VIOLENCE
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily is, “Violence.”
To spell it out for the sake of clarity: V I O L E N C E
I would like to think out loud a bit about violence, because it’s an issue that is wedged into today’s first reading.
I'm sure you noticed the violence in today's gospel as well. It presents some of John the Baptist’s message. He preaches with some rather violent images. I don’t think I would enjoy Sabbath services, if the preacher was a John the Baptist type. I sense some people want that – but saying that up here from the pulpit, without a chance for response, could be a sneaky low blow on my part – and that’s a point I want to make in this sermon as well. There is such a thing as sneaky subtle violence.
So I would like to think out loud a bit about violence, because I think it’s a reality we ought to reflect upon from time to time.
A RABBI & THE KORAN
I was at a Jewish wedding a few years ago and I was talking to the Rabbi who asked me if I had read the Koran. I said, “No.”
“Well,” he said, “I was thinking we all ought to read it – in an effort to understand each other.”
So I began reading it – knowing one misses most of the nuances – if one cannot read it and understand it in its original Arabic language.
Somewhere, after reading about 60 pages, I began to notice the word “fire” over and over again. I went back to page 1 and started to read the Koran from the beginning again, this time underlining the word “fire” with an orange highlighter pen.
I began to notice lots of violence and annihilation. I kept spotting that unbelievers and those who did evil were being condemned to hell – forever – and God is the one doing this.
Yes, the translation I had picked used the word, “God” for “Allah”.
I knew the mid-east word for “God” was “Al”, “Allah”, “El”. We know that “El”, one of the Hebrew words for “God”, is at the tail end of various Hebrew first names, Rachel, Michael, Nathaniel, Daniel, Samuel. There it is at the beginning of Elizabeth’s name as well. I couldn’t find out if Eleanor fits in there. Then there’s Elijah and Eli.
Being a football Giant fan, obviously, I wish Eli would live up to his name a lot more – today against the Eagles and next week against the dreadful Redskins.
Ooops, I’m getting sidetracked, and I’m making a sneaky dig at the Redskins. And many people consider football a very violent game as well.
THE BIBLE
While reading the Koran slowly over a long period of time, I began to notice the word “fire” in the Hebrew Scriptures as well – as well as violence – and then I began to also notice both “fire” and violence in the Christian Scriptures.
That became an “uh oh” of an echo as I read the Bible.
Haven’t we all read a Psalm – and it’s beautiful – and we’re enjoying the prayer and right in the middle of the beauty is a zinger – wanting God to zap someone?
CLOSING THE BOOKS
Closing both books, the Bible and the Koran, I began asking myself, “How about violence inside the pages of my story? How about fire and violence inside the pages of my emotions?”
Obviously, both appear in everyday newspapers and TV news reports. But how about self? Myself?
I needed to make an examination – to look at a check list – but where do I begin?
Not having children, not being married, instead of spouse or kids, I began with road rage as the first place to examine my life.
I probably have beeped at dumb drivers about 10 times in my life – but not out of anger – but as an attempt to wake folks up – on cell phones – or because they switched lanes without a signal and almost caused an accident.
Living with priests I have the experience married folks have of driving with those you live with – and some priest drivers have scared me. I discovered experientially from other priests that there are Type A Behavior drivers and Type B Behavior drivers. Type A are tailgaters. Type B are not. But Type B bother Type A types. Based on my words there, obviously I am a Type B Behavior driver. I like the middle lane – go 3 to 5 miles over the speed limit on the big roads – and use cruise control whenever possible – and I know this annoys some people. Sorry. Hey, I’m trying to accept you. Please try to accept me.
Little kids screaming in church don’t bother me. For some folks this drives them nuts. I hear screams. We all hear screams. Scream. Scream. Scream. And I’ve heard many people complain about priests who complain about screaming babies. I’m not dumb. Like everyone else, I don’t like criticism. So screams are part of life. Growing up, our family never had a car – so we took public transportation. I have very early memories of going to visit our cousin in Elmhurst, Long Island, New York, my dad’s brother’s family, and being cranky and crying – when they had to wake me up on the way home when we had to switch different trains to get back to Brooklyn.
And I have lots of nieces with lots of little ones. I’ve seen kids scream and yell and laugh and smile – in the same minute. And like grandparents, I only see them for short spans of time. Parents have to deal with kids all the time – and then there are the teenage years.
Last week I was on retreat for three days with the junior class in our high school – and this coming week I’ll be with some seniors for a 4 day retreat.
I have been reading anything I notice on the teenage brain. One image that hit me was that there is a rusty switch in there and it’s great when something goes through their skull and flips that switch and the kid has an epiphany moment.
FRUSTRATION: TO YELL OR NOT TO YELL
Examining my conscience on this theme of violence within my story, I see myself as “The Silent Type.”
I don’t see this as virtue – but as an inherited reality. Both my parents were the silent types – my dad especially. He was all smile.
I do regret that I wasn’t smart enough to have had long talks with him about what he was thinking and feeling through the years.
I did sit down with him once – just before he died – and jotted down about 30 to 40 pages of notes about where he came from and where he worked and lived. I found out about his 9 years of love letters to my mom asking her to marry him. But as to feelings – regrets – resentments – frustrations – no. Yet, I sense, he was a man of deep peace – and all was blessing. All was gift. Praise God.
My mom was quiet as well – not as much as my dad - but like my dad and many in her generation – but less in mine – you didn’t get into touchy, feeling stuff. You just worked and did your life jobs – day after day after day.
Were they frustrated with life? Were they satisfied with life? Did they pinch themselves being blessed with 4 kids: two boys, two girls?
My sisters make quips at times that the boys were favored – especially my older brother – by my mom. Hey, the oldest boy in an Irish Catholic family, what else would you expect?
As I think about this, I realize we were at the bottom of the Richter Scale when it came to family earthquakes. We were poor, but we didn’t know it. We were blessed and we thought everyone else was as well.
Violence takes place not just in Iraq. It takes place in the heart and the home as well.
I came home one Christmas from the Seminary and my sister Mary showed me the front page of The New York Daily News. A kid I knew from across the street had shot his mother and killed her. This was long before cell phones. He wanted to get on the phone and she was on the phone too long talking to her boyfriend.
Violence was not too far from our doorstep.
PASSIVE AGRESSION
It wasn’t till I took courses in pastoral counseling that I heard about passive aggression – subtle sabotage by someone against someone else – silent digs – locked doors – slammed doors – frozen faces. “I’m sleeping on the couch.” “You can go to bed. I’ll be up later. There’s something I want to see on TV or there’s something I have to take care of on my computer.”
I know I prefer silence as my weapon of choice.
I know it works – or at least I hope it works – to get people to stop and think – “Maybe my behavior is bothering people.”
I know silence sometimes makes people stop and think.
What is your weapon of choice?
Yelling?
Like silence one has to ask, does it work? Or do others become immune or inoculated by angry outbursts – that stick like a needle – hurt for the moment – and then we become better fortified from another’s angry outbursts.
I think silence and passive aggression are better than violence and angry shouts. Nobody is shot. Things are not broken. People are not physically hurt. However, ....
COMMUNION AND COMMUNICATION
Obviously communion – sitting down to a peace table in Annapolis and holding peace talks will certainly make every family in Annapolis better.
Obviously, gripe sessions – what’s going wrong around here? – are important; but then we better counterbalance the gripe sessions with grateful sessions and talk about – what’s going right around here? We need to give everyone a chance to thank those who are pulling their load – lugging the garbage out, vacuuming, sweeping, emptying the dish washer, keeping the bathroom or bathrooms clean, picking up after oneself, etc. as well as labeling laziness as laziness and challenging each other for a fair distribution of work.
A home or a workplace where people are grinding their teeth with inner conversations of resentment after resentment, chewing on the cud of the crud around here, and then sniping with words at coffee breaks, etc. is not a healthy place to be.
FIRST READING
That brings me back to today’s first reading. It’s from Isaiah and it describes with great imagination what every home, neighborhood, workplace, county, country, world can be.
Edwin Hicks did over 60 paintings of this Peaceable Kingdom that Isaiah describes in chapter 11.
He dreams that there is always hope. A divorce or a death can be seen as the family tree being cut down – but surprise, Isaiah sees a shoot sprouting from the stump of Jesse. There is always hope. A root might look empty, but surprise, Isaiah spots a bud blossoming.
He sees that the Spirit of the Lord can change things.
He sees a spirit of wisdom and understanding, counsel and strength, knowledge and fear of the Lord, can change things.
He sees that an end to judgment by appearance and hearsay is called for.
Then – it happens every time – some violence sneaks into even Isaiah’s beautiful dream here. Just as I was reading words of violence and annihilation in the Koran, here Isaiah has God striking the ruthless with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked.
Then he switches back to his dream – after God zapped the bad guys – the wolf shall be the guest of the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the goat, the calf with the young lion, and a child shall lead them.
What a beautiful dream – lions eating with ox, cows with bears, and the child being able to play near the cobra’s den.
CONCLUSION
As the song line goes in My Fair Lady, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful?”
Isaiah’s dream is possible not impossible – when we start with ourselves and then with ourselves in our family and our small circles.
Isaiah’s dream is very possible when we take the time to open the pages of our own book – our own story – and see where we are violent, or angry, or frustrated, or silent, or aggressive, or passive.
Highlight with a bright orange marker those feelings. Then bring the Christ Child into that communion and communication with each other. Then let Christ grow up to the Adult Christ as we grow up as Adult Christians. Amen.
