Justice, servant leadership, metanoia, reconciliation.
November 8, 1999: Wisdom 1, 1-7 + Luke 17, 1 - 6
November 9, 1999: Wisdom 2, 23 - 3, 9 + Luke 17, 7-10
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These two days have is an interesting convergence of feasts, readings, and memorials. On
November 9, 1938, the German Nazi's burned 191 synagogues, destroyed 7500 Jewish
businesses, arrested 25,000 Jewish men, & shipped half of them to Buchenwald. It gets its name
from the shattered glass of the windows on the ground. Ellsberg's "All Saints" says that the next
day, there was little protest in Germany or abroad, and the organizers of the raids congratulated
themselves on a job well done.
The lectionary reading for the Tuesday of the 32nd week of Ordinary Time, which this year
falls on November 9th, is from the book of Wisdom, and it says that "the souls of the just are in
the hands of God and no torment shall touch them. . . " It is one of the traditional texts appointed
for reading at funeral masses and services. November 9th is also the tenth anniversary of the
opening of the Berlin Wall, a major milestone of the journey of the Soviet Empire towards the
ash heap of history. Both the Nazi and the Soviet empires were responsible for the deaths of
many millions of people, men, women, and children slaughtered unjustly.
The reading for the 8th begins the book of Wisdom with an exhortation to justice -- "Love
justice, you who judge the earth. . . because into a soul that plots evil wisdom enters not. . . for
the holy spirit of discipline flees deceit and withdraws from senseless counsel; and when
injustice occurs it is rebuked." The end of this pericope, although not in the reading, bears
remembrance: "For justice is undying." It's a good reminder, given the bi-partisan leadership of
the United States.
Jesus speaks about the sad state of those who create structures of sin that bring wickedness,
violence, and death. It would be better to suffer the fate of being drowned at sea with a millstone
tied around your neck than to encourage one of these "little ones" to sin. We who live in the
midst of an economy rooted in the glorification of the seven deadly sins should ponder these
words.
Jesus also leads us on the path of the Little Way, if our faith is only the size of a mustard seed, it
will be enough to do mighty things. As you may know, the mustard seed is very tiny. We are
called to be our brother's and sister's keeper, to call them back from the edge upon which they
stand, and to be ever ready to extend forgiveness and be reconciled. The reading from the 9th is a
call to servant leadership, always a difficult thing for us in a "winning through intimidation"
society to hear. There's so much noise and static one has to listen carefully and intentionally.
61 years after Kristallnach, on the eve of the 2nd Christian millennium, problems of race, class,
and ethnicity continue to disturb the peace and safety of too many people. Ten years after the
opening of the Berlin Wall, another great and mighty empire is headed for the same ash heap on
which rests the Soviet Union, and for many of the same reasons -- materialistic ideology, corrupt
political economy, overextended military commitments, willing commission of injustice against
the poor to further the economic and/or political interests of the ruling authorities and privileged
classes. As Confucius said, "Without justice, the state is simply organized crime."
Many different threads, but all parts of the same cloth. Justice, servant leadership, reconciliation,
forgiveness, the call to metanoia -- and a reminder: it is the souls of the just that are in the hands
of God.
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