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20th
Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C
Terranuova Hermitage
August 18, 2013
A Gospel to Like or Dislike?
By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato
I Dislike This Gospel
If I were to give
you a list of my favorite Scripture passages, today’s gospel would not be on
it.
It is not one of my
favorites. I may even dislike it and I
have two reasons for saying this.
Why? It Contradicts
My first reason for
disliking it is that it seems to contradict so much of the rest of the Gospel.
Jesus consistently
says that he comes for peace and unity.
He wants us to have peace within ourselves and peace and unity with one
another.
Even in our liturgy,
right before we receive Communion – the sacrament of unity, we say, “The peace
of the Lord be with you always.” We
don’t say, “The conflict and division of the Lord be with you.”
So, what is going on
here, what does Jesus really mean?
Apparently the resolution to this is the underlying, Scriptural meaning
of the words “fire,” “baptism,” and “division.”
“Fire” is a Scriptural
image for decision or choice. So Jesus
is saying that sometimes, maybe often, we will have to make choices whether to
follow his way or not.
We will have to
choose right from wrong. This will be
true for business people in their transactions with clients and customers or
for priests in the way we speak or act toward parishioners and for all of us.
And then when Jesus
speaks of a “baptism with which we must be baptized,” surprisingly he is not
talking about a baptism with water.
Instead, in this passage “baptism” means being immersed in suffering.
The idea is that
some of the choices that we have to make will involve some hardship.
So it may not be
easy for a husband and wife to deal with something that is a problem in their
relationship or for teens to refuse to get into drugs or alcohol or sex.
And then, Jesus tops
it all off by saying that there will be “division.” This really flows from what he has already
said: sometimes our choices to do the right thing will separate us from others.
We may have to be
silent or redirect a conversation that is negatively stereotyping a whole group
of people and this may separate us from the group we are with.
Choosing to do what
is good and right is often not the easy way out and it can cause some tension and
even division.
So, I guess when I
really understand this passage correctly, it does make sense. It is not inconsistent with the rest of what
Jesus says.
Why? It Misleads
But, I do have a
second reason why this is not one of my favorite passages: it can be
misleading.
This passage seems
to lead some people to justify a kind of in-your-face Christianity or
Catholicism. They use it to justify a
kind of black and white, almost harsh, and definitely judgmental approach.
We see this in the
unnecessary berating of what is called the “secular” and the unnecessary
separation of the sacred and the secular.
Frequently in life, things are not so black and white and there is not
such a strict division of good and evil.
We see this
in-your-face approach that I am talking about in some placards being carried
alongside the road, sometimes about the issue of human life, but the placards
have divisive and even hateful words.
Pope Francis recently gave some guidance to us priests that tells us
something about all of this.
Pope Francis was
speaking about the situation where a couple brings a baby to be baptized. He was referring to situations where the
parents are not married or are nor married in the Church.
There have been
incidents where priests have refused to baptize a baby in these
circumstances. The Pope simply says: by
all means, baptize the baby.
Welcome the parents, bring the baby into God’s family, and
encourage the mother and father to be good parents and to share faith with
their child. That is the positive and
embracing approach of Jesus of Nazareth.
Refusing to baptize only creates unnecessary division and will
probably alienate the couple from the Church and maybe from faith forever. The Pope’s counsel applies to areas of our
ministry as well.
So my point is that in today’s gospel, Jesus is only saying that
sometimes, sometimes because of our choice to follow him, division will
happen. But we are not to want this or
seek it as a proof of our virtue or in a so-called defense of our faith.
That kind of In-your-face Catholicism or Christianity does little
positive good in the long run. T is not
what Jesus is talking about here.
Conclusion
So, there we are.
A challenging gospel passage today, one that I at first
glance dislike! But on second thought, a
passage that I also embrace!
