Weekly HOMILY for October 16, 2011: To Change the World

29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A
Bon Secours Spiritual Center
October 16, 2011

To Change the World
By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato


BOOK CLUB

I am part of a small group of priests that meets with a theologian friend of ours from time-to-time to discuss various books on theology. It’s a great way to stay updated.

A recent book we shared was entitled To Change the World by James Hunter.

The author begins with a penetrating appraisal of the most popular models for world changing among Christians today and highlights how each is flawed and therefore incapable of generating the change to which it aspires.

THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT: Characterized by a sense of injury, entitlement, anger, partisanship, identifying the enemy, the language of war and winning. They are theologically conservative. Their solution is to make America holy in the manner that they see it.

THE CHRISTIAN LEFT: Many of the same characteristics as the Right, except the Christian Right has a different agenda. It is much more oriented to the poor and the common good. These folks are theologically progressive. They see the main problem as inequality and the faults of capitalism. Their solution is a redistribution of wealth through legal means.

NEO-ANABAPTISTS: Keep a distance from it all. They see the world as basically evil. They are gospel-based. Neo-Anabaptists see the main problem with society today as violence and coercion. Their response is peace, and living in community even apart from the culture. These would be folks like the Amish and Mennonites.

Hunter argues that often these political theologies actually worsen the very problems they are designed to solve.


THE SOLUTION

In today’s gospel Jesus offers us a different alternative, one not based on political power.

He first distinguishes the two spheres of political and personal activity, saying that we live in both and we should render to each what is its due. He sums that up in the phrase, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”

Rather than responding with power or force or living apart from society, Jesus is telling his hearers to put their faith in God and then live that faith concretely in all their choices and actions. In short, they are to live within society a faithful presence of the God they serve.

If Caesar or the government or state over-steps the mark, a Christian is absolved from obedience to the law, for we must obey God rather than man.


FAITHFUL PRESENCE

What precisely does “faithful presence” entail? That is, how can I, as a follower of Jesus, be faithfully present, respecting the distinction between church and state, between what I believe and the laws that govern me?

A theology of faithful presence is a theology of engagement in and with the world around us. While it is simple in concept, it is also challenging in its implications.

FIRST, faithful presence means that we are to be fully present TO EACH OTHER within the community of faith and fully present to those who are not.

We are not only to do no wrong to those outside of our community, but are actively to love the stranger as we love ourselves

NEXT, faithful presence requires that believers be fully present and committed TO THEIR TASKS. When our tasks are done before God, they have their own integrity apart from anything else they might accomplish, for the labor itself brings honor to God.

If we perform our tasks as working for the Lord, we will want to pursue them with all the skill, care, and quality we can bring to them. Working for the Lord, there is a built-in safeguard against work, whatever it is, becoming a source of idolatry.

FINALLY, faithful presence in the world means that believers are fully present and committed IN THEIR SPHERES OF SOCIAL INFLUENCE, whatever they may be: their families, neighborhoods, parish, voluntary activities, and places of work.

The question we face in this regard is how will we use whatever power we have? Where power is exercised, it must conform to the way of Jesus, that is, it must be rooted in intimacy with the Father, rejecting the privileges of status, oriented by a self-giving compassion for the needs of others, and not only non-coercive toward those outside of the community of faith, but committed indiscriminately for the good of all.


CONCLUSION

There is an alternative way of thinking about the world we live in, and engaging it in a way that is constructive and draws upon the teachings of Jesus.

And it is practicing a faithful presence as a follower of the Lord toward ourselves, toward our tasks, and toward the spheres in which we exercise influence.

In the end, this strategy becomes not first and foremost about changing the world, but living for the flourishing of others.

It can’t get more Christ-centered than that!