SOME TOUGH WORDS FOR TODAY

 INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 13^th  Monday in Ordinary Time is, “Some Tough Words for Today.”

Both our readings have some tough words and challenges.

I’m sure the listeners - to Amos from 780 -745 B.C.  and to Jesus - around the year 33 - listened with “Uh Oh!”  feelings.

AMOS

Amos spoke out about how people were treating people.  People were selling people for silver or a pair of sandals. The weak and the lowly were trampled and forced out of the way.

That comment triggered something a priest I had worked with in Wisconsin once told  me. He was working in Nigeria. The army would come down busy streets in jeeps and trucks. The military with hard black hoses would hit people who were in their way on both sides of the road.

Amos said fathers and sons would go to the same prostitute. People would curse each other using God’s name. People would be drinking in God’s house.

Prophets would preach politics.

If Amos was around today - and preached what he was preaching  - there would be uproar. There would be screams to keep politics out of religion. There would be letters to the Bishop and to the Editor of the Local Papers.

JESUS PREACHED ABOUT SEEING MORE THAN JUST THE FLOWERS OF THE FIELD

That’s Amos. Now Jesus.

I’m sure you have heard the phrase: the hard sayings of Jesus.

In today’s gospel Jesus seems hard on people by saying “Let the dead bury their dead.”

Jesus cried when Lazarus died.

But Jesus also knew that some folks get caught up in death - and can’t rise to new life.

Death and burials in the time of Jesus were  much, much more difficult than our times.

Listen to these statistics. I found the following quote on page 211 of Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaug’s book, Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels.

In the Mediterranean basin in Jesus time, “By the mid-teens 60 % would have died, by the mid-twenties 75 %, and 90 % by the mid-forties. Perhaps 3 percent  reached their sixties.”

I visited Israel in the year 2000. As a result, I picture much of the land when I read or hear the Bible - when it talks about Palestine.  So too I remember that text I quoted from Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaug’s book.

It would be difficult to picture this, but when Jesus was looking at people like I’m looking at you today, most of the crowd was young and most had experienced a lot of deaths.

Jesus must have seen a lot of people down in the dumps with their deaths.

Here he is telling people bury your dead and move on.

When people tell me about keeping ashes in their house - I just listen.  I am aware that some people have heard some priest say, “You’re not allowed to do that.”

I think they have to learn to bury their dead and move on - but I keep my mouth shut. I believe people have to learn some things by experience.

I remember our provincial saying to me when I was the priest at my mother’s funeral, “I don’t know how you could do your mother’s funeral!” That surprised me. I said nothing. But I thought. “Of course I’m doing it - even though she was killed in a hit and run accident. This is what one does and one moves on.”

Of course we mourn and cry, but we move on.  We don’t stay in locked upper rooms - like when Jesus was arrested and killed - but Jesus rises from the dead - comes through our walls - says “Peace” and “Go!” and “Move it.”

CONCLUSION

The title of my homily for today is, “Some Tough Words for Today.”

I find them quite challenging. How about you?