The Word Of Peace
Homiletic Reflections On Peacemaking

Deacon Robert M. Pallotti

32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

"It might suit a number of the lords
if death fixed everything forever
confirmed eternally
the lordship of the lords
the servitude of the servants.
It mighty suit a number of the lords
to remain lords forever
in their costly private tombs
their servants still serving
in row on row of cheap graves.
But there is a resurrection
different from what we thought
resurrection that is
God's revolt against the lords
and against the lord of lords: death!

These words of the Swiss pastor, Kurt Marti, capture in so splendid a fashion the fundamental ground of Christian joy and hope--resurrection life ! Resurrection life is the victory of God in Christ that empowers us with the courage to die--but more importantly, it gives us the courage to live despite hardship, despite suffering, despite confusion, and despite the apparent victory of the murderers over their innocent victims.

These are easy words to proclaim on this beautiful Fall day. They are easy to proclaim from secure, well fed and rested pulpit. But I hold no illusions, and will not romanticize our Christian joy and hope. It is sometimes quite dangerous to live this joy and hope in a world that do often is joyless and bordering on despair. We see as much in 2Macc. These people accepted torture, physical mutilation and death rather than deny their God--the Father of our Lord. There was no romance here; it was night! Yet they stayed the course, remained faithful. Why ? Where do they get the power?

It was their belief and experience in the God that was with them ! This is a God who stands in solidarity with justice, love and peace embodied in those who are open to such things. It is a God that who will not abandon us, even when the shadowlands come, and the terror of the brutes of this world would try to rob us of joy and hope. The joy and hope of these people do not come from focusing on what they are losing--their safety and lives ! It comes from their knowledge of God's solidarity with them, and promise that the murderers do not and will not triumph over their innocent victims!

Jesus is questioned about resurrection. He points out, first of all, that there is resurrection--it is of the essence of the Father's will that life wins over evil in death. Then he points out that this life is a transformed life from what we know, yet connected to this world as well. We bring into eternal life the love, the things of love, of justice and peace that we lived here on earth. In fact, all of creation is headed for transformation in the risen Christ--that is the basis of Christian hope and joy, and resistance against the forces of death.

The martyrs are those people who have experienced this of God. In our bulletins over the past weeks I have inserted small biographies of modern martyrs. These people like, Franz Jaggerstatter, the Austrian peasant who refused to serve in Hitler's armies; Dag Hammarskjold who believed in justice and peace until it cost him his life; Dr. Martin Luther King, jr. whose life of nonviolent love for justice until assassinated; D. Bonhoeffer, the brilliant pastor and theologian who publicly denounced Nazism until he was hanged, one month before the surrender of Germany, and the young students of the White Rose whose Catholic faith brought them into confrontation with the forces of death, confident in God's vindicating power, all had one thing in common--belief in the justice of God--God would give them life ! It was a belief in resurrection that allowed them, not only to be unafraid to die, but also, unafraid to truly live --to live with courage in the face of the demonic powers of death.

This love for life, this belief in life is what leads us on a collision course with the forces of death. As a people of joy and hope we are called to resist death, and the death-dealing forces that still finds expression in global proportions in the reality of the nuclear terror; death in the continuance of the death penalty; death in the millions of abortions on demand; death in the ravaged humanity imprisoned in grinding poverty; death in the plundered earth. Resurrection faith says NO to such assaults on life, on our joy and hope; and Yes to all things that build up, support and thrust life forward.

This belief in resurrection life, that despite terror, is one in which we can work and must work for a better future, a better society, even a better Church, in peace and freedom and justice--knowing that, despite our failures, God's assertion of life will triumph. And we know that the rulers of this world and the negatives of this world are not ultimate reality! The divisions of race, color, poor and rich, rulers and ruled is temporary. This faith allows us the freedom; gives us the courage to announce life and denounce death. It allows us to struggle for what is good and life-affirming and life-giving because we know that in Jesus Christ that;

"... there is a resurrection
different from what we thought
resurrection that is
God's revolt against the lords
and against the lord of lords. death.

Deacon Robert M. Pallotti, D. Min.
Uploaded January 14, 2000