A
Forfeited Reward
Introduction
A
caveat aside
The doors of the early
Church “were locked out of fear
of the Jews,” The Latin reads “propter
metum Iudaeorum.” (Jn 20: 19,
26). I have an old Latin concordance of
the Bible printed on parchment in
We still linger in the hype
of Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the
Christ, and we remember the charge of anti-Semitism (bias against Jews) that
some brought against it. The charge, right or wrong, reminds us of the need to
be sensitive when we read the scriptures in the Sunday assembly. If we read “out
of fear of the Jews” indiscriminately and insensitively, we feed the roots of
anti-Semitism, especially in those who are looking for scapegoats.
I also have a huge volume
which presents eight different English translations of the New Testament from
the original Greek. They’re placed side by side for comparing. Sometimes I read
all eight translations of a particular scripture passage in order to get the
feel of what it’s trying to say. Six of
the eight translations of today’s text were not sensitive. Like our own
translation this morning, they blankly read “the doors were locked out of fear
of the Jews.” Only two of the eight were sensitive. They read, “the doors were
locked out of fear of the Jewish
authorities.” Two translators
thought that was the truth of the matter and translated accordingly.
It’s a big deal because
terrible mischief lurks in the careless reading of our Christian scriptures in
the Sunday assembly. It eventually had our church praying in the prayers of the
faithful of the Good Friday services Oremus
pro perfidis Iudaeis (Let us pray for the treacherous Jews). For a good ten
years as a young priest, I prayed every Good Friday for the “treacherous Jews.”
Then along came Good Pope John XXII, and he struck that prayer out of the liturgy and
replaced it with, “Let us pray for the Jewish people, the first to hear the
word of God, that they may continue to grow in the love of his name and in
faithfulness to his covenant.” It’s a big deal because the careless reading of
our scriptures eventually contributed to stoking up crematories of the
Holocaust. It‘s a big deal because if
one of you brought a Jewish friend along to Mass this morning, and that friend
heard “the doors were locked out of fear of the Jews” that guest wouldn’t feel
very welcome.
The doors of
This is a kind of
aside this morning before getting on with the message the Holy Spirit wants us
to hear. The gospel says the doors of the early church, behind which the
disciples were gathered in an upper room, were locked out of fear. That’s the age-old
story of all church history—doors locked out of fear.
Fear locked the
doors of the church at the Council of Trent (1545-1563). Summoned to deal with
the threat of the Protestant Reformation,
The doors of
This past winter in
When I returned the next
week the Monsignor said, “Some of the people were unhappy. For one thing, it
was too long.” (I thought to myself: Friends up in
The doors of the
Cathedral locked out of fear
Just
about the same time, the doors of the
Who
is this Roman Catholic Bishop Gumbleton guy against whom the doors of the
Cathedral were locked out of fear? He’s
a guy with a long history of social justice activism. He is the founding president of Pax Christi
USA, the
Who
is this Gumbleton guy against whom the doors of the Cathedral were locked out
of fear? He’s the one who wrote a letter
to
Who
is this Gumbleton guy against whom the doors of the Cathedral were locked out
of fear? While Pope John Paul II spoke
definitively against women's ordination, Bishop Gumbleton said, “Priestesses
will inevitably come. Already, female parochial administrators are proving
their competency and laying the groundwork for the ordination of women.” In one
of his homilies he asks, "Aren't we depriving ourselves of real genuine
leadership in our church because we don't give women a place of leadership? Think
how different it would have been in the current [pedophilia] crisis in our
church if there had been some women in leadership positions who had children
who had been abused. Do you think the abusers would be moved from one place to
another? No, certainly not."
Who
is this Gumbleton guy against whom the doors of the Cathedral were locked out
of fear? Gumbleton has a brother, Dan, who
is gay, got married and has four children. At first he found that very hard to
take, and so did his mother. One day she took her bishop son off to the side and asked whether her son and his brother was going to hell. It’s no small wonder that in 1997
Gumbleton would initiate and co-author a pastoral letter of the US Catholic
bishops entitled Always Our Children
(http://www.usao.edu/~facshaferi/catholic/always.htm). It is a pastoral
message to the parents of homosexual children with suggestions for pastoral
ministers. In a presentation Gumbleton gave on May 25, 2002, in Lexington, MA.,
he said, “We must further the steps we took in our pastoral letter Always Our
Children to overcome the homophobia within our culture and within the
Church. We must be a truly welcoming community for homosexual people. … Always
Our Children pointed out that homosexuals are a gift to the Church, and we
should not marginalize them and push them aside.”
Who is this Gumbleton guy?
He is not a fly by night. He is a prophet. Prophets are people who have the courage
to say what’s politically incorrect, the courage to say what people don’t want
to hear, the courage to say even what will get them demoted or have their
resignation received by
Conclusion
A reward
forfeited
It takes courage for
Gumbleton and for you and me to be a prophet--to say what’s politically
incorrect, to say what people don’t want to hear, to say what will get you
demoted. It also takes courage for All
Saints Catholic Church and for you and me to give welcome to a prophet—to
receive the one God sends to tell us something we don’t want to hear but need
to hear.
A guest room
for prophets
In the Second Book of
Kings, when the prophet Elijah was taken up into heaven his cloak fell upon the
prophet Elisha. Elisha would frequently visit the city of
All Saints gave welcome to
Gumbleton with a bed, table, chair and lamp and some very powerful gospel
singing. And since Jesus himself promises "Whoever gives welcome to a
prophet in my name shall receive the reward of a prophet" (Mt