DID  YOU  EVER  WANT 

TO  KILL  SOMEONE?

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is,  “Did You Ever Want to Kill Someone?”

Well,  I don’t mean “kill” or “murder” - but I do mean having mean feelings that I want so and so to disappear - because I’m filled with  anger - and oops - sometimes ferocious anger - anger that makes me tighten my fists and shake a bit.

It could be a parent or a sibling - a coach or a teacher - or someone who breaks our trust or our jaw - dumps or cheats on us - hurts us big time.

I feel hesitation bringing up this topic - bringing this feeling up - especially in a high school gathering for a Mass. And we’ve seen in the news in our life time school shootings.   Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

And yes - schools sometimes have lock downs - about all this.

So don’t do this - because this sermon could be blamed - for such a horrific act to happen.

It scares me - preaching on this - on a nice almost Spring day in March.

Yet I’m aware that it’s not the day - it’s the occasion - when this question of killing others - shows up.

We see killings on the evening news - in our video games - our movies - that sometimes have massive violence scenes. We’ve read in English classes some of the tragedies of Shakespeare - especially Macbeth, Hamlet and King Lear.

TODAY’S READINGS

In my defense for bringing up this topic - this question comes up loud and clear in today’s readings.

The first reading from Jeremiah 20: 10-13 begins with Jeremiah saying, “I hear the whispers of all many - yelling out, “Terror!” I hear people complaining about me - denouncing me - wanting to take vengeance on me.”

Jeremiah spoke out announcing to the people of Jerusalem that God is not happy with their behavior - and we know what happens to those who correct us - and challenge us - we want to shut them up - even kill them.

Yet they keep singing and screaming that the times they are a - changing - so read the signs of the times and change - but who listens.

No wonder prophets begin, "Hear!"

They know people don't want to hear prophecies - messages they don't want to hear. 

Jeremiah is throw down a cistern - into mud. He doesn’t drown - and is eventually rescued - but sometimes people want to kill other people to shut them up.

And in today’s gospel from John10: 31-42 the crowds want to kill Jesus. They pick up rocks to thrown at him.

He challenges them - saying, “You  have seem me do many good works. I have shown you my Father.”

They scream at him the reason they want to stone him to death. It’s for blasphemy - saying he was God.

HOLY WEEK

We’re about to enter into Holy Week - the last week of Lent.

We’re going to go through once more - year after year - the death of Jesus Christ on the Cross.

He was killed.

If you come to church next week - you too will scream - when we read the Passion and Death Account of Jesus - what the crowds screamed at Jesus, “Crucify him. Crucify him.”

“Kill him!”

And they did.

So that’s a reason why I entitled this homily, “Did you ever want to kill someone?”

Two weeks ago in a homily I mentioned a poem entitled, “Indifference” from a British writer - G. A. Studdart Kennedy.

It pictures Jesus coming back again - this time to the city of Birmingham in England - and Jesus is standing there in the streets of that big city - but this time everyone is ignoring him as he stands there in the rain.

And he longs for Jerusalem - where there are people screaming - but this time people are killing him by their silence - by ignoring him.

What hit me about that poem is that today we kill God - the God within us - the God in our streets - and in our life - in our school - and in our homes and our family not by wooden crosses - but often by silence.

We get this.

We’ve all been killed by silence - by neglect - by people dissing us in 1,001 subtle and different ways.

I’ve been up here in the pulpit many times and someone aborts me by the watch look. They hold up their wrist in the middle of my sermon and look at the time - and then follow with a stretch and a yawn.

I’m against abortion - but abortion of others - crucifixion of others in 1,001 different ways. There’s a guy who stands in the back - against the wall there - just inside the back entrance - and he reads the bulletin - all through my sermon. I pause - a few times more - to see if he’ll look up - to see what happened. No luck.

I say this - because I notice this. I feel this. I do this

It kills us all ever so slightly.

We do this to parents, brothers and sisters, teachers, bathroom cleaners, bus drivers, waiters and waitresses - all the time. We abort them. We kill them. We ignore them. We don’t notice them.

LET ME START WITH GOD

Many of us kill God - crucify God - abort God - ignore God - and leave God standing there in the rain - all alone.

We don’t scream in the night, “God you’re dead. Goodbye!”

We don’t rip all those pages in the Bible that mention God. We just put the book sideways on the bottom shelf of our bookshelf or use the Bible as a door stop - of the door that shuts out God.

NEXT OTHERS

And we do the same with others.

Every high school retreat I’ve ever been on, kids see kids they never saw before.

Small groups can be small surprises - or sometimes big surprises.

In the past 5 years - or is it longer - some people spend the meal  with people who are not at table with them - but people they are texting or talking with on a iPhone or what have you.

Then there are small wars. People don’t pick up stones to kill others - but they do pick up words to throw at each other.

Then there are the big wars. The history of the world - the history of this century so far and the last century - where I grew up in - and some of you have both feet in for starters - is wars and rumors of war - local and evening news world.

I heard Spike Lee say last night on the radio that 99 people die every day in the United States because of gun violence.

SELF KILLING

Spike Lee said that of those 99 people who are killed by guns,  33 of them are by suicide.

The title of my homily is, “Did You Ever Want to Kill Someone.”

Sometimes that someone is ourselves. We want to disappear - abort ourselves - blot out ourselves.

We’re sick and tired of being bullied or hurt.

How many young people have killed themselves to get even with someone who hurt them or dumped them or dropped them. This will get them.

CONCLUSION

In this homily I want to address this issue that will preoccupy us next week - holy week.

The stations of the Cross in every Catholic Church give us pictures way before TV or misjudgments, condemnations, violence, till we finally reach the 12^th station over there - when Jesus dies on the cross.

People hated him - spit at him - screamed at him - along the way of the cross.

He did standing up for those who were scapegoated - because people refused to talk to themselves and others and our God about the ferocious anger that can dominate us at times.

We get crossed - double crossed - cut - hurt - crucified silently and violently every day.

Christ on the cross can help us deal with all this pain - today - next week and for the rest of our lives.

Lent - coming to church - is a time to face all these inner voices and screams.

And please notice that Holy Week doesn’t end on Good Friday - if it did - it would be called, “Bad Friday.”

Nope it ends and a new beginning happens on Easter Sunday - when Christ rose from the dead - and calls all those who have died to resurrection and new life.

That means now for all - including those amongst us who have died and been in the tomb for years now.