A priest was getting on a bus. Somehow his shoe came off and fell into the street. Since he could not retrieve it, he took off the second one. He threw it out the window in the direction of the other one. To a puzzled looking passenger, he said, “The fellow who finds the first shoe now will have a good pair to walk about in.”
I have just returned from retreat. Hopefully I am filled with grace. But certainly I am filled with gossip from my fellow priests. They were filled with information about new assignments from our bishop. The shocker is that a certified firebrand among the brethern has been sent to a very proper and wealthy parish as pastor. The priest in question has been lining up on the side of the poor, disenfranchised, and the oppressed since he was priested a quarter of a century ago. Wherever he goes, fire follows him. He has all the scars, many of them quite glorious and even enviable, that go with such a career.
Everyone at the retreat had an opinion pro and con on the appointment. Most dared not speak them publicly since the bishop himself was present. But the one point on which all agreed is that the parish will become a different creation. Given his track record, the new man will most assuredly bring fire to the parish in question. The fox-hunting set there will never be the same again. These aristocrats may well come to feel that they are among the hunted.
But today’s Gospel tells us that fire is precisely what the Teacher brought to the earth. Therefore, can we fault a priest if he himself brings that same torch to a small corner of the Teacher’s Church? Do you really think the Christ would fault him especially since he is but following His example? Quite obviously our bishop does not fault him.
Could it be that the bishop is telling his priests, religious, and laity that it is we who are lukewarm Christians? Might he be telegraphing us the signal that what the Church needs is more people like the pastor under discussion? I believe the answer to both questions is a resounding affirmative. And this affirmation would come even though the bishop might not agree with all the tactics of the pastor in the past.
Admittedly this appointment will appear strange to those among us who, in Joseph Donder’s words, “are accustomed to depicting Jesus beautifully, with large eyes, a shapely beard, carefully dressed in soft colors, with a sweet glow all over Him.”
After all, we are living out our lives when we drink our coffee without caffeine, our milk with little or no fat, and our beer with few calories and less taste. No doubt some industrious scientist, tomorrow’s Nobel Prize laureate, is already working to develop a sizzling porterhouse steak without meat. And, if developed, we will eat it.
So, what is more natural to us than to swear allegiance to a counterfeit Jesus! This would be a Christ who gives us comfort but demands little in return. A Teacher who is always sending us pious bromides but never speaks to us about sin. A Master who is always swooping down to pick us up but who never asks His troops to carry Him.
Could it be our watered down Christianity is the very element which is keeping our seminaries and convents empty? Our young people may very well feel that any resemblance between the Christ of today’s Gospel and the Christ their parish is selling is purely coincidental.
Perhaps then it is time for us to cease attempting, as James Carrol puts it so upsettingly, “to get the prophet out of our city so we can honor him. Or onto a cross so we can love him.”
“Words, words, I’m sick of words,” shouted an exasperated Eliza Doolittle of “My Fair Lady” fame about her patronizing Henry Higgins. The time for words were done. So, she sang in a piercing voice, “Show me.” Is this not what Luke’s Christ is saying to each of us in today’s powerful Gospel?
“Christians,” said Albert Camus, “should get away from abstraction and confront the bloodstained face history has taken on today.” When people are troubled, we cry to Christ, “Why aren’t you there?” He angrily replies to us, “Why aren’t you?”