SEVENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
19 FEBRUARY 2017
For
the past few weeks, we have been hearing from Saint Paul’s first letter to the
Church at Corinth. He has been urging the
members of that Christian community to avoid the “wisdom of this world.”
Scripture commentaries have helped me to understand the “wisdom” of that
ancient Roman community in Corinth. If
Paul were writing to the Church of Saint Pius in our day, what would he classify
as today’s “wisdom of this world”?
So, I did a
little survey of the television channels when I was working out at the
gym. There were a couple of soup operas
that highlighted marital infidelity and the revenge of the offended parties. I watched participants in the audience going
crazy about a friend guessing the correct price of a dream vacation on “the
Price Is Right”. I watched two guys
screaming at each other on ESPN about some slight suffered by a player in the
NBA. Then I tuned into two 24-hour news channels,
with “Breaking News” bannered on the bottom and the people putting down those
with whom they disagreed. I next saw a
clip about “keeping up with the Kardashians” and watched self-absorbed people
arguing about the “good” life. I even
tried to find recourse in the Cooking Channel, hoping to find a new
recipe. But instead, I watched an
aspiring young chef leaving the kitchen in despair after being chopped!
The
wasteland of daytime television reveals something about the “wisdom” of our
world. Instead, Saint Paul insists that
we embrace the wisdom of God, found most clearly in the cross of Jesus
Christ. Today, Jesus gives us specifics
about embracing his cross as true wisdom.
He speaks first about responding to violence and gives four
examples. In telling us to turn the
other cheek, he is not telling battered women to continue to put up with
abuse. Rather, he is telling us to find
creative ways to respond to insults and injuries. Turning the other cheek gives the violent
person a chance to reconsider. His next
advice involves some humor. If a poor
peasant is taken to court because someone wants his tunic, he can give over his
coat too, standing there naked and embarrassing the one who is trying to take
advantage. Roman soldiers often
humiliated Jewish residents by forcing them to carry their packs for a
mile. If a resident carries the pack for
two miles, he or she demonstrates that they depend on God, not on the rude
soldier. He urges us to be generous to
those who want to borrow, not worrying about whether we will be repaid.
Jesus also
reveals another way of embracing the cross – by loving our enemies. He is not talking about having warm feelings
for terrorists who want to murder and spread mayhem. He is calling us to want the best for
everyone, even for those who hate us. He
calls us to be perfect, not in the sense that we will be morally faultless in
all our daily conduct, but in the sense that we try to love as God loves. God loves everyone – even those who have no
intention of returning God’s love. It is
easy to love those who will return our favors or invite us to dinner after we
invite them. It is more difficult to love,
especially when we will not be repaid in any way.
In
rejecting the wisdom of this world, Jesus does not want us to be doormats. Nor does Paul, whom no one would have
considered a doormat! In fact, Martin
Luther King proved that responding in non-violent ways was the best way to
secure civil rights. The same is true of
Mahatma Gandhi. It is much more
difficult to embrace the wisdom of the cross.
But, if we have the courage to embrace the wisdom of the cross, then we
truly will be the temple of God. Our new
church is a beautiful temple that will serve this parish for generations. But the real temple dwells in this parish
community, especially if we take seriously the wisdom of the cross and trust in
the transforming love of Jesus Christ, who died not just for the righteous, but
for everyone.
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