The persecution passages

This twenty-week stretch of Ordinary Time is a kind of syllabus on the following of Jesus. In this tenth chapter of Matthew, Jesus is speaking about the persecution awaiting those who follow him. “ I am sending you forth like sheep into a pack of wolves. So be cautious like snakes but gentle as doves. They will drag you into court, they will flog you in their synagogues, but that will be an opportunity for you to give witness to me. They will arrest you, but don’t worry about what you should say. When they persecute you in one town, flee into another. If they’ve pursued me and called me Satan, they’ll do the same to you. What I have told you in the dark, you must now courageously proclaim in the full light of day. What I have whispered into your ears, you must now courageously announce from the housetops.” Persecution is the context of today’s gospel (Mt 10: 16-25).

Then comes the text: “But don’t be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Fear rather those who can kill both body and soul in Gehenna.“ To console us Jesus points to the birds of the air: “Look at the sparrows, those tiny creatures sold two for a penny! Not one of them falls to the ground without the Father in heaven knowing about it…. I tell you, you are worth so much more than those sparrows. So don’t be afraid of what’s to come” (Mt 10: 26-31).

On another occasion Jesus makes the same consoling reference to our fine-feathered friends. There the context is not anxiety over persecutions but the daily anxieties of simply making a living. “Look at the birds of the air,” he says. “They do not sow nor gather into bins and barns, yet the Father in heaven feeds them. I tell you, you are worth so much more than the birds of the air. So don’t be afraid about tomorrow” (Lk 12:16-24).

What persecution?

The gospel is peppered with passages promising persecution. I find one of them particularly strange: to all those who leave everything for his sake, Jesus makes this promise: “I tell you, you will receive a hundred times more houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, fields—and persecutions as well…” (Mk 10: 30).

Don’t these persecution passages seem a bit unreal, especially for us Christians living in a country which assures us all the religious freedom in the world? Who among us are being arrested, flogged, and dragged into court because of the faith that is in us? Who among us are being called “Devil,” “Satan”? Who among us are being pursued into one city after another because of the faith that is in us? Who among us have things whispered into our ears which we must now courageously proclaim from the housetops? So what in the world is all this persecution talk about—this persecution which is promised the same divine protection which protects those tiny sparrows?

The answer is indicting. If Christians don’t feel the hostility of the world, is it because we blend in with the world so well, even though Jesus has said of us, “You do not belong to the world because I have chosen you out of the world” (Jn 15:19)? If Christians don’t feel the hostility of the world, is it because we are always careful to say and do what is politically correct? “Politically correct” is saying and doing what is expected. If Christians don’t feel the hostility of the world, is it because we are not the prophets we have been sent to be. “What I have whispered in your ear you must now go forth to announce from the housetops.”

What are prophets?

In scripture a prophet is not one who foretells the future but rather one who speaks to the people in God’s name. What is it they tell the people? Isaiah describes a prophet as one who "lifts up his voice like a trumpet, and tells the people their sins.” That, of course, makes them angry (Is 58:1). Or a prophet tells you something you don’t want to hear, and that makes you angry. Or tells you something that disturbs your comfort, and that makes you angry. Or calls you to look at something in a new light, and that makes you angry. A prophet tells you something you don’t see, should see, but don’t want to see, and that makes you angry. Or a prophet tells you something that is meaningful and relevant to your life. That robs the message of it harmlessness, and that in itself makes you angry.

But while prophets are people who might make you angry, that’s not what they want to do. When he wept over the city of Jerusalem, Jesus in so many words was saying, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you kill the prophets who make you angry, but that’s not what they want to do. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you are about to kill me because I have made you angry. That’s not what I wanted to do. What I wanted to do was to gather you up as the hen doth gather her chicks, but you wouldn’t let me” (Mt 23: 37-39). So prophets are not to be confused with those bitchy people who are out to get us and make us angry.

What’s their reward? Persecution

What’s the reward of a prophet? It is persecution. "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you kill the prophets and you stone the messengers God has sent you.”

What’s the reward of a prophet? It is persecution. Once when Jesus was back in his hometown of Nazareth, being Sabbath, he went to the local synagogue where all the hometown folk were gathered. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed him, he opened it to the text where it was written, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to the imprisoned, and to restore sight to the blind” Finished reading, he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. All eyes in the synagogue were fixed upon him. But when some of the locals were expressing their doubts about this hometown boy, Jesus reminds them that prophets are never well received, especially among their own. He points to two of their prophets, Elijah and Elisha, who had to go to far off lands to be appreciated.

Well, at this point, scripture says, the whole congregation was “infuriated.” Not just "put out a bit " or "dismayed a bit" but "infuriated." One translation has "enraged" and another has "insanely angered." They sprang to their feet, drove him out of town, dragged him to the brow of the hill on which it was built, and were going to throw him over a cliff. But he slipped through the crowd and walked away" (Lk 4: 29-30). Prophets “infuriate, enrage, insanely anger” people. They don’t want to, but they do.

What’s the reward of a prophet? It is persecution. Some years ago Seattle's Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen, who moved from the Episcopal mansion to some ordinary house in town, spoke out courageously about some issues controversial in the church, homosexuality among them. This “infuriated” Rome which hastened to strip him of his authority. Prophets infuriate people. They don’t want to, but they do.

What’s the reward of a prophet? It is persecution. The year 1993 was the twenty-fifth anniversary of Pope Paul VI's encyclical letter Humanae Vitae (1968), which reaffirmed the Church's stand against artificial birth control. Bishop Kenneth Untener of Saginaw urged the Church to use the occasion to start a new, honest and open discussion on birth control. That, indeed, was a courageous and prophetic invitation, because for the past twenty-five years Humanae Vitae had become a litmus test of "Catholic Loyalty." The invitation quietly “infuriated” Rome. Now the church’s persecution of someone can be very clever. If you’re not down right demoted, you will for sure never be promoted. The Bishop of Saginaw will never be made a Cardinal.

What’s the reward of a prophet? It is persecution. Some years ago Archbishop Rembert Weakland courageously sat down with pro-choice people to hear them out. This infuriated some here at home and others in Rome who hastened to cancel out an honorary degree, which the University of Fribourg wanted to confer upon him, on the score that he had confused the faithful on abortion. On another occasion Rembert courageously told the Archdiocese that if the problem of priestly vocations became unbearably acute, he was ready to ask the Pope for permission to ordain married men to the priesthood. That simple fearless solution to an acute problem “infuriated” some. Prophets infuriate people. They don’t want to, but they do.

Stop stoning….

"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you kill the prophets and you stone the messengers God has sent you. Oh how often I wanted to gather thee as the hen doth gather the chicks under her wings, but you would not let me" (Mt 23:37-39).

When will we stop stoning our prophets or throwing them over cliffs or nailing them to crosses or locking them up in jail or silencing them in church?

When will we stop silencing people who are sent to tell us not what we want to hear but what we really need to hear?

When will we stop bursting into insane fury, as a way to train the people around us to tell us only what we want to hear and not what we need to hear? When shall we admit that our fury is very probably fear--fear of being told something we don't want to hear? When shall we also admit that the more infuriated we are at the prophets in our lives, the more, very probably, we need to be told what we don't want to be told?

When will Christians stop stoning the prophet in Jesus, by making him convenient and comfortable, peaceful and painless--a nice guy who tells us only what we want to hear? That’s not the Jesus of the gospel who makes a whip of cord and chases the moneychangers out of the temple (Lk 19:46). That’s not the Jesus of the gospels who tells us, “ I have come to ignite a fire upon the earth…. I didn’t come for peace but for division” (Lk 12:49-53). That’s not the Jesus of the gospels who utters a whole litany of woes against the scribes and the Pharisees, and so infuriates them that they finally get him (Mt 23: 13-39). That’s not the Jesus of the gospels who died violently on the cross and not peacefully in his sleep.

When will we put an end to prophetic silence; that's the silence of our voices which should courageously be lifted up to say what needs to be said? That’s the silence of voices in Nazi Germany, which looked the other way, and which gave rise to the most horrible monster of the Twentieth Century: the Holocaust. That’s the silence of voices in the church, which refuses to courageously address the issues that cry out to be addressed. That silence has exploded into what is perhaps the worst crisis ever to rock the church in America.

When will we stop persecuting those people in our lives who aren’t really bitchy at all, who don’t really want to make us angry, but who really are inspired by a "tough love" for us.

If you peek ahead in your missalette to next Sunday’s gospel, you read: “Whoever gives welcome to a prophet will receive the reward of a prophet.” When will we not only stop stoning the prophets but when will we also start giving them positive welcome, hearing them out and thanking them for telling us what we need to hear? That is a priceless service.

Conclusion

Giving and receiving tough love

Sooner or later in our lives we are all called to be a prophet, that is to say, we are called to deliver “tough love “ And sooner or later in our lives we are all called to receive a prophet, that is to say, we are called to receive “tough love.”

Every Mass has its “Ite Missa est,” its dismissal. “Go, the Mass is ended.” Go and give the tough love someone might be needing from you. Go and receive the though love someone might be offering you. Tough love, either to give or to receive, isn’t easy, but at the end of the day that’s the love that wants to gather us “as the hen doth gather her chicks.”