12th Sunday of the Year C

Today’s invitation to take up our cross and follow Jesus has been understood in different ways down through the centuries. In the early days – as we saw in a homily quite recently – it meant martyrdom. After the early persecutions had died down, however – as I explained that day – some began to see taking up their cross and following Jesus as withdrawal from the world and the embracing of a life of penance and self-denial, a movement which gave birth to what came to be known as the monastic life, living as a monk. For most people, however, this was not possible, and so taking up one’s cross and following Jesus came to be seen as the acceptance of the hard things in life, a way of thinking which, in one sense, was valid but which was used by those who had power, as a way persuading the poor, to accept their lot in life rather than challenge or question the injustices and inequalities they suffered under. We see this reflected in many of the old hymns our grandparents loved so much and it’s what led Karl Marx to describe religion as the opium of the people. But history moves on, and I would like to suggest another way of understanding Jesus’ words which is relevant to the age we live in. And the clue is in the second reading.

At first sight, mind you, it doesn’t seem much of a clue. ‘You are all of you’ Paul says, ‘Sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.’ Not much there. Had those who planned the Lectionary given us the previous three verses, however, it would have been much clearer. The general point Paul is making is the one he makes all the time, which is that, as men and women of faith, we are not subject to or saved by the Law. But before faith in Christ came along, he tells the Galatians in those missing verses, the Law was like a slave looking after them. Again, not all that helpful, until we realise that the slave in question was not any old slave but an educated one known as a paidagogus who acted as a tutor to upper- class Roman boys. He was usually a Greek and, until the boy became of age, exercised a good deal of authority over him in much the way a governess would have done in an upper class British family. As soon as the boy reached manhood, however, and took on the status of ‘son’ the authority of the paidagogus ceased. He no longer had any power over the young man. And Paul’s point is obvious. The Law was like the paidagogus. It had its part to play in the early years, but now that Christ has come, we are called to maturity and the Law no longer has authority over us.

This has always been true, of course, but what I want to suggest today is that it has particular relevance to the age in which we live, largely because of the profound changes which took place in society in the second half of the last century, especially in the sixties. They had their origins much earlier, but coming to a head when they did and influenced as they were by the previously unknown phenomenon of pop culture, they had a huge impact on those who belonged to the post-war baby-boom which includes many of us here. And at the heart of this change was a massive break with the past. This had been brewing since the days of Darwin and Freud and all the other people who, for years, had been questioning and undermining traditional religious beliefs. But in the latter half of the twentieth century it finally exploded in our faces and led to things like the sexual revolution and what I often refer to as a society with a thousand versions of the truth. Not that this is all bad. In many ways it just is and part of it was the Second Vatican Council. But what it does is present men and women of faith with a whole series of new challenges and new ways of taking up our cross and following Jesus. And at the heart of it is the call to personal faith with all that that involves.

In a sense, of course, it’s a return to the early centuries when, to be a Christian, required great courage in the face of a hostile environment. Only the deeply committed had a place in the Church, those with personal faith, and the same will become more and more obvious as this new century progresses. The days when people believed what their parents and grandparents had believed because they believed them are over and will never return. Everything today is up for grabs. The Church, with its dogmas and its rules and regulations simply does not have the influence or control it once had. People no longer believe things just because someone tells them to and those who do believe find themselves constantly swimming against the current of contemporary society. This part of it will almost certainly change at some time as the Churches come to terms with this new world and learn to speak to it again in a langauge it understands, but that day still looks to be a long way off. And so to take up our cross and follow Jesus today means, among other things, being prepared to be different and to swim against the current, difficult as that can be. It means coming to terms with what it means to live in a deeply flawed Church without walking away from it. It means being alert to the signs of the times and eager to accept the challenge of the Gospel, facing the doubts and fears of the men and women of our time. What if there is no God? What if the whole notion of God is a primitive invention made redundant by the discoveries of modern science? What if we have been conned into believing a whole load of rubbish with no foundation in reality? What if all those people who have walked away from the Church in recent years are right and the sooner we all join them the better?

These are real questions and our willingness to confront them is part of the challenge of the Gospel at this moment in history. ‘But you,’ Jesus says today, ‘Who do you say I am?’ Never mind what everybody else says. What do YOU say? Answer that question for yourself. That’s what personal faith is about. And when you have answered it through deep personal prayer and reflection, be faithful to your answer no matter what anybody else says or does.

Isn’t that just what the martyrs, our ancestors in the faith, did all those centuries ago?


BIDDING PRAYERS


In a world with a thousand versions of the truth it is not surprising that many are confused. For men and women of faith, too, there are far more questions around today than there are answers. And so we ask God for the courage we need to live with these questions and recognize them as the place where he is calling us to deeper and deeper faith, a faith fit for the time we are living through…….……….....Lord hear us

Every week in the Eucharistic Prayer we pray for the grace to be alert to the signs of the times and eager to accept the challenge of the Gospel. We ask for this grace so that we can bring to the men and women of our time the Good News of the Gospel and advance with them on the way to the Kingdom. We cannot do any of this, however, unless we are prepared to experience their doubts, struggle with their question, and enter fully into the experience of what it is to be alive at this time. And so we pray for the courage to do this, never seeking refuge in the false peace that comes from what is often little more than superstition or magic………....Lord hear us

Those of us who belong to the post-war baby-boom generation can just about remember a Church and a world where there were fewer questions and more certainty. The younger generation have never known this, having lived their whole lives in that world with a thousand versions of the truth. And so we pray that, in the midst of this world, they will come to know God and answer Jesus’ question. ‘And you, who do you say that I am?’………………Lord hear us

Next week’s second reading, a continuation of todays, begins with the words; ‘When Christ freed us, he meant us to remain free.’ And so we pray that, faced with the challenges to faith presented by the modern world, we will never seek refuge again in the seemingly reassuring but ultimately false certainties of the past. We pray especially for all those who, rather than face these challenges, are turning to fundamentalist ways of thinking which mirror the fundamentalism we see causing so much trouble in other parts of the world……………….Lord hear us

When Karl Marx said that religion was the opium of the people he had a valid point. Too often, religion, with its promise of future bliss, has been used as a way of stopping people addressing the real problems facing them. And so we ask for the wisdom we need to show the world that this is not the case now by responding to the many challenges facing humanity today. This week’s bulletin offers us concrete ways of addressing homelessness, slavery, the crisis in Darfur, the Arms Trade and the Environment, and we pray that, as a parish, we will respond…………….Lord hear us

The ‘paidagogus’ had a vital part to play in the development and growth of boys in ancient Rome. Girls, however, were excluded and were not given the same opportunities as their brothers. In the second reading, however, St Paul speaks of how, in Christ, there are no more distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female. And so we pray that this century will finally see an end to discrimination against women all over the world………………………...Lord hear us