by Rich Andre, C.S.P.
June 22, 2020

Paulist Fr. Rich Andre preached this homily for the 12^th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year A) on June 21, 2020 at St. Austin Catholic Parish in Austin, TX. The homily is based on the day’s readings: Jeremiah 20:10-13; Psalm 69; Romans 5:12-15; and Matthew 10:26-33.

This summer at daily Mass, our first readings will take us through the highlights of the prophetic tradition up through the time of the Babylonian exile. Over the past two weeks, we have looked at the words and deeds of Elijah. By late August, we will have listened to Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.

We often think of prophets as people empowered by God to perform miracles like Elijah and Elisha. But no: in the Judeo-Christian tradition, prophets are people who see the world from God’s perspective. They speak God’s truth, often at great risk to themselves, as Jeremiah does in our first reading today. But as Jesus reminds us in our gospel passage, we are all called to see the world from God’s perspective, to speak God’s truth. Let us celebrate that we have each been baptized into the mission, the power, and the prophecy of the gospel of Jesus Christ!

Lord Jesus, you became human and walked among us. Lord, have mercy.

Lord Jesus, you promise us life in abundance. Christ, have mercy. 

Lord Jesus, your Holy Spirit will advocate for us when we cannot find the words ourselves. Lord, have mercy.

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What is the role of the prophet in the Jewish tradition? One of the best-known quotations on the topic is by the great 20^th-century rabbi, Abraham Heschel: “The prophet is an iconoclast, challenging the apparently holy, revered, and awesome. Beliefs cherished as certainties, institutions endowed with supreme sanctity, he exposes the scandalous pretensions.”¹ Wow!

Using this criteria, Jeremiah is the prototypical prophet. Both his words and actions defy Israel’s understanding of holiness. He repeatedly writes down his prophecy of doom and gloom, despite the orders of King Jehoikim of Judah to destroy Jeremiah’s scroll. As King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon makes his way to Judah to destroy the kingdom, the city, and the temple, Jeremiah declares that Nebuchadnezzar is the servant of God. 

It’s no wonder that Jeremiah spent a lot of his time lamenting. He had many enemies, as our first reading shows. He survived at least one assassination attempt by government leaders. 2,600 years later, we can see that Jeremiah first articulated many of the reforms necessary for the evolution of Judeo-Christian belief. God had charged Jeremiah to deliver a great and terrible message: God was going to destroy an aristocracy consumed with protecting the powerful, a religious leadership preoccupied with empty ritual, and a nation renouncing the ancient Sinai covenant. Only after destruction, exile, and captivity could God make a new covenant with all of God’s people. God says through Jeremiah: “I will place my law within them, and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be my people…. Everyone, from least to greatest, shall know me” (Jeremiah 31:33, 34b). Let’s be clear: God has given each of us the ability to know God’s law, but God never intended us to relate to the divine solely as individuals. We must work collectively to advance God’s mission.²

In the past decade, there were growing alarms that the American way of life was not quite as equitable as we had claimed it to be. Economic disparity was rising. An increasing percentage of families could not make ends meet even with two full-time incomes. There were increasing complaints of voter disenfranchisement. Healthcare, education, and housing were often becoming systems favoring the “haves” over the “have nots.” Millennials, in particular, were not able to achieve the same level of financial security as Baby Boomers and Gen-Xers had at the same ages. One out of every four young black men faced the real possibility of being incarcerated in his lifetime. People from all over the political spectrum spoke of the need for criminal justice reform.

I think a lot of us had despaired and wrung our hands at the statistics. Some of us even wrote letters to our government leaders and supported reforms, but for many of us, we were far removed from the people experiencing most of the suffering. But now, with the pandemic raging and a preponderance of videos showing violence against people of color, something has changed. To slightly rephrase the words of Rabbi Heschel: beliefs cherished as certainties, institutions endowed with supreme authority – their scandalous pretensions have been exposed. 

I hope that none of our institutions need to be destroyed in the way that Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the kingdom of Judah, but I believe that we need to question policies that we’ve long held sacrosanct. Jesus says to us: “Fear no one…. What you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.” Maybe, just maybe, the pandemic of 2020 will rouse us from our complacency. 

The events of the late 1910s – World War I, the Bolshevik Revolution, and the flu pandemic of 1918 – led to a horrible chapter in American history called the “Red Summer” of 1919, when the nation was embroiled in a horrific wave of white-on-black violence, followed by a decade of increasing wealth disparity and a refusal of the U.S. Senate to pass a bill to outlaw lynching. I pray that history does not repeat itself. Maybe, just maybe, we will have the discipline this time to listen not to our baser instincts, but to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

Paul gives us plenty of reason to hope. In his letter to the Romans, he explains that Jesus Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection has more power than Adam’s death to sin: “Through one righteous act, acquittal and life came to all [people]…. Where sin increase[s], grace overflow[s] all the more” (Romans 5:18b, 20b)

Let us continue to pray to the Holy Spirit for the gift of courage, that we may be as prophetic with our words as Jeremiah was with his. As Jesus says to us: “What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light.”

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Notes: