Homily for Week 20 Ordinary Time: "The Hate Stops Here"

I am full, completely full, of partial forgiveness, of others and of myself. “I will forgive only in so far as….” You fill in the blank: only if the other person doesn’t do it again, or is really REALLY sorry - whatever. In today’s Gospel Jesus is bluntly saying “THE HATE STOPS HERE.” We often forget that Jesus was not a Catholic (we only began to be called Catholic some three hundred years after death and resurrection Jesus.). Jesus wasn’t even Christian (we weren’t called Christian until around 44ad, some 14years after His death and resurrection. We forget that Jesus was a Jew, a very good Jew who knew the Law and the Prophets and he practiced His faith. Early believers were simply Jews who believed Jesus was the promised Messiah; they continued to worship in the temple and obey the Mosaic Law, though they added going to their homes “in the evening” and “break bread” in memory of Him as He told them and us to do. The relationship between Jews and foreigners, as in today’s Gospel story — of a Canaanite woman — was complicated at best and riddled with hostility. Jesus is bluntly saying THE HATE STOPS HERE. The entire ministry of Jesus is about forgiveness, healing and reconciliation and is the mission of all those who follow Him including ourselves. If it weren’t for our Jewish ancestors in Faith we wouldn’t be sitting here and praying in this church today. The victory we celebrate in Jesus is a work in progress. Jesus lived up to and beyond the cross because He was full of forgiveness — no partial forgiver was He. We too must live up to and beyond our crosses by being people, a community of Faith, full of forgiveness. Forgiveness is difficult. This is why I said I am full of partial forgiveness but partial forgiveness only sets us free partially. I can only think of two times when I have fully forgiven; once when my dad fully forgave me for shooting my mother’s brand new VW with a 30 odd six and I fully accepted his forgiveness; and second when I became a recovering alcoholic — I totally stopped my self accusations, guilt, remorse and accepted the unconditional love AA afforded me -- and I became truly free. I’m getting better at it, I’m a work in progress. We continue to live through a difficult week and it seems we will be living through a particular difficult time in our history. What are we to do? Forgive, heal and reconcile wherever we can, in every moment we can and we must do so nonviolently. The trick is to witness and witness powerfully against racism, hatred, violence in whatever form it takes and by any and whatever group espouses it in any way. The trick is to do so without succumbing to violence and hatred ourselves; this will enslave us, not free us, and will only perpetuate the violence. When we hold hatred in our hearts for any group, we drag their darkness and hatred into our lives, into our hearts and we all become darker for it. A year or so ago I was giving a workshop on forgiveness. I said that we must even love Isis. One woman came up to be at the break saying how much she was enjoying the workshop but said “I am going to continue to hate Isis. I said okay. Thinking about it during the bread I began the next session with, “we may continue to hate Isis but we only bring their darkness and violence into our lives.” Forgiveness is never about the other person, or letting anyone get away with anything. It is about bring. Peace into our own lives — a peace the world may not understand. For our own peace of mind HATE MUST STOP RIGHT HERE.