The Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)
Dear brothers and sisters,
The prophet Isaiah mentions a list of places with which most of us unfamiliar: “Tarshish, Put and Lud, Mosoch, Tubal and Jovan” (Isaiah 66:19). A few of us might recognize some of these names, but none us really has any idea where these places are. They must be significant, though, otherwise Isaiah would not have specifically mentioned them. So, where are they?
Tarshish is a mysterious place, in that we do not really know where it was. What we do know is that was across the Mediterranean Sea from Israel and Lebanon, either to the north, west, or south. Some scholars think it was the precursor of the city of Carthage in North Africa; others think it was in modern day Spain; others think it was southern Turkey; and still others think it was in Sardinia. In the Scriptures, Tarshish was known for its metal. Lud was east of Egypt in what is now Libya and was famous for its myrrh. Put and Mosoch are in modern Turkey, as is Tubal. Jovan was in Greece.
The principal purpose in listing these different places, so it seems to me, is simply – and importantly – to proclaim the diversity of the peoples to whom God reveals himself. Through Isaiah the Lord says that the peoples in the distant coastlands, although they “have never heard of my fame, or seen my glory … shall proclaim my glory among the nations” (Isaiah 66:19).
To put it differently, these different peoples, from various cultures and ethnicities, will know the Lord. This is why “they shall bring all your brothers and sisters from all nations as an offering to the Lord” (Isaiah 66:20). They will not bring them to the Lord as human sacrifices, but so that the people from the nations might offer themselves to God in recognition of his love for them just as we offer ourselves each time the gifts of bread and wine are offered to the Lord.
I focus on this today because of an incident that occurred here in Ashland just a couple of days ago at the high school. A young man of mixed ethnicity, who just moved to the area, was made to feel very unwelcome and self-conscious when he felt everyone looking at him and laughing him. I spent an hour or so with him that morning as we and his family attempted to sort things out. The inexcusable situation angered me and broke my heart. No one should every have to suffer such an affront to human dignity.
In our own day, when we set out to proclaim the Gospel and share the love of Jesus with others, we generally only speak to those who are like us. The Apostles, on the other hand, spoke of the merciful love of Jesus to anyone who would listen; indeed, we learn in the Acts of the Apostles that they preached to
Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya and Cyrene, as well as travelers from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs (Acts 2:9-11).
They were not so much interested in differences, but in bringing every person into unity in Christ Jesus through Baptism into his Body, which is the Church (cf. I Corinthians 12:13). This unity of faith superseded any physical differences that might otherwise remain. Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled in the Church.
The Apostles, those great pillars of the faith knew well that, different as we all may be, we all share in one fundamental aspect of humanity, namely, that “If you [O Lord] take away their breath, they perish and return to the dust. When you send forth your spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth” (Psalm 104:24). For this reason, the Church has always taught that
the equality of men rests essentially on their dignity as persons and the rights that flow from it: Every form of social or cultural discrimination in fundamental personal rights based on the grounds of sex, race, color, social conditions, language, or religion must be curbed and eradicated as incompatible with God’s design.[1]
Racism – in any form – has no place in the Christian heart, nor does it have a place in any form of human society, whether Christian or not. What happened in our community last week shows that we have a very long way to go in recognizing the fundamental dignity of every person; we have a long way to go in allowing the message of the Gospel to purify our hearts through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
We do not often ponder the role of the Holy Spirit in the process of our salvation. We should frequently call upon the Holy Spirit, using the words of the great Pentecost Sequence:
Where you are not, we have naught, nothing good in deed or thought nothing free from taint of ill. Heal our wounds, our strength renew; on our dryness pour your dew; wash the stains of guilt away: Bend the stubborn heart and will; melt the frozen, warm the chill; Guide the steps that go astray.
Our nation, which still claims to be mostly composed of Christians, is in great need of a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit, a new Pentecost, a new season of hearts set afire with the love of God.
We often witness today – as in times past - a great absence of genuine Christian love in the hearts of so many people who claim the name of Christian. These are those whom Saint Augustine calls Christ’s “hidden enemies,” those “who live unjust and irreligious lives are Christ’s enemies, even if they are signed with his name and are called Christians.”[2] We may feel powerless to bring about any change in our community or in the hearts of others, but such a feeling is incompatible with the Gospel. Indeed, we are commanded to “strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees. Make straight paths for your feet, that what is lame may not be disjointed but healed” (Hebrews 12:12-13).
Here I am reminded of a line written by my favorite author, J.R.R. Tolkien. He said:
I sometimes feel appalled at the thought of the sum total of human misery all over the world at the present moment: the millions parted, fretting, wasting in unprofitable days – quite apart from torture, pain, death, bereavement, injustice. If anguish were visible, almost the whole of this benighted planet would be enveloped in a dense dark vapor, shrouded from the amazed vision of the heavens… All we do know, and that to a large extent by direct experience, is that evil labors with vast power and perpetual success – in vain: preparing always only the soil for unexpected good to spout in.”[3]
What happened to that young man can – and should – lead each of us to be more intentional in loving and caring for the stranger – the neighbor - in our midst. Anything less is unbefitting of a follower of Christ Jesus.
In 1910, the editors of the British newspaper The Guardian asked various authors for an essay answering the question, “What’s wrong with the world.” G.K. Chesterton, the prolific Catholic, wrote to the editors saying simply, “Dear Sirs, I am.” How many of us are willing to say, “I am what’s wrong with the world?” If we are not willing to acknowledge, we must implore the Holy Spirit to enlighten the darkness of our hearts in order to be more fully converted to Christ.
Only if we first recognize our own sinfulness, only if we confess our sinfulness to the Lord, only if we receive the grace of his forgiveness can we become bearers of his merciful love to every person we meet. As more and more hearts are converted to the Lord, the darkness of sin is brought into the light and flees away. It starts with you. It starts with me. Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, and kindle in them the fire of your love. May the Lord not say to us, “Depart from me, all you evildoers” (Luke 13:27). Amen.
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