Jesus is, like most of his contemporaries, marginalized – politically, financially, and theologically. He is not, however ,powerless. One aspect of Jesus’ power is demonstrated by his empowering others. He encourages people to create with their brothers and sisters a new politics (care), a new economy (share), and a new theology (dare). After sending out empowered disciples to spread the new way – the Community of God – Jesus receives them home again in this Sunday’s Gospel. He then encourages further empowerment, prayer: “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.”
Stillness and reflection are empowering, especially around social ministry. Persons such as Jesus are guides and companions. The disposition is not every person’s desire though. There are some in our own time who do not seek empowerment through care, share, dare or prayer. Even so, we can respond to them as Jesus did: when he “saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with compassion for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd.” The opportunity for a compassionate response was provided this past week with presidential aspirant Donald Trump and his followers (He’s more about hair, tear, flare, and scare). Mr. Trump goads rather than guides and demeans rather than encourages. Is he an unlikely President as the majority of people hopefully know his commitment is to himself alone? Unfortunately U.S. predilection for cheating egoists is rampant. Of greater concern are Trump’s followers. How do we respond to these sheep without a shepherd who are prone not to thoughtful reflection but rather to belligerent reaction? Their reactionary manners prove they have already been systematically disempowered by Trump-types. Wealthy elites like Trump disempower politically by suppressing participation, financially by suppressing resources, and theologically by suppressing imagination / creativity. Is the last suppression – of imagination – the reason why Trump sheep follow the master class and are manipulated by them to turn on other disempowered sheep? Thomas Frank concluded in What’s the Matter with Kansas that people’s systematic disempowerment happens because Trump-types manipulate them away from the master class’ inherent corruption. They manipulate them towards focusing on less important and more contentious cultural values. But cultural values are not less important, they’re just, as Frank notes, manipulated. How do we deal with reactionary people who are being manipulated, conned? Can we let our hearts be moved with compassion for people who call themselves Christians and prove they don’t know Jesus Christ? Can we, by receiving an opponent with a compassionate Christ-like heart, empower them to a compassionate Christ-like heart as well? We need to do this without capitulating to divisive, hostile, or violent cultural values. We must therefore receive the deeper meaningfulness the person is communicating to us. We can live in that core of oneness. To do so we need to deepen our own care, share, dare, and prayer. We are thus empowered to be deeply reflective with opponents who would otherwise disempower us into being reactionary.
“At the still point of the turning world. … there the dance is … Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards, neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point, there would be no dance, and there is only the dance. I can only say, there we have been … The inner freedom from the practical desire, the release from action and suffering, release from the inner and the outer compulsion, yet surrounded by a grace of sense, a white light still and moving.” (Four Quartets – T.S. Eliot)
Prayer: We are a still point for a turning world.
Question: Who are the people and/or what are the issues that get a reaction out of me rather than a compassionate heart and a reflective response?
July 19, 2015 Mark 6:30-34 Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
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