Readings for the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time.
Despite what you might hear in church today, this Sunday's liturgy of the word is not about the end of the world and the condemned spending eternity in endless fire.
No, it's much more relevant than that. It's actually about non-violent resistance in a context of imperial aggression and war. It summons all of us to withdraw our support for the U.S. military and from Washington's policy of state terrorism against impoverished Muslims in the Middle East.
More specifically, today's gospel reading, on the one hand, calls those living in the belly of the beast to stop approving of our imperialist overlords who currently sow their weeds of destruction throughout the Middle East. This means actively opposing their wars of choice in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere.
On the other hand, the three parables attributed to Jesus also suggest a message for Middle Eastern followers of Mohammed. The parables address them precisely as victims of imperialism and hence the closest analogue to what the Bible calls "the people of God."
I mean: in today's world, the situation of Muslims closely tracks that of Jesus' audience in first century Palestine. As such, all three of today's readings call followers of Mohammed [who recognize Isa (Jesus) as the second greatest of the prophets (after Mohammed and before Abraham)] to lay down their arms in favor of Jesus' own non-violent resistance.
To get my meaning, begin by considering our liturgy's first selection from the Jewish Testament's Book of Wisdom. It is particularly relevant to "Americans," identified by Dr. King as the world's "greatest purveyor of violence." The reading says explicitly that God's power is not expressed in violence but in leniency to all.
That theme is repeated in today's responsorial psalm with equal relevance to USians. There God is described as belonging to all nations.
Similarly, in the second reading, St. Paul insists that the divine Spirit dwells within all humans regardless of nationality. It is slow to anger, good, forgiving, abounding in kindness.
From this, Jewish wisdom insists that believers must in turn be kind, lenient and forgiving to all -- even (Jesus says elsewhere) to their worst enemies. This is directly pertinent for the U.S. described by Noam Chomsky as the one of the most extreme religious fundamentalist countries in the world. Those who claim to follow Christ (as 83% of Americans do) must be as pacifist as their Master.
The second theme of today's liturgy is less easy for an outsider to comment upon. It implicitly addresses the victims of American aggression -- most prominently the Muslim community and whether or not (as people of The Book) they should resist with violence.
I mean that Jesus' parable of the weeds planted by an enemy in a landlord's field can be read as addressing the Roman occupation forces encumbering Israel during Jesus' lifetime. [According to John Dominic Crossan, Matthew's allegorizing of Jesus' parable -- making it about the end of the world -- is more reflective of the situation of the Jewish diaspora (following the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE) than of the actual revolutionary situation of Jesus' own day.]
In Jesus' occupied Israel, the suffocating Roman presence (like our own country's in the Middle East) was as unwelcome, alien, and destructive as weeds in a garden or field.
The question was how to deal with such odious foreign occupation. Like ISIS and others today, Zealot revolutionaries had their answer: Uproot the weeds here and now. Take up arms; assassinate Romans and their collaborators; drive them out mercilessly. Be as cruel and vicious as the Romans.
Jesus' response was different. As a non-violent revolutionary, he could surely understand such apocalyptic energy. After all, much of his teaching expressed sympathy to the Zealot cause which included land reform, debt forgiveness, and expulsion of the hated Roman occupation forces. Many scripture scholars even identify possibly five members of Jesus' inner circle as Zealots themselves.
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