August 20, 2015
Julian Bond’s death last Sunday ended a rich, action-filled and effective life. As the radio listed all the things he was involved in, right up to the end, one had to feel admiration and even a tinge of envy. He knew his cause. He lived for that cause and helped thousands of others live for that cause. From his earliest college days right through his 75 years, he made equality, justice and peace the center of his struggles. Despite Ferguson, Staten Island, Charlottesville and so many other continuing signs of racial unrest, Julian Bond stood tall in his leadership of his people, and all America, in the struggle for justice.
We may stand for one thing or another – I think sports helps us do this as we root for the Nats or the O’s, the Yanks or the Mets – but most causes seem amazingly complex, yielding no simple answers. Over a dozen Republicans, and almost a half-dozen Democrats, claim to be running for the presidency; how can they sound clear and strong when everything they say will be spun one way or another, and every new idea will be called a flip-flop. And a billionaire is ready to sponsor someone else next week?
It used to be that we could stand tall for our faith. We’d read passages like the one from Joshua – will you stand for the God who freed us or the gods of Egypt? – and see ourselves standing for Jesus, our Catholic tradition and our way of life. Now it’s all too easy for faith to be only a preference, not the central core of our lives, and, for many, a preference so mild it seems almost invisible. Listing cities where the largest faith sector was “Catholic” – like Boston, Chicago and New York – a recent survey said the next biggest group were people without a church.
So when Jesus says to Peter, “Will you too leave?” it’s a question that cuts through some of the most persistent attitudes of faith today. Faith: I can take it or leave it. Faith: it kind of helps me now and then. Faith: so long as it doesn’t cost me too much. Faith: it doesn’t make that much difference. It’s a question that each of us has to answer by looking at the deepest layers of our souls.
Peter says he has nowhere to go because Jesus alone has “the words of eternal life.” In other words, Peter is saying that Jesus is leading them where no one else can lead them – to the fullest experience of God and the widest experience of love. Jesus does this not only by his teaching, but especially through his actions which disclose a God so radical, so loving, so intimate, that this God, once met, cannot be ignored. In offering us the “bread of life,” Jesus offers as well a whole way of life, centered on a God whose love makes every difference in the world.
Today’s passage from Ephesians shows the direction of God’s love: the way husbands and wives embrace each other in their life-changing union of love, that is only a shadow, an image, of God’s love for us, and Christ’s love for his Church. The tragedy isn’t that people saw Jesus and walked away; the tragedy is that people never saw, felt, or encountered the power of God’s love in Jesus in the first place. They only went so far. This is what keeps Peter and the disciples faithful to Christ, and our seeing this is the only thing that will keep us from joining the growing crowd of people with weak, or invisible, faith.
Yes! Take a stand. It feels so liberating when we can. Our heads spin with opinions about immigration, taxes, health care and foreign affairs. But if we let Jesus look us in the eye and love us as only he can, we know exactly where we stand because we know exactly where he stood, and stands, for us today.