I was having an argument with the representative of a Phone Company the other day, and had to work very hard to express my anger about the company without being angry with the young lady I was talking to. You can see and hear me give this Homily on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBWo2qmrs_8
I am not sure how well I succeeded. We humans have very conventional ideas about how we should treat people, and that includes a natural inclination to blame the lowly servant because we cannot get at the boss; and surprisingly too often if we do meet the boss, we tend to be rather less aggressive, as if that person’s status meant we should give hm or her more respect.
In today’s Gospel (Matt 3:13-17) we meet once again the very unconventional figure of John the Baptist who, following the tradition of some of the great Old Testament prophets, is not afraid to challenge the existing order of things both by his words and his actions. We might expect therefore that he would have no trouble with the idea that the Messiah, as we heard from the Prophet Isaiah in our 1st Reading, (Isaiah 42:1-4.6-7) will come as a servant, not as a lord. Yet we find that when Jesus asks John to baptise him, John finds the idea so difficult to handle that Jesus has to be quite firm with him saying “It is fitting that we should, in this way, do all that righteousness demands.” Now we know how right this is, because we know the teaching of Jesus that, “The last will be first, and the first last.” (Matt 20:16) and “Which is the greater, one who sits at table, or one who serves? Is it not the one who sits at table? But I am among you as one who serves.” (Luke 22:27) We know too the words of Our Lady “He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree.” But of course, John does not know any of this, and has to be told that this is God’s will. He must humble himself, by allowing Jesus to be even humbler.
Those of you of you who watched Pope Benedict’s Funeral will have seen that much of the pomp and glory of earlier papacies has been replaced by the much simpler ceremonies, just as Pope Benedict had requested. So we saw a simple wooden coffin with only the open Book of the Gospels laid upon it, and no other symbols of his position. If you read his excellent books on “Jesus of Nazareth” you will find that his love of the Lord Jesus shines out in the midst of his great scholarship, and that was so well displayed by that open book of the Gospels on his coffin : a symbol of course that should be on the coffin of every Catholic at our Funeral. It has always seemed sad to me that the Papacy had gathered to itself all the ceremonies given to a monarch, so obscuring what the Successor of St Peter should be like. Of course, one realises the historical circumstances that led the Papacy to take over control of Rome and its surrounding areas - later called the Papal States – to try to preserve order in a chaotic world after the fall of the Roman Empire; but to continue all these trappings into the 20th and the 21st Century was a mistake that both Pope Benedict and now Pope Francis are seeking to remedy. We must give thanks that this humbler way of leading the Church is now becoming more prominent, and pray that Bishops and Priests all over the world might follow that example and act more as servants than as lords.
Mind you it’s not just Bishops and Priests is it? Ordinary people can be just as out of tune with the teaching of Jesus, both treating people in positions of authority with excessive deference, and tending to be rather haughty or aloof with others who are sweeping streets, or serving us in shops or restaurants. In my continued reading about Mother Teresa (now St Teresa) of Calcutta, I have been struck by her insistence that her sisters should not just care for the poor, the sick and the dying but do it with a smiling face. She stressed that it was not enough just to do good, one had to do it with joy, because in serving people like this we have to remember that we are serving Christ. What Jesus told us to remember is that “As you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’(Matt 25:40)
This takes us on to our 2nd Reading. (Acts 10:34-38) Here we see Peter having to face the same challenge as John the Baptist. Both had to see their inbuilt assumptions about things turned upside down. Peter was told to take Christian acceptance out to the pagans completely free of Jewish dietary and other such restrictions; and to do this he is told to go to Caesarea. Now Caesarea was a Roman port-citadel on the Mediterranean, a huge Roman base for the army. There he is directed to the house of one of the leaders of these hated Romans, the Centurion Cornelius, and makes a statement that is to be one of the foundations of the Catholic Church “The truth I have now come to realise is that God does not have favourites, but that anybody of any nationality…. is acceptable to him.”
The story of these two very different saints reminds us that we must face this challenge too, that we must not make distinctions between people, and particularly not judge people by their race or by where they come from. The Letter of St James puts it very bluntly (James 2:3-4) “If you pay attention to the one who wears fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place”, while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there”, or, “Sit down at my feet”, have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?” Yet despite these warnings,, we have too often reverted to the worldly way of thinking that puts people into this class or that class, this race or that race, instead of looking, as God does, at their hearts. It is not enough to think vaguely “Oh I try to be kind to everyone.” We have to make a special effort, as Mother Teresa did all through her life, not to be swayed by the rich and powerful but to know that we will meet Jesus most of all in the poor and the lowly. And like her, we must do it with a smile!
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