“Walking the tightrope” (St. Luke’s: Wednesday, August 22nd, 2018: Ez. 34.1-11; Ps. 23; St. Mt. 20.1-16)

Ancient relevance.  Any conscientious catholic who has the habit of watching the news cannot help but notice a direct link between today’s first reading and what is going on in the Church these days.  Last week, a grand jury released a report detailing the results of their 2-year long investigation into dozens of clergymen who had abused upwards of 1,000 children in various dioceses in the state of Pennsylvania.  Every time cases of the abuse of children by priests and religious come to light, we are reminded that we live in a world – and are part of a Church – deeply infected by evil.  And of course, let’s not forget that the line between good and evil runs through each one of us (cf. Solzhenitsyn).  In today’s first reading, the prophet Ezekiel proclaims an oracle of judgment against the false “shepherds” of God’s “flock”.  Instead of caring for, protecting and nurturing God’s people, Israel’s leaders had exploited the people for their own purposes.  Ezekiel even goes so far as to accuse Israel’s shepherds – not only of having failed to nourish God’s flock – but of eating the sheep instead of feeding them!  Yahweh declares, “I will rescue my sheep from their mouths” (cf. Ez. 34.7-10).  All of a sudden, the words of this ancient prophet speak directly into our present-day situation.  The fact is, human nature has not changed since the time of Ezekiel.  As a Church, and as Christians, we need to recover our prophetic vocation.

The Challenge.  At this point, we have to look temptation square in the face and resist its alluring pull – it is tempting to ignore the horrors that have been perpetrated by members of the clergy against the most vulnerable persons among the baptized faithful.  It is tempting to say, “It didn’t happen in my parish, it could never happen in my parish, it’s not my problem; it’s unpleasant and I just don’t want to think about it”.  However, the fact remains – as Catholics, we cannot hide from, run away from or avoid discussing what is going on.  Indeed, I believe that the sex abuse scandal should neither cause us to despair nor cause us to give up on the Church.  I believe that this scandal is issuing us a challenge.  First of all, we are being challenged to adopt an active stance towards the Church.  On the one hand, it’s easy for laypeople to say, “It’s the clergy’s job to take care of things”.  On the other hand, it’s easy for clergy to say, “The job of the laity is to pay, pray and obey”.  However – all of us, laypeople and clergy alike – are responsible for our Church’s reputation.  Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, says that as Christians, we are “responsible for God”, i.e. we are responsible for the perception that the people around us have of God.  The only access to God that many of our neighbours will ever have is what they observe in our daily lives.  It is a heavy responsibility to belong to the people of God… and it has always been this way.  In the time of the Old Testament, the nation of Israel was responsible for representing Yahweh to all the surrounding nations.  Israel’s calling – just like the one we received at the moment of our baptism – was to be a nation of prophets, priests and kings (cf. Ex. 19.5-6).  Secondly, I believe that we are being challenged to seek wisdom as opposed to slogans as we seek to be the people of God going forward into the future.  All we have to do is to look at our neighbours south of the 49^th parallel to see what a polarized political climate looks like.  We don’t need to fight each other as Catholics – we need to follow Christ together as we seek to show the world what genuine humanness looks like.

Walking the tightrope.  Of course, all Catholics should be scandalized, shocked and ashamed by the crimes that have been committed against our children.  But what should we do and think at this particularly painful time in the Church’s history?  One image that might help us understand our role as members of Christ’s Church is that of acrobats walking a tightrope.  Perhaps you’ve been to see Cirque du Soleil and you’ve seen acrobats doing all sorts of stunts high up in the rafters of the big top.  As Christians, we have to walk a fine line between (at least) two contrasting attitudes.  I propose to you this morning that our challenge does not consist of choosing between these attitudes, but is rather that of following Jesus “along the tightrope” of truth.  When you’re walking a tightrope, the point is not choosing to which side you’re going to fall – the point is NOT to fall!  For purposes of convenience, I will call these two attitudes “falling to the left” and “falling to the right”.  Please don’t over-interpret these labels – when you’re on a tightrope, there are, after all, only two directions in which you can fall off the rope.  However, as often happens during political or ecclesial crises, the debate often gets polarized between two opposite positions, each of which is presented as an absolute “reality”.  As we consider two possible attitudes that we can have as Catholics, I believe that we will notice some connections between the sex abuse scandal and other issues that we are facing as the Church in our highly secularized Western society.  I.e., once we start to reflect on the sex abuse scandal, the subjects of sexuality, vocation, priestly formation, theology and mental health are not far behind.  None of these subjects is an easy one, but we had better start to come to grips with them because the problems related to these questions are not going to go away.  Even the question of vocation – which might have once appeared to be a relatively straightforward one – can no longer be considered as such.  Of course, the two attitudes that I’m about to describe are caricatures, but I believe they may help us begin to wrestle with the huge questions that the Church is facing.  Also, I propose that both attitudes – though they define themselves in contrast to each other – actually end up entangled in the same “net” underlying the tightrope – the web of pride (the first of the 7 deadly sins).

Left.  So, the first (disastrous) possibility as you walk the tightrope is “falling to the left”.  Those who hold this attitude tend to have a laissez-faire approach to ecclesial law and dogma.  They tend to think that people – even Catholics – are free to do whatever they want.  This way, there are no inherently sinful acts – the only evil when it comes to (for instance) sexuality is the forcing of someone to participate in an act against their will.  Those who hold to this attitude often use the language of “love” – God is love, God loves us; therefore, we don’t need to worry about offending God.  God will not hold us accountable for our actions.  However, this “God of love” soon begins to resemble – not the Scriptural maker and lover of heaven and earth – but rather a somewhat senile grandparent who continues to give out candy to delinquent children no matter what they do.  Despite reciting the words of the Apostle’s Creed every Sunday, people who hold to this attitude tend to think of the Catholic faith not as divinely revealed truth but rather as one religious tradition among the myriads of traditions that can be found among the various cultures of the world.  This is what our children are being taught in high school, in the Ethics and Religious Culture course.  Religion is reduced to a human phenomenon, as each culture attempts to define the destiny of its “tribe” and give meaning to the world.  When one thinks this way, there is not one God and one Lord – there is only my god and your god.  It is difficult for people who “fall to the left” to accept the idea of “truth”, because they are very aware of the fact that all truth claims come from particular people, living in particular times and in particular places.  How can one group claim to have a “truth” that can claim the allegiance of all people at all times and in all places?  We belong to the Church which has historically understood herself to be the “universal” (i.e. catholic) community, based in Rome, of the one people of the one God who first revealed himself as Yahweh, the Creator who made a covenant with ancient Israel, and then revealed himself – through Jesus – as being Father, Son and Spirit.  However, those who “fall to the left” can easily end up congratulating themselves for having “grown up” and for having freed themselves from a Church which is perceived to be heavy-handed and condescending.

Right.  The other possibility is to “fall to the right”.  Those who hold this attitude put a heavy emphasis on tradition, magisterial teaching and ecclesial authority.  They tend to think along these lines: “The Church as spoken; our job as the faithful is to humbly submit to the Church’s teaching and enforce it by appropriate ecclesial discipline”.  These people tend to prefer the language of “law, obedience, holiness and judgment”.  God is holy and “only saints go to heaven”.  One of the more obvious difficulties with this attitude is that those who hold to it tend to think that most of the Church’s problems would be solved if only our ways of worshipping and of living the faith resembled those of a (nonexistent) time when the Church had “gotten it right”.  Well, the fact is, we are where and when we are – it’s 2018 in Montreal, and we need to follow Jesus here and now.

Straight ahead.  In light of all the scandals and all the debates tearing the Church apart, we need fresh wisdom to know how to be faithful.  Rather than falling off the rope to one side or the other, we must strive to walk straight ahead, following our Lord, yes in obedience and yes, in compassion.  Jesus somehow managed to be both incredibly merciful and extremely demanding at the same time – and he paid the price for it.  He walked the tightrope and he took fire from both sides.  We need to spend time meditating on the Gospels in order to acquire the wisdom we need for our times.  As the Church, we must remain both united and also (simultaneously) pursue holiness, shouldering our responsibility to represent God to the world.  To be a Christian is to accept the vocation to live differently before a watching (and often [rightly] critical) world.  This has never been an easy thing, and it is only by God’s grace that the Church will ever approach the ideal towards which God is calling her.  However, if we’re pointing in the right direction, our chances of reaching the goal will be greatly improved.  Let us pray that we will be empowered to closely follow the Good Shepherd and fulfill our vocation as his flock in his world.  Amen.