April 2009 Sánchez Sunday Commentaries & Sample Homilies (B)
PALM/PASSION SUNDAY (B)
April 5, 2009
The Passion Prolonged
Patricia Datchuck Sánchez
Isa 50:4-7
Phil 2:6-11
Mark 14:1-15:45
On this first day of this week called “Holy,” Deutero-Isaiah, Paul and the Marcan evangelist invite our entrance into the mystery of our salvation.This we do by remembering — by calling to mind and heart the love of our God, the sacrifice of our brother Jesus, his triumph over the grave and the liberation from sin, evil and death that is ours to appropriate through faith.But our remembering must be more than nostalgia and sentiment; on the contrary, our remembering gathers us in and immerses us in the presence and power of God, where the experience of salvation becomes real and practical and even challenging.Through the portal of this remembering, we walk once again into the grace of the Christ-event.
This event and the manner in which it has unfolded among us have become more understandable in light of the prophecies of Deutero-Isaiah and his colleagues.In today’s first reading, the prophet envisioned a messenger from God who would be willing to suffer in order for his message to be made known.Centuries later and due in no small part to the fuller sense with which the word of God has been inspired and invested(see comment on first reading for more), Christians came to recognize that Jesus is the one who suffered so that the saving word of God might be spoken through him.
In today’s second reading, with a hymn that was a favorite of his contemporaries, Paul celebrates the gift of Jesus and traces the journey that Jesus was willing to travel in order that sinners be saved.This hymn maps out Jesus’ movement from the heights to the depths and back again to glory.With compelling pathos, the dying and rising Jesus invites us to be his traveling companions and to surrender our own suffering to him so as to share in the ongoing process of universal redemption.
In our surrendering and in our sharing, we gain renewed awareness that the passion of Christ continues.In the living body of Christ of which Jesus is the head, the passion is prolonged in all who suffer from hunger and thirst, injustice and greed, violence and hatred, sickness, poverty and the calamities of nature.Our experience of Jesus and the sacredness and blessings of this week compel our attention and our caretoward all those in whom the passion is prolonged.Because of Jesus’ immersion in the human experience, believers may no longer regard salvation as a spiritual experience only, or as a relief that will come when death frees us from this world. Salvation is and must be a here-and-now as well as a forever experience of the mercies of God. To that end, as Gustavo Gutiérrez has insisted, we are to be active participants in the history of salvation(A Theology of Liberation, 15th anniversary edition, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, N.Y.: 2007).This history includes not only those actions that are properly divine ––creation, incarnation, redemption–– but also the actions of human beings as they respond to divine initiatives.This salvation takes place in the midst of history, where individuals and social classes suffer and struggle to liberate themselves from slavery and oppression.This salvation is a radical liberation from all misery, alienation, heartbreak and loss.
This process of unburdening and liberating those in whom the passion of Jesus is prolonged is at the very heart of what we celebrate this week.In their “La Pastoral en las misiones de América Latina,” the bishops of Latin America spoke with one voice to affirm that “all the dynamism of the cosmos and of human history, the movement toward the creation of a just and more fraternal world, the overcoming of social inequities among persons, the efforts, so urgently needed…to liberate humankind from all that depersonalizes it ––physical and moral misery, ignorance and hunger–– as well as the awareness of human dignity, all these originate, are transformed and reach their perfection in the saving work of Christ.In him and through him, salvation is present at the heart of human history and there is no human act which, in the last instance, is not defined in terms of it” (Bogotá, Colombia, 1968).In the 40 years since this declaration, the prolonged passion of the body of Christ has continued unnoticed by many and almost unabated in some areas of our world.These sad realities challenge us to translate this celebration of our salvation into a renewed commitment to those who continue to suffer.
Isa 50:4-7
When Deutero-Isaiah incorporated the four Servant Songs into his message of comfort, his focus was probably on the plight of his contemporaries in exile in Babylonia.Therefore, the Servant portrayed in the four songs was also probably someone known to the prophet and the displaced peoples of Judah.In verses 4 and 5 of this, the third of the four songs, the Servant’s ministry is described: He was to speak rousing words to the weary despite the rejection and suffering that are inherent in such a task.As Caroll Stuhlmueller has pointed out, these two verses are textually disturbed, and for that reason have been variously translated(“Deutero-Isaiah and Trito-Isaiah,”The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: 1990).For clarity, Stuhlmueller has proposed the following:“The Lord Yahweh has given me a disciple’s tongue that I may know how to sustain the weary.The word rouses me in the morning, in the morning he rouses my ear to hear like a disciple.”
Willing to respond to God and receptive to the strength that God afforded him, the prophet may have sensed that God was calling him or one of his fellow prophets to take on the difficult ministry of the Servant.If not himself or Jeremiah or Ezekiel, then perhaps Deutero-Isaiah envisioned the possibility of the suffering exiles from Judah assuming this role for the sake of sinful humankind.
Whomever the ancient prophet had in mind, it most probably was not Jesus of Nazareth.This association would come to light only centuries later when the earliest believers began to understand that these songs were truly fulfilled by Jesus.But this association came only gradually. Hard-pressed to make sense of a suffering savior as well as the ignominy of the cross, the first disciples began to pore over the ancient messianic prophecies with fresh eyes and with a faith that was newly graced by the resurrection of Jesus.Because of what scholars call the sensus plenior or “fuller sense” of scripture, this text and others like it took on a depth of meaning that had not been evident to or appreciated by Deutero-Isaiah or his contemporaries.By definition, “the sensus plenior is the deeper meaning, intended by God but not clearly intended by the human author, that is seen to exist in the words of scripture when they are studied in the light of further revelation or of development in the understanding of revelation” (Raymond E. Brown, “Hermeneutics,”The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Prentice Hall,Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: 1990).Now part of what has been called the new hermeneutic, the fuller sense of scripture continues to challenge readers and interpreters to persevere in uncovering and discovering the more-than-literal senses whenever the biblical text is engaged.In the process of engaging the text, we may also discover how we too are called to share in the ministry of speaking God’s word morning after morning without rebelling or turning back.
Phil 2:6-11
In his book Living Jesus: Learning the Heart of the Gospel, HarperCollins, New York: 2000), Luke Timothy Johnson suggests that what Paul found to be most significant about the human Jesus was not the facts about his life or the words he spoke but the character of his response to God.This response consisted in his trusting fidelity and obedience to God.In the early Christian hymn that Paul cited in his letter to the Philippians, the great apostle enunciated the significance of Jesus’ obedience most eloquently.This passage affirms that Jesus’ death on the cross was the ultimate expression of an obedience to God that characterized every moment of his human existence. Jesus’ “Yes” to God was answered by God’s “Yes” to him. That divine yes found its fullest expression in Jesus’ resurrection and exaltation in glory.
In celebrating Jesus’ obedience and God’s affirmation, this beautiful hymn also reveals the faith of the early believers in Jesus.Some historians suggest that this hymn may have been sung at the very earliest eucharistic celebrations.If this is true, then this dynamic expression of faith is quite remarkable in that it reflects what scholars call the high Christology of the prologue of the fourth Gospel.Like the Johannine evangelist, the author of this hymn acknowledged the preexistence of Jesus with God (v. 6). This realization makes the reality of the Incarnation all the more poignant because Jesus was willing to surrender his position of power in order to accept that complete and utter abasement that Paul called kenosis: “He emptied himself.”
This surrender of Jesus was held out to the Philippians by Paul as an example to be emulated in the midst of community.In its literary context, this hymn was quoted as an illustrative follow-up to the exhortation:“Have this mind in you which was in Christ Jesus” (v. 5).As Fred B. Craddock has explained, being of the same mind does not mean that every member of the community agrees on everything(Philippians, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, Ky.: 1985).Rather, each shares a common attitude or orientation; each has love for the other and respect for the other’s ideas, differences and preferences.There is, as Paul has affirmed, a particular approach to life, to others, to self, to God that should characterize those who belong to Christ.Each time this great hymn is quoted in our hearing, we are blessed by its beauty and challenged by its stark acknowledgment of what Jesus suffered for our sakes.We are also invited to decide whether or not the mind and attitude and character of Jesus Christ are indeed our own.
Mark 14:1-15:45
First to tell the story of Jesus in the literary genre called gospel, the Marcan evangelist chose to formulate his narrative backward.Starting with the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus, the evangelist offered kerygma, that is, the “preaching” or God’s word as it confronts human beings with its message of liberation, reconciliation and salvation.By his own design, the most significant moment in the passion narrative and in all of Mark’s entire Gospel is the statement uttered by a Roman centurion at the moment Jesus breathed his last breath:“Truly, this was the Son of God” (15:39).Up to that point, Mark had been keeping what scholars call his “messianic secret.” In order to clarify the manner and character of Jesus’ messiahship and to prevent the spread of misconceptions that Jesus would exercise a military role or be regarded as a majestic ruler, Mark kept the true identity of Jesus under wraps until the moment of his choosing.
Because it was his firm conviction that suffering would be the means whereby Jesus would exercise his messiahship and through which he would be decisively revealed as the Suffering Servant and Savior, Mark bided his time.Only when Jesus hung on the cross in seeming defeat did Mark allow his “secret” to be told.Jesus has saved sinful humankind by surrendering to the suffering that has made us whole and holy.
Given the fact that the first Gospel was probably intended for a Roman demographic, and considering the fact that it was being circulated at the time of the persecution of Christians by Nero, the impact made by Mark’s message was all the more poignant.Shared with those who were suffering for their faith in Jesus, this Gospel encouraged the early disciples to unite their struggles to those of their Lord. As he had told them at least three times in the course of the first Gospel, their belonging to him would bring them a share of all that he would endure.As we also unite the struggles that are ours because of our lived faith and commitment to Jesus, the grace of our union with him enables and, yes, even compels us to reach out to others in whom the passion of Christ continues to be prolonged.These too are sons and daughters of God in whose suffering we are to discover the face of Christ, and minister to their needs accordingly.
April 5, 2009 Sample Homily
Palm/Passion Sunday
Pat Marrin
Of the four Gospels, Mark is recognized as the earliest, simplest and, in the gradual development of theological interpretations of Jesus, the most human. The divine Jesus of John’s gospel is still a half-century away. The messianic identity of Mark’s Jesus is a profound secret to his fellow Jews, to the Romans and, it would seem, even to his own followers, who abandon and deny him on the eve of his death. In the Passion account we read today, a frantic Jesus struggles in prayer in the garden, begs to be spared this deadly course, cries in apparent despair from the cross. The Gospel ends with a question mark, as terrified women flee in silence from an empty tomb and their encounter with a messenger claiming that Jesus has risen.
Our own well-established Easter faith -- the happy ending to the story -- spares us now the extended dark interval the early church must have endured after Jesus’ death, as faith in the resurrection gradually emerged from despair like a slow dawn of recognition after a long night of grief. A catastrophe is revealed as the glory of God’s absolute love absorbing sin and death, a necessary death foretold in the Law and the Prophets.
Why do we read these long accounts of Jesus’ suffering at the start of Holy week? Because these texts have power to move us emotionally and locate us personally in the story. This is what worship is for, to rehearse us through the stages of our own faith development. Mark’s Passion is meant to take us personally to the zone before faith, to find in Jesus’ dark struggle to trust God the unfinished faith of our own encounters with grief and loss.
What is already revealed in Jesus is still a work in progress in us. The outcome is assured from God’s side but incomplete on our side, because Easter faith must still be received and incorporated into our own story, our walk through the shadowy ambiguities to come, decisions to be made and challenges to be faced.
If the dramatic, communal sharing of Mark’s Passion quickens our heartbeat and brings to mind the many murders that affront us each day in the news, the judicial crimes that imprison and abandon so many among the poor and desperate among us, the crushing despair of millions around the world caught below the safety nets of economic and social survival — then we are accompanying Jesus today.
If the images of the Passion help us join our own feelings of betrayal, loss and loneliness to those of Jesus, we are renewing our baptismal commitment to die with Christ in order to live with Christ, a lifelong surrender that makes our own suffering redemptive for others.
If we find in Jesus’ innocence a deeper sense of our own sin — as silence and neglect in the face of the suffering of others, as failure to risk love when it is required of us or offered to us – then we are learning of our need for God’s mercy and about the joy of conversion.
Palm/Passion Sunday invites us to consciously dedicate the week ahead as holy, to enter it and deliberately focus our minds and hearts on the holy work of accompanying Jesus: to the table of the Last Supper, to the garden of his agony, to the trial before his accusers, and, finally, to the cross that awaits him. We are both witnesses and full participants because this is our story. This is how we will get to Easter.
April 9, 2009 Sample Homily
Holy Thursday
Fr. James Smith
“Dinner Among Friends”
Tonight we have been invited to an intimate dinner among a few friends. But these men did not begin as friends. Jesus was not a celebrity looking for fans, or a politician on the hustings. Jesus was a teacher looking for students, disciples. They didn’t have to be bright — just teachable.
So, he first chose Peter: rock-solid in his own way after he had been quarried. Loyal as a dog, dependable in crisis. He was the kind of leader that others could lean on. Jesus could count on Peter to get the job done whether it was easy or hard, whether he felt like it or not, whether he understood it or not.
On the other end of the spectrum was John. More a lover than a man of action. Someone to sit around with, talk with, pray with, be with. Not very useful otherwise. But then, what good is a new kingdom if there is no love there? John would keep recalling the others to the whole point of their message and mission.