The Word Of Peace
Homiletic Reflections On Peacemaking

Deacon Robert M. Pallotti, D. Min.

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

August 2000

What Will Nourish the People?

In December of 1989 something extraordinary occurred, Vaclav Havel was elected president of the newly democratic Czechoslovakia. Havel had been a playwright for most of his life and a political activist. What was most impressed about Havel is his courage to confront the most repressive of all Communists governments in the Soviet bloc. He was arrested several times and harassed most of his life. His courage and writing nourished a nation in ideas and actions that would give birth to a new and democratic nation.

During his persecution by the government Havel wrote and essay entitled, "The Power of the Powerless" in which argued that under circumstances of oppression people must nevertheless, "live within the truth." By the essential action of refusing to "live the lie" of obeisance to the forms of dictatorship, Havel argued that individuals, and then society "from below," could reclaim their freedom.

An overwhelming majority elected Havel. But what is it about him that compelled so many to support him? Is it his insistence that we live in a moral universe and those individuals and nations are to be held accountable for their actions? Is it his charisma that seems to nourish the hopes and dreams and minds of people even outside his nation? We may never really know for sure but I think it is a safe bet that it’s his overall vision for his nation and the world, which draws people to him and his vision.

Havel is not a perfect man but he is a courageous one. And such people summon from others a courage that they did not know that they had within them! Jesus tells us that he is the bread of life. That is, that he is that nourishment from the Father to the whole world to bring wholeness and real living. Jesus is the gift of the Father to nourish us on our life’s journey. We all know that our journey can become arduous and sometimes we believe that we may not be able to go on. We, like Elijah, may get discouraged and just say, "Lord take me now." Certainly life can be so wearing for some, nothing seems to go right for them and they feel that no one cares. But the Lord tells us something different.

We are told that we will get what we need to go on, even if the journey is fraught with difficulty. God the Father in Jesus gives us all that we need to experience real life now, that is real loving that is the taste of eternal life in the midst of the present world. Jesus comes to nourish us physically, but also spiritually, emotionally and psychologically. Jesus is the gift of the Father to bring individuals and nations to real health.

I believe that if we observe the many episodes in the New Testament where Jesus interacts with people that people is either taken up with him or they reject him. For many Jesus comes as a person with that charisma of one sent by God the Father and he nourishes their fondest hopes and dreams. For others Jesus is just too dangerous. Not only do they not believe that he is not from heaven but that he poses a dangerous threat to the established order. But for those that accept Jesus their lives can never be the same.

For those who accept the nourishing presence of the Lord in their lives compassion and forgiveness become a way of life. Compassion takes many forms of course. There is the compassion of sitting with someone who is very ill or dying and sharing in the other’s suffering. There is the compassion of struggling for human rights against all odds and prejudices. Is this not the case with those who work for the abolition of slavery as symbolized by the slave ship rebellion on the Amistad?

This election year I have already heard many say that are not excited about the candidates. They seem to lack charisma or some vision to nourish. Maybe, but aren’t we the people responsible for that vision. And to take it a step further, is not the Church of Jesus Christ more responsible for carving pout and living a vision of life that insists on the moral nature of the universe and manifests this in a struggle for justice and peace?

"No one can come to me unless the Father draws that person. All of us have been drawn to the Lord by the power of the Father. We are meant to be here. We are nourished by Christ. And we are meant to nourish others and the world with the reality of God’s unconditional love of God in Christ.

In this way we as the Church of Jesus can help others and ourselves to reclaim our freedom from all those things that get in the way of God’s nourishing presence in our lives. In bringing and living the vision and reality of God’s love to the world we will live within the truth and the truth will set us free.

Deacon Robert M. Pallotti, D. Min.
Created August 12, 2000