In this
little real life incident, we are confronted with
evil behavior from person or persons with power.
Scripture provides us with many interesting
responses to violence. There are times when it is
prudent to suffer violence without whimpering.
Sometimes the evil is so destructive that more
vigorous non-violent response is indicated.
Sometimes the powerful act out of greed or lust
for power. At other times those who commit such
acts of vandalism wish to be considered brave
"male men" by their peers. Before
taking any action, it is important to do a hard-nosed
"power analysis".
POWER
ANALYSIS
What is the
source of the perpetrators'/oppressors'
power?
Possible answers:
money, weapons, support of upper level
criminal associations, admiration of
followers for leaders' bravery,
manliness, street smarts, favors bestowed
on flunkies, informal co-existence with
police and historical bond of loyalty
among the brotherhood.
Do the oppressors
have the power to meet our just demands
even if they want to?
Possible answers: "higher-ups"
would not permit loss of income. Leaders
would loose to much credibility in the
pecking order and replaced.
What are the
vulnerabilities of the oppressor?
Possible answers: Loss of face,
fearful of powerful leaders, so has
reputation for only being brave enough to
bully the weak, media attention.
In a conflict,
what additional harm can the oppressor
inflict upon the victims?
Possible answers: break school
windows, start vicious rumors, physical
attack.
What is the
source of the victims' power?
Possible answers: local and
international net-working with other
victims, advocates and experts. Access to
sympathetic local and worldwide media.
Grassroots sources of information.
Is the hoped for
gain commensurate to the risk of greater
oppression?
Possible answers:
NO - Not likely to happen again so leave
well enough alone.
YES - The damage inflicted upon these
oppressors outweighs the additional harm
to the victims.
There is a possibility of eventual
conversion.
What strategy
promises the greatest possibility of
success with the minimum of risk?
You may wish to comment on the "Letter
" at the end of the sermon. It takes
a pastoral approach by appealing to the
basic human dignity and manhood of the
"leader."
MATTHEW 13: 24-30 A
HOMILY
PART I: We
ask how would Jesus view this little piece of
mischief at our school? Surprise! In this
morning's gospel, Jesus tells us his point of
view and indicates how we might wish to respond.
In today's parable Matthew tells
how a landowner and his servants carefully plant
a field with good seed. But at 3 A.M. a sneaky
enemy comes and sows weeds.
And after a few weeks servants
discover the weeds. The servants "go bananas"
with anger. They want to run around like headless
chickens pulling up weeds. But the master calmly
reminds them that they won't know until the
harvest which are wheat sprouts and which are
weeds. There is danger that the servants will be
pulling up not only weeds but also good wheat. So
let them both grow together until harvest.
Applying this parable to our
situation, Jesus is saying: "I want the man
who permitted the defacement of the buildings to
be saved. There is still some good wheat in their
hearts. Maybe as children, he himself was abused
as a children. On the other hand, perhaps a
teacher, a grandmother or a kind neighbor sowed a
few good seeds in his heart and the hearts of his
followers. Jesus wants to forgive all these men
and give them some time for the seeds of the
Kingdom to grow inside them. Jesus wants them to
become real men before the harvest. So for the
present, Jesus tells us to let the good wheat and
the evil weeds grow together on Cheung Chau. We
hope that we at Our Lady of Fatima can peacefully
co-exist with and have no further interaction
with the forces of evil. That is the way I would
wish Jesus had ended this parable but there is
more!
PART II:
There is harvest time.
"Let them both grow till the
harvest; and at harvest time I shall say to the
reapers:
First collect the
darnel
and tie it in
bundles to be burnt."
There are two things that I don't
like about these words of Jesus.
Jesus doesn't say:
"I, Jesus, the all powerful
Son of God, will collect the weeds and burn them."
Rather he says: "I will say
to the reapers - US! ME! - collect the weeds and
burn them." If you ask me, that sounds
pretty dangerous!
We always have to ask ourselves
as we read the gospel: "Is it the harvest
time?" When the poor suffer too much
oppression and injustice, Jesus may whisper in
our ears: "It is harvest time". We like
to think of harvest time as taking place at the
end of time. The gentle Jesus gives us an example
of ruthless and early harvesting in Matthew 23.
In front of the crowds Jesus
called the powerful bullies of his day: "You
are like white-washed tombs, beautiful to look at
on the outside but inside full of filth and dead
men's bones." (Matthew 23: 27) The crowd
knew that bones don't have skin and reproductive
organs. The crowd would easily guess that Jesus
was intimating that these powerful people were
not real men. The Pharisees got upset and plotted
to kill Jesus. By these "white sepulcher"
words, Jesus had begun the process of "collecting
and burning".
RESPONSE:
Let us look again at the gospel
and the defacement of our school. There are three
responses.
Jesus wants us to humbly
suffer this injustice and pray
that it doesn't happen again. That is the
response that most appeals to me.
Jesus wants us to be
reapers: "collect and burn"
by making a "big media stink."
See Lesson 2 of Social Concerns Notes:
"The King is Naked". The
cowardly men who frighten old priests,
little kids and insult the Blessed Mother
in the middle of the night, symbolically,
do not have male equipment.
Jesus is the good
shepherd always searching for the lost
sheep - the pastoral approach.
POSSIBLE PASTORAL
APPROACH
[Christ died for this Cheung Chau
man and his followers. I am sure there are some
good seeds planted in their hearts -- maybe by
mothers or a kind teacher. Maybe Jesus, the Good
Shepherd, is giving us this opportunity to call
these people to use their power and leadership
skills to help our young people rather than
frightening little Kindergarten kids.]
Dear Sir,
I would like to politely and
pastorally invite you to come to visit me I want
to talk with me man to man and in the
daylight - not like the cowardly
cockroaches who come out at night. I am old. I
don't have any flunkies to protect me. You should
not be afraid of me.
First of all I would want to ask
you: "Have I or my staff ever offended you?
Did the Blessed Mother ever offend you? Did the
little children every offend you?
I don't recall ever having
offended you, but if I have unjustly offended you
I will apologize and ask your forgiveness.
Then I want you to sit with me in
this Church and tell me that the rumor is
not true and that you knew absolutely nothing
about this attack on the Blessed Mother and our
little children.
However, if we have not offended
you in anyway and you had prior information of
this cowardly action to frighten us and our
little children, why did you not come like a man
and tell me. You must not be afraid of me. I
can't hurt you. I could have pointed out the
mistake and you would have avoided making a fool
of yourself and intimidating little kids. When
a real man makes a mistake, he admits it and
apologizes.
If you come, I will not scold you.
Although I do not approve of your behavior still
I would respect you and would consider you to be
a real man. I am sure there is much good in your
heart planted by someone who truly loved you.
However if you are too afraid to
come alone to see me, I want you to know that as
long as I am pastor of Our Lady of Fatima, should
you, or any member of his family or your
followers ever need me, be severely ill or dying,
I will come. Who knows? Perhaps some day we could
become brothers.
"And at the harvest they
will gather the good wheat in my barn."
Pastorally yours,
Father ________
REFERENCES
"First of all, conflict [evil],
expressed by violence, is a fact, a new fact, in
all its breadth: this violence is everywhere..."
Reflections by Cardinal Maurice
Roy on the Occasion of the Tenth Anniversary of
the Encyclical 'Pacem in Terris' of Pope John
XXIII (April 11, 1973" Joseph Gremillion,
The Gospel of Peace and Justice, Catholic Social
Teaching since Pope John, (Maryknoll, New York:
Orbis, 1976) pp. 548.
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