The Word Of Peace
Homiletic Reflections On Peacemaking

Deacon Robert M. Pallotti

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time - A

Feb. 11, 1996

"There is nothing wrong with your television set. We are controlling transmission. We can control the horizontal. We can control the vertical. We can blur the focus, or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour sit back. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and wonder that reaches from the inner mind, to the OUTER LIMITS "! Thus spoke the control voice from the popular science fiction of the 1960's, the OUTER LIMITS.

This series was popular because it seemed to stretch our imaginations, it seemed to confront us with the familiar and with the alien; the bizarre and the tragic. Most importantly it confronted us with moral truths and insights, it confronted us with ourselves and the world in which we lived. It so doing it often asked us to be prepared to go beyond the norm, to see things in a new way, and to live by lessons such things taught.

In one episode a middle-aged professor at a small college seeks to escape from his hum-drum existence, to contribute something great to the world. He develops an energy link, a small device that can channel all of the universes electro-magnetic force. He then has a special operation to have the device planted in the frontal lobe of his brain where he will be able to control such power by use of his brain.

Initially, his power is a scientific wonder, but soon the professor's power turns sinister. In planting this device into his brain to channel the power he had failed to reflect on what might happen it the negative, and sometimes destructive subconcious thoughts were to control such awesome power. He failed to understand that what lies deep in the heart and mind may not always be benevolent , and may not easily be controlled!

The human power to make choices can be creative or destructive.  They can be forces for good or evil. Jesus reminds that each day we face choices. These choices that we will make are often driven by conscious and subconcious motivations that we may or may not be aware of most of the time. Many times choices may be prompted in a desire to fulfill a law. Jesus himself points out that he has come to fulfill the Law and not to abolish it . Yet as he goes on with his sermon pushes the boundary of choices from simply obeying laws, to going beyond the law! He calls his disciples to do more ! Here the motive is not obeying a law, but rather a personal ratification and recommitment to a relationship with the Father through him. A relationship animated by God's redemptive Spirit! Here Jesus calls us to explore the OUTER LIMITS of loving service in a life that reveals the redemptive love of God.

In a recent article in Parade magazine, Congressman John Lewis of Georgia was featured. John Lewis was a leader of SNCC, the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee. He along with many others chose to challenge the segregation attitudes and laws of the South by use of non-violent means. This would be used to draw the attention of the nation to the moral evil and political disgrace of segregation in the United States. Lewis and others like him felt that only the suffering and redemptive power of sacrificial love could real change occur in the South. A change in hearts and minds and laws!  In their very bodies God's redemptive power would be experienced as a call for change, not vanquishing the adversary, but rather converting such as these. Not substituting a new oppressor for the old one, but rather raising all up to the level of shared human dignity.

This truly in living out Jesus' call to go beyond the norm, to go beyond the law, to go beyond people's expectations! This is what it means to go to the Outer Limits of the usual--to participate in God's redemptive love. A love that leaves itself open to hurt in order to make a tender of redemption. A tender made in our own bodies!

The middle-aged professor, like the sorcerer's apprentice had summoned up forces he was unable to control. The control voice concluded, " Until humanity can change within the powers of the universe must not come under his control. Only when humanity undergoes a change of heart from its violent tendencies and practices will it prove worthy of such power ."

Jesus calls us to this today, to go beyond the norm and the expected. He calls us to allow the Father to reveal this redemptive love in our own bodies ! This love revealed by those who live at the Outer Limits of love.

Deacon Robert M. Pallotti, D. Min.
Uploaded January 20, 2000