Homily for 25 June 2016

25 June 2016

There’s always a struggle in politics.  And by “politics” I mean: The science and the craft of making human society function well.  There’s always a struggle in that.  And struggle seems to be: Figuring out our place in the grand scheme of things.  And we ask questions like: What is the role of the family?  What is the role of the Church?  How should the government and the people relate to one another?

Those are pretty big questions, for sure.  But the individual asks the same questions: What’s my role in my family?  What’s my role in the parish?  What’s my position and responsible to my neighbors?  And I’m sure we’ve all seen and heard individuals who put themselves on a pretty high pedestal.  We have a lot of self-proclaimed prophets running around.  And that makes the struggle of politics even more of a challenge.

Maybe this is why Jesus was “amazed” when he heard the Roman centurion speak.  The centurion was a politically powerful man; yet, he felt compassion for his servant.  But that’s because the centurion knew that he himself was also a servant to others.  That Roman centurion knew his place in the grand scheme of things; and so, even though he was powerful, he cared for the weak and he depended on God’s mercy.  For Jesus, the centurion was like a breath of fresh air; he was “amazed” at his faith.

And that’s a gift of our faith: We know our strengths and our limitations; we know that we are not God, but that God alone is God; and we’re more humble and grateful and stable in a sometimes unstable world.

There’s always a struggle in politics.  It isn’t easy to make human society function well; and it’s almost impossible without faith.  Faith reminds us that there’s only one King of the Hill, and the rest of us are simply servants . . . of other servants.