or add value to their presentation, and then praise a skill they demonstrated. For the youth course, it was PPP – no matter how poorly a student performed, we would discipline ourselves and find three ways to praise them, and that love and blessing was a transformative force in their lives. I remember one grade eight class in which the shyest student was literally flying on a natural high at the end of the graduation banquet.
St. Paul, in the letter to the Ephesians, invites us to walk in the way of love, to love as Christ loved us, to be a light shining in the darkness of our world. A young student who had just toured a cathedral with its majestic stained-glass windows, told her mother she now knew what a saint was – a saint was someone who let God’s light shine through him or her.
The Eucharist we celebrate on this occasion is our God blessing us with God’s love – forgiving us and healing us even as we celebrate, and molding us into the Body of Christ, empowering us to go out as grateful prophets of joyful hope and unconditional love, shining that light of Christ into the darkness of our world.
