“Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit.” He went “into the synagogue” and read, “The Spirit of God is upon me… anointing me to bring glad tidings to the poor,” “liberty to captives,” “sight to the blind,” and “let the oppressed go free.” If synagogue members were sleeping through a reading they had heard before, they woke up when Jesus made it real, “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Jesus is initiating a new social mission. It draws people beyond rulers’ control. It draws them into Spirited social action in a new Community of God. Elites who want to continue ruling people, want to cancel Jesus and his Spirited social agents, even today. The canceling rulers do, can take many forms, such as charging agents of Spirited social change with heresy. Heresy means to choose wrongly. But it is elites who choose wrongly when they chose control against Jesus’ Spirited social movement. Paul, read from today and many days, periodically chooses wrongly. Paul is trained by the synagogue elites who charge Jesus with heresy. So too, Paul periodically charges disciples with heresy – when they move beyond control by rulers and activate Jesus’ Spirited social movement. For example, Paul charges heresy against women who will not be obediently silent to ruling priestly elites because they are instead Spirited social agents in house churches (1 Cor 14:34-35). Paul charges heresy against people who will not be abused by the ruling elites’ deity construed as demanding Jesus suffer and die for our sins because they are instead Spirited social agents converting ruling elites whose sin is to demand we all, like Jesus, suffer and die (Romans 5:8-9; 1 Cor 15:3). Paul charges heresy against people who will not support elites’ violent state and its soldiers who murdered Jesus because they are instead Spirited social agents peacefully transforming elites’ violent state and its soldiers (Romans 13:1). As Paul struggled with Jesus’ Spirited social movement, so too do heresy-charging descendants of Paul, for example, Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles. Gomez spoke recently at a meeting of bishops. He spoke against social movements, some of which use the term “woke.” Some ‘woke’ youth are doing so from a Puritanical ethic, but Puritanism is part of rulers’ elitism. Gomez contends the ‘woke’ groups are not Christ-like, “these movements resemble some of the heresies that we find in Church history.” “The best way for the Church to understand the new social justice movements is to understand them as pseudo-religions… replacements and rivals to traditional Christian beliefs.” The ruling Archbishop Gomez reminds listeners of those traditional beliefs, “Through our sin, we are alienated from God and from one another.” “By the mercy of God… we are saved through (Jesus) dying.” Gomez’ words prove he is continuing ruling elites’ control and rejecting Jesus’ Spirited social movement. At one point in his speech Gomez does admit the harm done by a “culture’s elites.” But he does not label that harm as canceling whole people’s: women, natives, black, gay,… The original cancel culture is the elites’ cancel culture that cancelled Jesus 2,000 years ago. Elites have a very long history of cancelling people, e.g. outspoken women and indigenous, freedom loving slaves and immigrants, healing activists and social peacemakers, all of whom, like Jesus, “bring glad tidings to the poor,” “liberty to captives,” “sight to the blind,” and “let the oppressed go free.” In a much less severe manner, the archbishop, who is himself an elite, is ready to cancel people who are waking him up. Gomez is asleep to the fact that Jesus was himself an agent of social change, the activist founder of a ‘woke’ social movement called the Community of God. Gomez, his fellow bishops, and their supporters need not be antagonized by a youth culture phrase, ‘woke.’ They need to be awakened to Jesus’ activist social witness.
‘All over this magnificent world God calls us to extend the Community of peace and wholeness… of caring, of sharing, of laughter, of joy, of reconciliation. God is transfiguring the world right this very moment through us.” “And as we share God’s love with our brothers and sisters… there is no tyrant who can resist us, no opposition that cannot be ended, no hunger that cannot be fed, no wound that cannot be healed, no hatred that cannot be turned into love, no dream that cannot be fulfilled.” (God Has a Dream – Desmond Tutu R.I.P)
Prayer: Spirit, energize our social Spirit
Question: What habits do I need to change to become a Spirited activist for a peaceful social movement?
January 23, 2022 Gospel Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21 Third Sunday in Ordinary Time