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The Unauthorized Homily By Bill Dunn A commentary on the Scripture readings from the Sunday Lectionary |
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(Scripture readings for Palm Sunday, April 5th: Mark 11:1-10; Isaiah 50:4-7; Philippians 2:6-11; Mark 14:1-15:47) PASSION SUNDAY – WORLDVIEWS MATTER MORE THAN EVER This week is Palm Sunday. There is a three-minute reading at the start of Mass, describing Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, when people waved palm branches in His honor. (This is where the “palm” of Palm Sunday comes from.) However, the official gospel reading this week is the 20-minute Passion narrative—Jesus’ arrest and torture and death—which is much lengthier, much more graphic, and much more to the point of why we come to church in the first place. Palm Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week, the pinnacle of our liturgical year and the focus of what it means to be Christian. On the face of it, it seems rather odd to spend so much time proclaiming the grizzly details of the execution of a political dissident 2,000 years ago in a backwater region of the Roman Empire. And it certainly would be odd…IF Jesus had been a mere mortal. If Jesus were nothing more than a good and wise philosopher—but not divine—as secular people insist (including many secular people holding leadership positions in certain Christian denominations, including mine), then it would be a rather gross and voyeuristic exercise to dwell on the gruesome manner in which He died. And then there’s Mel Gibson’s movie, “The Passion of the Christ.” Oh boy, talk about gruesome and gross and graphic. When Gibson released the movie five years ago (wow, has it been five years already?), he was attacked by secular people for two things. First, it was charged that his movie surely would provoke countless incidents of anti-Semitic violence. Well, the movie was shown, tens of million of Christians watched it and were deeply touched by it, and…nothing happened. All those Christians continued to treat their Jewish neighbors and friends with respect. No violence occurred. (As we learned a couple of years later, Mel himself struggles with some inner demons, but the film did not spark any ugly behavior.) The second attack was that the film was insanely and gratuitously violent. Ironically, some of these charges came from Hollywood big shots, the very same people who have never met a spurting artery or an exploding human skull they did not embrace. America’s favorite grumpy old man, Andy Rooney, summarized the secular viewpoint in his trademark satirical style. The very week “The Passion” opened in theaters, Rooney used his national TV forum on “60 Minutes” to present a fictional conversation he had with God. Rooney quoted God as saying, “Mel is a real nut case. What in the world was I thinking when I created him? Listen, we all make mistakes.” A few days later, during a radio interview, Rooney expanded on his own personal religious views. When asked if he is an atheist, Rooney at first dodged the question by quoting Bertrand Russell, the famous 20th century scholar and author, who said, “It’s foolish to say there is no God, but it’s foolish to say there is a God, too. We don’t know.” But moments later Rooney made it clear that in his own mind there is no uncertainty: “It’s just absurd to invent God to unburden our problems on him.” The real issue here is not whether the movie is gross and graphic—it surely is—nor whether Mel Gibson has some demons—I for one think he does. The furor generated by Mel’s movie five years ago, and the furor generated nowadays by abortion, embryo destructive stem cell research, same-sex marriage, euthanasia, the structure of the family, separation of church and state, and a host of other issues, illustrates once again the huge gulf between the two primary worldviews battling for the hearts and minds of our culture. On one side of the gulf we have the “faith” camp, those of us who believe God is not only real, but that He is also paying attention. On the other side of the gulf we have the “secular” camp, the Andy Rooneys of the world, who believe weak-minded people “invented” God as something to “unburden our problems on,” but in fact a divine Being simply does not exist. We should take a moment to summarize the stark differences between the two camps.
The beliefs of these two different camps are mutually exclusive. There is no middle ground. Both views cannot be correct simultaneously. When we gather for our religious observances during Holy Week—from Palm Sunday Mass to the various events on Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the culmination of it all, Easter Sunday—we are doing much more than just participating in some quaint cultural traditions passed down from our ancestors. Instead, we are proclaiming a very specific worldview, a worldview the dominant secular culture abhors. We are proclaiming our belief in the core doctrines of Christianity: God is real; Christ died for our sins; He rose from the dead on the third day; He will come again to judge the living and the dead; and all human souls will live forever in either Heaven or Hell. The proponents of the secular worldview—Andy Rooney, Hollywood moguls, the recent group of best-selling atheist authors, and seemingly all of President Obama’s advisors and appointees—truly detest these Christian doctrines. The Christian worldview is not compatible with theirs. This is something to keep in mind during our observances in the coming days. As Christians we are proclaiming a unique message. But it is a message many people vehemently oppose. ©2009 |
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