Children of the Light
Amos 8:4-7
I Timothy 2:1-8 Luke
16:1-8
To the church in the
diaspora[1]
& to the church of
the unchurched[2]
Alleluia, alleluia.
A reading from the holy Gospel
according to Luke.
Glory to you,
Lord.
(Lk 16:1-8)
Jesus said to his disciples, “A
rich man had a steward who was reported to him for squandering his property. He
summoned him and said, ‘What is this I hear about you? Prepare a full account
of your stewardship, because you can no longer be my steward.’ The steward said
to himself, ‘What shall I do, now that my master is taking the position of
steward away from me? I am not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg. I
know what I shall do so that, when I am removed from the stewardship, they may
welcome me into their homes.’ He called in his master’s debtors one by one.
To the first he said, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He replied, ‘One hundred
barrels of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Here is your promissory note. Sit down
and quickly write fifty.’ Then to another the steward said, ‘And you, how much
do you owe?’ He replied, ‘A thousand bushels of wheat.’ The steward said to
him, ‘Here is your promissory note. Sit down and eight hundred.’ And the master
commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently. “For the children of
this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the
children of light.
The Gospel of
the Lord.
Praise to you, Lord Jesus
Christ.
----------------
Introduction
A bishop with
profound reservations
For nearly a decade, Bishop Geoffrey Robinson headed the
Australian bishops’ committee that developed guidelines and procedures for
dealing with clergy sex abuse. He retired in 2004 at the young age of 66 because,
he said, he had profound reservations about the church he loved, and that was
too heavy a burden to bear. He emerged from retirement last month to promote a
new book and to demand a better church. The book is entitled Confronting Power
and Sex in the Catholic Church: Reclaiming the Spirit of Jesus.
Demanding `a
better church’
In
the book the bishop says the church has not confronted the sexual abuse crisis;
it is simply managing it. He reveals that he was sexually abused (although not
by church personnel or a family member). He says it was not a repressed memory
but was “in the attic of my mind.” It was not until he started speaking with
other victims of clergy sexual abuse that he “was able to take it down [from
the attic] and look at it.” He acknowledges that he cannot talk about sexual
abuse dispassionately.
He
also criticizes the church’s teaching on sex and sexuality (which are based on offences against God) as outmoded and
inadequate. He says that obligatory celibacy (not celibacy itself) is a
problem. He sees the traditional seminaries and novitiates as unhealthy places
for growth in maturity, especially if candidates are accepted at a young age.
In
describing a better church he calls for a redistribution of authority in the
church so that collegiality (the authority of national bodies of bishops) and the
sensus fidelium might be more respected and heeded. In Catholic theology
the sensus fidelium is the idea that
the beliefs, consciences and experience of good and honest Catholics (who,
let’s say, are practicing birth control) are a valid source of religious truth.
Proclaimers
of certainties vs. searchers for truth
Robinson
says he sees a fractured church – a
church divided by proclaimers of certainties, on the one hand, and searchers
for truth, on the other. That, he says, has left many people feeling a
sense of alienation, of being marginalized, of no longer
quite belonging to the church that had given them much of their sense of
belonging, meaning and direction throughout their lives. At the beginning of
the weekly homily we characterize those people as The Church of the Diaspora or The Church of the Unchurch.
“In writing the
book,” the bishop says, “I became aware that I was writing a book for these
people, that I was trying to tell them that there is a church for them, and
that it is fully in accord with the mind of Jesus. I was telling them there are
indeed basic certainties, but there is also abundant room for search.
“I became aware that it was
important for many people that there should be a bishop saying these things. At
moments I felt that the needs of these many people were so great that it is
perhaps true that I have never been more of a shepherd, I have never been more
justified in carrying around a pastoral staff, than I have in this.”
Conclusion
The dismissal: disclaim and search
Robinson’s bottom line brings us to the
bottom line of the gospel today which speaks of the children of light. Who are children of the Light? They are disclaimers of certainties and searchers for truth! What is a church of light? That’s a church
which disclaims its certainties about sexuality, divorce and remarriage, birth
control, celibacy, homosexuality, ordination of women, open-Communion, etc., and
goes in search for the truth.
Every Mass has
a dismissal. Ite, Missa est. Go, the
Mass is ended. Go and be disclaimers of your certainties. Go and be searchers
for truth. And that will make you
children of the light.