About Things That Matter

Readings for 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time: IS 55:10-11; PS 65:10-14; ROM 8:15-23; MT 13: 1-23; http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/071314.cfm

Last week, on the 4th of July, Amy Goodman replayed an interview with the legendary folk singer, Pete Seeger. In the course of the interview, Pete commented on today’s Gospel reading – the familiar parable of the Sower. His words are simple, unpretentious and powerful. They’re reminders that the stories Jesus made up were intended for ordinary people – for peasants and unschooled farmers. They were meant to encourage such people to believe that simple farmers could change the world – could bring in God’s Kingdom. Doing so was as simple as sowing seeds.

Seeger said:

“Realize that little things lead to bigger things. That’s what Seeds is all about. And there’s a wonderful parable in the New Testament: The sower scatters seeds. Some seeds fall in the pathway and get stamped on, and they don’t grow. Some fall on the rocks, and they don’t grow. But some seeds fall on fallow ground, and they grow and multiply a thousand fold. Who knows where some good little thing that you’ve done may bring results years later that you never dreamed of?”

Farmers in Jesus’ day needed encouragement like that. They were up against the Roman Empire which considered them terrorists. We need encouragement too as we face Rome’s counterpart headed by the U.S.

The obstacles we face are overwhelming. I even hate to mention them. But the short list includes the following – all connected to seeds, and farming, and to cynically controlling the natural abundance which is celebrated in today’s readings as God’s gift to all. Our problems include:

• Creation of artificial food scarcity by corporate giants such as Cargill who patent seeds for profit while prosecuting farmers for the crime of saving Nature’s free production from one harvest to the following year’s planting.
• Climate change denial by the rich and powerful who use the Jesus tradition to persuade the naïve that control of natural processes and the resulting ecocide are somehow God’s will.
• Resulting wealth concentration in the hands of the 85 men who currently own as much as half the world’s (largely agrarian) population.
• Suppression of that population’s inevitable resistance by terming it “terrorism” and devoting more than half of U.S. discretionary spending to military campaigns against farmers and tribal Peoples scattering seed and reaping pitiful harvests in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine.
• Ignoring what the UN has pointed out for years (and Thomas Picketty has recently confirmed): that a 4% tax on the world’s richest 225 individuals would produce the $40 billion dollars or so necessary to provide adequate food, water, shelter, clothing, education and health care for the entire world where more than 40% still earn livings by sowing seeds.
• Blind insistence by our politicians on moving in the opposite direction – reducing taxes for the rich and cutting programs for the poor and protection of our planet’s water and soil.

It’s the tired story of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. In today’s Gospel, Jesus quotes the 1st century version of that old saw. In Jesus’ day it ran: “. . . to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.”

Today’s liturgy of the word reminds us that such cynical “wisdom” does not represent God’s way. Instead the divine order favors abundance of life for all – not just for the 1%. as our culture would have it. For instance, today’s responsorial psalm proclaims that even without human intervention, the rains and wind plow the ground. As a result, we’re surrounded with abundance belonging to all:

“You have crowned the year with your bounty,
and your paths overflow with a rich harvest;
The untilled meadows overflow with it,
and rejoicing clothes the hills.
The fields are garmented with flocks
and the valleys blanketed with grain.
They shout and sing for joy.”

Because of God’s generosity, there is room for everyone in the Kingdom. The poor have enough; so poverty disappears. Meanwhile, the formerly super-rich have only their due share of the 1/7 billionth part of the world’s product that rightfully belongs to everyone.

To repeat: abundance for all is the way of Nature – the way of God.

Only a syndrome of denial – willful blindness and deafness – enables the rich and powerful to continue their exploitation. Jesus describes the process clearly in today’s final reading. He says:

“They look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand.
Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says:
You shall indeed hear but not understand,
you shall indeed look but never see.
Gross is the heart of this people,
they will hardly hear with their ears,
they have closed their eyes,
lest they see with their eyes
and hear with their ears
and understand with their hearts and be converted,
and I heal them.”

Those of us striving to follow Jesus’ Way hear his call to open our eyes and ears. Conversion – deep change at the personal and social levels – is our shared vocation. That’s the only way to bring in God’s Kingdom. Individually our efforts might be as small and insignificant as tiny seeds. But those seeds can be powerful if aligned with the forces of Nature and the Kingdom of God. That’s true even if much of what we sow falls on rocky ground, are trampled underfoot, eaten by birds or are choked by thorns. We never know which seeds will come to fruition.

Such realization means:

• Lowering expectations about results from our individual acts in favor of the Kingdom.
• Nonetheless deepening our faith and hope in the inevitability of the Kingdom’s coming as the result of innumerable small acts that coalesce with similar acts performed by others.

Once again, Pete Seeger expressed it best:

“Imagine a big seesaw. One end of the seesaw is on the ground because it has a big basket half full of rocks in it. The other end of the seesaw is up in the air because it’s got a basket one quarter full of sand. Some of us have teaspoons and we are trying to fill it up. Most people are scoffing at us. They say, “People like you have been trying for thousands of years, but it is leaking out of that basket as fast as you are putting it in.” Our answer is that we are getting more people with teaspoons every day. And we believe that one of these days or years — who knows — that basket of sand is going to be so full that you are going to see that whole seesaw going zoop! in the other direction. Then people are going to say, “How did it happen so suddenly?” And we answer, “Us and our little teaspoons over thousands of years.”

Readings for 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time: ZEC 9:9-10; PS 145: 1-2, 8-11, 13-14; ROM 8:9, 11-13; MT 11:25-30; http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/070614.cfm

Two weeks ago
Between innings
Of a Cubs-Pirates game
At Wrigley Field,
They celebrated a Marine from Iraq –
A local boy
Who emerged from the Cubs’ dugout
Waving
To a hero’s welcome
From a crowd on its feet
Cheering
Between swigs of PBR
As if the poor kid had hit
A game-winning dinger.

Reluctantly I stood up with the rest.

I now regret my applause.
I should have remembered shaved-headed
Brain-washed innocents
Kicking in front doors
Petrifying children
Calling their parents “mother f_ _kers”
And binding tender wrists
With plastic handcuffs.
To rid the world of evil.

Pitiful brainwashed innocents,
They are
Driven to war by poverty
And debt
To Haditha, Fallujah, Abu Grahib,
To weddings transformed in a flash and bang
Into funerals
Leaving mourners shocked and awed –
“Collateral Murder,”
By what King called
“The greatest purveyor of violence in the world”
And what the Sandinista hymn identified as
“The enemy of mankind.”

I should have remembered
Iraq (and Afghanistan btw)
Were wars of choice,
Of aggression,
“The supreme international crime.”

Why did I not recall Zechariah?
(And here come my references to the readings for this Sunday)
And the peace-making Messiah
Christians claim he prophesied.
The prophet’s Promised One would be
Gentle and meek
Riding an ass
Rather than a war horse
Or Humvee
And banishing chariots, cross-bows
And drones raining hell-fire
From the skies.
His kingdom disarmed
Would encompass the entire world.
Refusing to call
Any of God’s “little ones”
(To use our military’s terms of art)
“Rag-heads” or “Sand ni_ ggers”

Paul called such imperial hate-speech “flesh.”
(Judging by appearances like skin color, nationality, religion)
“Live according to Christ’s Spirit,” Paul urged.
(Compassion for all, works of mercy)
No room for door-kickers there.

I should have remembered Jesus
And his yoke.
So good and light
He said
Compared with
The heavy burdens
The Roman War-makers
Laid on their subjects
Who kicked in Nazareth’s doors
And called parents like Joseph and Mary
“Mother f_cking Jews.”

Their imperial generals were “learned” and “wise”
In the ways of the world
But they piled crushing burdens
On the shoulders
Of those “little ones”
Jesus preferred –
In places far from the imperial center
Like Palestine (or Iraq today).
Victims there might be out of sight
And mind
For those enjoying bread, circuses
Cubs and Pirates,
But not for the All Parent
Described by the Psalmist today
As gracious, merciful, slow to anger, hugely kind, benevolent to all, compassionate, faithful, holy, and lifting up (rather than crushing) those who have fallen under the weight of the burdens Jesus decries.

I should have asked,
If following that Messiah
If worshipping that All Parent
Allowed standing and applauding
A robot returned
From a war
Where over a million civilians have been slaughtered
To rid the world of violence.
(In 1942 would I have joined the crowd
Applauding an S.S. “hero” in a Munich stadium
Just back from the front –or Auschwitz?
Or a pilot who had bombed Pearl Harbor
At a “Wrigley Field” in Tokyo?)

No: I should have had the courage
To remain seated.
And so should we all
Instead of
• Celebrating the military
• Waving flags on the 4th of July
• Paying war taxes
• And wondering with Fox newscasters
What makes America great?

Readings for the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul: Acts 12: 1-11; PS 34: 2-9; 2TM 4: 6-8, 17-18; MT 16: 13-19, http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/062914-day-mass.cfm

Pope Francis is at it again. He’s throwing stones at the U.S. Empire. (Details to follow.) Today’s liturgy of the word tells us that in doing so Francis is following in the footsteps of St. Peter, the” rock-thrower” of whom tradition tells us Pope Francis the successor.

The liturgy promises that joining Francis and Peter in their resistance to empire, while accepting the mysterious keys to God’s kingdom can release us from even the most impregnable imperial prison. This should give all of us encouragement as we struggle against the powerful “beast” whose policies would rather see behind bars people like Francis, Peter and many reading this homily.

To begin with, think about our prophet-pope. Three weeks ago, he reaffirmed what has become a theme of his papacy. Without mentioning the United States by name, he condemned the economic system “America” and its European partners champion.

He also condemned the wars the U.S. prosecutes and weaponizes. According to the pope, far from advancing freedom or democracy, the purpose of such war is to maintain a system of greed based on the worship of money. As such, that system is the cause of scandalous inequalities and unemployment across the globe – even as exposed by French economist, Thomas Picketty in his best-selling Capitalism in the Twenty-first Century.

Here are the pope’s actual words:

“We discard a whole generation to maintain an economic system that no longer endures – a system that to survive has to make war, as the big empires have always done. But since we cannot wage the Third World War, we make regional wars. And what does that mean? That we make and sell arms. And with that the balance sheets of the idolatrous economies — the big world economies that sacrifice man at the feet of the idol of money — are obviously cleaned up.”

As indicated earlier, those words can be understood as following the anti-imperial rock-throwing tradition of Simon the apostle. After all the nom de guerre of that particular insurgent was “Peter,” a name some say meant “rock-thrower” – probably a reference to his prowess at hurling stones at Roman soldiers who occupied his homeland of Galilee. Peter was an insurgent not unlike those who have plagued U.S. misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. In today’s gospel, Matthew turns rock-throwing into an anti-imperial metaphor describing the foundation of the Jesus Movement.

The evangelist does so by having Jesus raise three Socratic questions about God’s reign contrasted with Caesar’s – always the focus of Jesus’ teaching.

Jesus’ first question sets an “apocalyptic” tone for the other two. The question represents a marker telling us that what follows will be highly political – a criticism of the imperial order Jesus and his friends found it so painful to live under. (The literary form “apocalypse” always entailed critique of empire.)

So seemingly out of the blue, the carpenter-rabbi asks, “Who do people say the ‘Son of Man’ is?” The question refers us, not to Jesus, but to a revolutionary character introduced in the Book of Daniel – written during the occupation of Palestine under the Greek emperor, Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Daniel’s character was “the Human One.” The book’s author sets that figure in sharp contrast to “the Beasts” (including a lion, a leopard and an iron-toothed dragon) who represent the imperial oppressors of Israel from the Egyptians through the Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes, Persians, and Greeks. In Jesus’ context, the Roman occupiers were the latest bestial incarnation. Everyone knew that.

According to Daniel’s author, the Human One would establish God’s compassionate (humanistic) order destined to replace all savage imperial arrangements. The resulting Kingdom would be friendly not to the royalty, the generals, “our troops,” or the 1%, but to those the biblical tradition identifies as God’s favorites – the widows, orphans, and undocumented foreigners. (This Sunday’s responsorial psalm calls such people the poor, the lowly, fearful, ashamed and distressed. They are the ones, the responsorial says, whom God can be counted on to rescue.)

In answer to Jesus’ question about the Son of Man’s identity, his disciples answer, “Some say he was John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

Then Jesus asks, “what about me? Who do you think I am in the apocalyptic context I’ve just set – at this particularly pregnant moment when all of us are breathlessly expecting a change in World Order? That’s Jesus’ second question this morning.

Not surprisingly, Peter takes the bait. “You are the messiah,” he responds, “the Son of God.” With these words, the Jewish fisherman is not making a scholar’s metaphysical statement about Jesus’ “consubstantiality” with “the Father.” Rather, he’s distinguishing Jesus from the Roman emperor – the most prominent claimant to the titles, “Messiah” and “Son of God.” Yes, both “Messiah” and “Son of God” were imperial titles. Everyone knew that too.

This makes Peter’s statement highly political. It identifies Jesus as the true head of the New Order which prophets like John the Baptist, Elijah and Jeremiah painted as the Dream of God. In words more relevant to our own time, Peter’s “confession of faith” is like saying “You, Jesus, are the real President, and your order has nothing to do with the United States or ‘America.’ In fact, it turns the values of empires – be they Rome or the United States – completely on their heads.”

Jesus’ response? (And this is the implied third question raised by Jesus – about Peter’s identity.) “You’re right, Simon. They don’t call you ‘Rock Thrower’ for nothing. And you’ve just thrown the most devastating rock of your life – this time at the Roman Empire itself. God’s kingdom puts the last first, the poor above the rich, and prostitutes and tax collectors ahead of priests and rabbis.

Jesus’ further comment shows that Peter has not merely thrown a rock; his understanding of God’s “preferential option for the poor” has moved a mountain. Recognizing Jesus and his priorities as the alternative to empire’s bestial order provides the foundation for the entire Jesus Movement.

It provides the KEY to the very kingdom of heaven. And the key is this: all human acts, whether they bind others (as empires always do) or free them (as Jesus’ followers are called to do) have cosmic significance. “What you bind on earth,” Jesus says, is bound in heaven. What you loose upon earth is loosed in heaven.” To repeat: empire’s nature is to bind the poor. In contrast, Jesus’ followers are called to loosen the bonds of those the empire identifies as “the least.” No effort on behalf of human liberation is insignificant. Despite appearances, they are stronger than those of empire.

As if to illustrate the overwhelming power of God’s loosening over imperial bondage, today’s opening reading from the Acts of the Apostles recounts the miraculous release of Peter from prison. (Prisoners, of course, are also prominent among God’s favorites.) Like our situation today as we attempt to oppose the beast of empire, Peter’s seemed particularly hopeless to say the least. Rome’s puppet, Herod, was waging a major persecution of Jesus’ followers – for their Christ-like opposition to his patron, Caesar. In the process, prominent community leaders have been killed.

Peter himself has been arrested and is awaiting trial. He’s guarded by 16 heavily armed soldiers. He’s restrained by twice as many chains as normal. As he sleeps, one guard stands vigilant to Peter’s right, another to his left. Guards are also posted outside the prison door. The entire city is locked by an iron gate.

And yet Peter escapes. An “angel” (a representative of the cosmic power Jesus referred to) comes to Peter’s rescue. Almost as in a dream, he passes through one obstacle after another. And suddenly the “powers of heaven” set him free.

Joseph Stalin once famously belittled papal power by asking, “And how many divisions does the pope have?” The answer in today’s gospel –“innumerable.” Pope Francis’ words will have their effect, because their point is to loosen the bonds restraining the world’s poor. In the long run, empire’s power is doomed.

Be like Francis then. Resist neo-liberalism and the wars that force its policies on the world. Speak the truth. Work for justice.

History, the cosmos – God is on our side!

That’s the message of today’s liturgy of the word.