It can be pretty hard at times to be a preacher. You have to be interesting and engaging, and that’s difficult to do all the time. You need to have something to say, and I know we’ve all heard our fair share of sermons that seem to be made up as they go along. But the preacher also faces a more subtle danger as well: the temptation to give into being well-liked, to saying only what people want to hear and never what they don’t. But any preacher worth his salt knows that at times, in order to be faithful to God’s Word, it’s necessary to ruffle people’s feathers a bit.
In the Gospel today, Jesus is not afraid to ruffle some feathers. Even today, his words might offend our sensibilities: the idea of bringing division rather than peace, about setting a fire blazing, about pitting family members against one another. It all sounds rather… well, un-Christian! What could Jesus possibly mean? I think Jesus intentionally wants his words to have a shock value, because he wants his listeners – both then and now – to understand that he is not interested in saying only what we want to hear. A preacher might be tempted at times to stray from speaking the truth in order to placate his listeners, but Jesus won’t do that. He is God’s Word himself, the Word Made Flesh, and so he must be faithful to speaking exactly what is true and necessary for us to hear, even if it is hard to do so.
Yequiang Wang, Igniting (2016)
But Jesus is also doing something more than just clarifying expectations. He’s also saying something fundamental about the way things are – about the “status quo” of ourselves and our world: things must change, and they must change in a radical way. We all know various family situations in which complacency has created chaos: think of a parent who has given into a child’s demands so often that they have become spoiled, or a married couple who has avoided discussing their disagreements that they have become isolated and non-communicating. In those kinds of situations, a small fix usually doesn’t work. What’s needed instead is a total overhaul of that relationship – a complete reordering of the flawed dynamic.
Jesus’s shocking words signal that much the same thing needs to happen in the human family. As the children of God we have strayed so far off course from what the Father intended that small fixes here and there simply aren’t going to be enough. What’s needed instead is a total reordering of how human beings relate to each other – how our relationships are governed and structured, about how we come to understand what is in the interest of the individual and the whole.
This kind of revolutionary talk is not that uncommon today: we hear it a lot in our politics, in discussions about justice and power, even in family contexts. But here’s the thing: our own efforts at reordering and remaking are flawed, because we are flawed. We know too well what happens when someone decides they know how to tear down the status quo and build something new: at best, we end up with disappointment and disillusionment, and at worst, we have shocking violence, bigotry, factionalism, and various other human forms of division. What Jesus declares in the Gospel today is that it must be God who dictates how we need to change. We need to be reordered, not in the way that we think best but how he does. And as God’s children, the way he desires us to change is to become more like his Divine Son. Jesus doesn’t just diagnose what ails us; he himself is the cure, as well – as God’s Word, he communicates himself to us as the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
But how does Jesus continue to speak to us today? Well, here’s the answer that may not make me very popular: through the Church. Now, I totally understand how that sounds – that in this era of the clergy abuse crisis, of weak pastors, of boring bishops, and of Church scandals of every kind in the news every week, it seems like a ridiculous thing to say that what we need is to trust in the Church. But I wouldn’t be doing my job preaching God’s word if I shied away from saying what is true simply because it isn’t popular right now.
And friends, I believe it is true! The Church certainly has its flaws in its human elements, in particular individuals and structures that make up how the Church is governed. Through those actors, we have seen all too clearly and painfully how the Church can cause harm. But the Church is not just a human reality; it is a divine reality as well, which is why we can never dismiss it completely – indeed why we have to always come back to it despite the sins and offenses of its human elements. We believe that the Church is the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ, and so she speaks with the authority of Jesus himself. It is in the Church that we continue to encounter Christ, his Word and Presence, learning how to love what he loves, to value what he values, to prioritize what he prioritizes, to be remade in the way God desires.
Friends, if it is hard to be a preacher, it can be hard at times also to be the one being preached to, to be challenged and critiqued. But the truth is sometimes we do need to have our feathers ruffled a bit, we do need to have our sensibilities shocked. Why? Because our spiritual and moral complacency has created chaos, and we need renewal. Jesus said that he came so that we might have life and have it in abundance (Jn 10:10). When we listen to the Church, not just to one priest or bishop or popular speaker, but to the Church as a whole, we hear the voice of Christ still speaking to us – perhaps saying something unpopular, something we’d prefer not to hear, but saying something true and necessary and ultimately good, if we are open to it.
May this Eucharist we are about to celebrate help us to accept where the Lord is calling us to be transformed and to let his fire bring renewal in the way he desires it.
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