Fr. Alan's homily for Sunday January 28th 2007

The Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time

The current issues between the Government and the Catholic Church in respect of the adoption of children by same-sex couples have raised many old ghosts on both sides. To many people outside it, the Church is perceived as homophobic, while perhaps to many within it, it seems not nearly homophobic enough. Neither side is happy, evidently.

Jesus having spoken gracious words to everyone's satisfaction in the Nazareth Synagogue, now tells them things they definitely do not want to hear: that God's mercy is not aimed only at right believing people or those who belong; that a despised Syrian and an even more despised foreign widow could receive grace is abhorrent to them.

It's abhorrent because they believe themselves to be right and everybody else wrong. We have seen what such fundamentalisms can do. This weekend is Holocaust Memorial Day remembering the six million Jews and many others killed because of it. Religious fundamentalism, as we know, can turn young people into bombers and mobs into murderers.

The idea that religion must be somehow pure, the domain of the perfect is what makes religion an evil. It is always the temptation of the pious to set up the barriers. Are you a good Catholic? Are you a good Moslem? If you stand just one millimetre outside the barriers erected by those who claim orthodoxy or right moral judgement, then it is too bad for you.

The Gospel today should remind us that it is good for us to hear the Lord saying things we may not want to hear, because after all, we have promised to listen to him. We pray that our ears and hearts may be open. Well, there are times when we may regret making that prayer. But we should not. Is a good discipline to listen with discomfort to what will be sometimes Christ's uncomfortable words. He comes as much to disturb as to console, and to cauterise, as much as to heal.

He slipped through the crowd and walked away says Saint Luke. This detail has always fascinated me. Christ dodges the enraged congregation. This is not just a clever piece of sleight of hand or swift footedness. There is a point here. Saint Luke means us to hear that this crowd of offended worshippers will indeed lose Christ. They will lose him because they have stopped listening to him. Indeed they have stopped listening to anything save their own rage. In that case, He who is himself The Word, the Word itself made flesh, will elude them in the din and slip away.