The Word Of Peace
Homiletic Reflections On Peacemaking

Deacon Robert M. Pallotti, D. Min.

6th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

Feb. 13, 2000

January 14, 1963 Gov. elect George Wallace again took the oath of office for Gov. of the state of Alabama. Among some of the most memorable lines in his speech that day were these words:

Today I have stood where once Jefferson Davis stood, and took an oath to my people. It is very appropriate then that from this cradle of the Confederacy, this very heart of the great Anglo-Saxon Southland, that today we sound the drum for freedom as have our generations of forebearers before us have done, time and again down through history…I draw the line if the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!

For those of us alive at the time we remember those defiant, dangerous and hate inspired words. They were the words borne of the belief that some members of society should be shut out from those things that make human life possible and allow it to flourish all under the hypocritical and cynical notion of using the argument of states rights to perpetuate injustice. It is the belief that some people simply do not count because of age, race, creed, ethnic origin and so on. Segregation, excluding others from the privileges that some members of society enjoy, is the result of ignorance, fear, bigotry, or a need to have some members of society serve as "scapegoats" for one’s own misfortunes.

In Jesus’ time lepers were cast out from among the living community. Often they joined a leper colony that dwelt far from those who were healthy. Leprosy was a dreaded disease. Its disfiguring effects lead many to believe that God’s curse was upon a person. However, someone with a skin sore like psorisis could be considered a leper.

What were the effects of such a practice of exclusion? Family members were cast out, communities lived in fear, and lepers were viewed as social outcasts damned and punished by God for their sins or the sins of their parents. Lepers were to shout "unclean" or were to ring a bell when entering a populated area so that others could seek refuge from them lest they be defiled or rendered unclean by coming too close to the leper. So combined with exclusion was the humiliation and lonliness of human rejection, and feeling of divine rejection.

Jesus breaks through and violates these long-standing taboos and conventions that separated people and defamed the human dignity of those that were cast out. He brings healing and restoration to those kicked out of normal human society. He gives them new life, breaking down any barriers that stand in the way of human solidarity under one Father. He shows them that they are damned by God, quite contrary, God want to heal them, God loves them!

In every time and culture there seem to be people that fulfill the role of modern lepers. They are the people others have cast out. In the U.S. it was the African-Americans that have borne the brunt of racial hatred , bigotry, segregation and discrimination. They are the only people to have been forcibly brought here in the millions made to constitute that most perverse of human institutions, human slavery. They have been the victims of the terror of white supremacists groups and the KKK. They have had to go to court to get equal education, housing and the right to vote like no other group. And they have served as "scapegoats" for many when things were not going well economically.

In the 1900’s we saw the extreme and logical outcome of segregation and bigotry in the smoke rising up to the sky from the furnaces of the crematoria of Auschwitz. And more recently we have had to contend with the horror of ethnic cleansing. However, times have changed and are changing. Segregation laws are a thing of the past. But attitudes take longer to change as evidence by the controversy in South Carolina over the flying of the "Stars and Bars" confederate flag over the state capitol building. There still seem to be outcasts in our time, AIDS victims still, the homeless, the poor the teen mother, the prisoners.

Jesus calls us to a change of heart that leads to a change of attitude. And rather than finding ways to divide people, the Church finds ways to build community among all people. This is so whether or not others try to intimidate us by labeling one as a "race traitor" or "class traitor." Such labels can be worn with pride by followers of Jesus Christ. For Christ statement from the cross is:

Solidarity now! Solidarity tomorrow! Solidarity forever!

Deacon Robert M. Pallotti, D. Min.
Uploaded February 12, 2000