Defensive Measure (2021-12-11, Sunday, Advent)

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Homily –  Dec.  12, 2021  /  Advent 3 (C)

● Zephaniah 3:14-18a   ● Philippians 4:4-7 ●  + Luke 3:10-18 ●

Title:  A Defense of Life

[__01_] When my brother was about 13 years old, and the star baseball player on his little league team, he was abruptly pulled from the team made to quit the team and turned in his uniform to the coach. My brother was not injured. My brother was not unhappy playing baseball, my brother was not failing academically, and clearly the need, the team needed him because it was their star pitcher, my brother was being punished. And yet we all have such a positive memory of this moment as a family of the punishment, which perfectly fit the crime, it was good news, it was an example of my father and mother intervening at their best, and I'm sure you would have done nothing less to protect one of your own opponent, the punishment, the penalty to my brother was good news. The punishment was a defensive measure.

It was also a measure to DEFEND HIS LIFE. I'll explain more about that.

[__02_] Are there some extraordinary moments in which we are not moments when we cannot sometimes experience a punishment or a penalty or a correction as something good, as good news?

          Also, in my own years of beinga  priest, I have received help from both a priest-mentor and spiritual director. What I remember from some of our conversations was that my mentor did not always agree with me. I knew I could be wrong, but sometimes I was astonished at how wrong or off base, I was, I didn't necessarily enjoy finding out that I was wrong. But I am glad for the correction. Now. We don't always enjoy the benefit of the correction right away.

George Orwell, who wrote 1984 (novel), wrote: if Liberty (freedom) means anything at all, if liberty or freedom means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

[__03_]   And if based on that definition of liberty, John the Baptist is very liberated, very free, because John the Baptist is telling people what they don't want to hear.

He's telling this to the tax collectors to soldiers to the general population, not to take more than what you need. Not to have more than what you need, but to give up some of your material goods.

 

[__03.01_]   I am certainly susceptible to this. In other words, to my own brokenness of sometimes trying to solve a spiritual hunger, maybe it's a spiritual hunger where I might feel lonely at some times, or I feel uncertain, or I feel afraid, or something about anything. And I have this spiritual problem, but I try to solve it with a material diet of consumption. So the verse about giving away or giving up some bread, or food resonates with me, Jesus has other food, his word for me to consume.

 

[__04_]  [F-C-F]  John the Baptist is preaching this message, which Jesus Himself will also preach this message that, that it's not only about that my salvation is not only about my private choices, but also how do my actions affect or infect contagiously the choices of others, John the Baptist is warning the tax collectors and the soldiers of his day. And I am one of those tax collectors. I am one of those soldiers who needs to be warned not to amass too many things for themselves, because their choices are a signal to others. And those choices will take root in others. And our choices also take root for good or evil in this community. Many good things we do take root and spread for good. Every we could say that every community or family every home is like its own little garden state, New Jersey, its own little garden or garden state or ecosystem where things sometimes grow on their own. In a Catholic decision on ethics on a Catholic document on ethics and the ethics of life and the sanctity of life. I read this that nations or countries are not machines or equations. Our nation is not a machine or an equation that we can program or fixed our nation or Our country is like an ecosystem. It's like a garden. And a people and the habits and the beliefs and the values and institutions intertwine like a root system. And sometimes, and so good things will grow up. But sometimes bad things will grow up and bad things can sometimes poison other things. And this is why our own Catholic practices of prayer and fasting and almsgiving are so essential, so that we are reflecting. In other words, praying about what's happening, but also that we are restraining ourselves, but fasting from taking too much of even good things, and also reacting charitably. In other words almsgiving to what we encounter in our country or in our high school.

George Orwell also wrote these words George Orwell, author of 1984 wrote that in our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Sometimes what we read from politicians, or we might read in the newspaper is a defense of something that is indefensible. And we need our own faith and awareness, to be strong, because we cannot and should not count on political leaders alone to determine what is right and good. I just cite two examples.

1^st , the ETHICS of race, racial relationships, the ETHICS of race, and what we say the ETHICS of choice, and the sanctity of life. First, the ETHICS of race.

[__05.01 ethics of race & equality_] 

Now, we've all lived through this. We're living through this right now, but just remind you of the history of what happened in our country, that slavery was officially abandoned in 1865. But after the abandonment of official emancipation of slaves in the United States, many states and governments were permitted and advocated for a de facto continuation of slavery through Jim Crow laws through segregation, through outlawing of interracial marriage, and countless other acts of so called “justice”.

But it wasn't justice. The citizens of the United States were kind of held hostage while the political elites of the day ran the show. And it took 100+ years of civil rights action after the end of slavery to enact meaningful legislation such as voter registration, and voter justice and voting for the ratio of injustice. In other words, what was indefensible was being defended politically, and we still need to work for harmony and justice in this regard. But that's an example of defending what is indefensible.

 

[__05.01 ethics of choice & sanctity of life_] 

The 2^nd example is the ETHICS of choice and the sanctity of life regarding the ethics of human life. It is our Catholic faith to remember that euthanasia, the care of the terminally ill, and the protection of life, the life of the unborn person is critical. In this regard, abortion is wrong. But that's not the only example of something that's always wrong. So what is really indefensible is sometimes being defended.

That is the right to take the life of an unborn child is being defended the right to take the life of a terminally ill person is still being defended. I urge you if you're Catholic, publicly in life, or even privately to consider the consequences for your own spiritual well being of defending this, your salvation, as well as the scandal you risk leads others into sin. It leads others into sin.

          We are called to remember both the MORALITY and also MERCY.

[][][]  All of us are sinners. Yet Pope Francis calls mercy a "bridge that connects God and man, opening our hearts to the hope of being loved forever despite our sinfulness" (MV 2). The Holy Father also reminds us, "As the Father loves, so do his children. Just as he is merciful, so we are called to be merciful to each other" (MV 9). Life is a gift from God and so is his mercy. May we cherish and promote both!

          This is what confession and absolution are for… while we might experience of the consequence of sin as a penalty, it is also meant to lead us to the prize of God’s mercy.

          This is Good News.

 [__06_]  Why did my brother’s life need to be defended? What was as “indefensible” ?

 When my borther was 13 years old, he was a abruptly pulled from his youth baseball team, because he and his two teammates convinced their coach who should have known better to buy them alcohol.  Just to be clear, while the wrongdoing was the fault of the coach… my brother and his friends were also in the wrong for boastfully asking for the alcohol. They were under age under the drinking age, they were 13 and legal drinking age was is 21.  While the coach was doing something “indefensible”, so were the youths in this case.

So my brother arrived home safely one night, but he was drunk in the middle of the night and my father was immediately suspicious and demanded to know where the alcohol came from. My brother playing the part of the rebellious teenager and perpetrator refused at first tell, and my parents became even more incensed.

My brother again refused to tell but eventually relented. So part of my brother's freedom was that he remained silent. In other words, telling my father he didn't know telling my father what he didn't want to hear. Eventually, my father got the information out of him.

In other words, that the coach was the culprit, the coach bought the bought this alcohol.

My father called the coach, and berated him – to say the least - out on the phone and immediately pulled my brother from the team. My mother proceeded to return the baseball uniform, the jersey to the coach's house by hanging the jersey from the front porch door for all to see. It was like a scarlet Little League letter for the neighborhood.

There was no lawsuit against the coach. My father didn't regard what they my father and mother didn't regard what they did is anything extraordinary, or or that their “precious” child needed to be protected in some super special way. All their precious child needed to do was to be punished to be grounded to be taken off the team. It was the absolutely right measure in terms of pain, proportion and permanence. It was a punishment. But the punishment then was a good news. It was a penalty in the present to avoid a more permanent fall later, I can only help that I would act with similar integrity, or that we all would to defend what and who really needs to be defended and to avoid defending what is indefensible.  [__fin_]