“Would you agree with me that the presider at this celebration of the
Eucharist is a sinner?” (General silence …and looks of confusion in
the congregation) OK. “Is Father Aidan a sinner?” (Overwhelming and
enthusiastic “Yes”). “Would you then agree with me that we as a
community have the possibility of tremendous love in our lives, while
at the same time we are also sinners. “Yes or No?” (Congregation
replies loudly “Yes”) Would you agree with me that the same is true
of our Church and our country. “Yes”.

If you wanted to take a vacation from church this would be a good
month to do it. The gospel is urgent and challenging. Jesus is on
his way to Jerusalem and the Cross. The gospel message is difficult
and urgent. Today we hear Jesus speak to us about the use and abuse
of power, and greed. He is not concerned with the details of the
man’s disagreement over wealth and who should get the inheritance,
nor is he concerned with wealth and posessions in themselves….He
tells the story of the man who stores up his goods for himself. God
tells him, “You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you!”
He made no provision for sharing his resources, no place for
spirituality, relationship, or God. We are always community and
Catholics in union with one another. Relationship calls us to share,
as part of God’s family to respect the dignity of every human
person. God’s family, meaning all of us, Black, White, Asian,
Latino….North, South, East and West. To the extent that we do not
share from our resources we dehumanize the other. When we wield
power over the other we dehumanize.

On returning from another parish in Brentwood I stopped at the gas
station. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the lottery was up to $46
million. Well before I had left the gas station I had purchased a
$10 quick pick, and had spent the money before I got to the freeway
just a few blocs further. First I was going to give the Bishop $40
million. Good bargain with God eh? $30 Million for the Cathedral
and $10 million for social justice ministries in the Cathedral
parish. Then I was going to give $4 m. to my family and friends
including putting a new window in our new parish church in my home
parish in Ireland in honor of my mother and father. Finally I would
keep a million for myself to buy the home back that I had in the
Oakland hills ….the home I regret selling. You see within a few
seconds the greed of all that money had me bargaining with God…and
spending money that was not mine. Greed can affect us all, even
unconsciously.

An example of this type of greed and dehumanizing action I would
suggest, and the Bishops of the United States of America state,
occurred with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (Bishops of the
US letter to His Excellency Most Reverend Augustinus Jun-ichi Nomura
Bishop of Nagoya President, Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Japan
August 2nd, 2005 http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/international/
hiroshima0805.shtml to get a feel for the prayerful response of our
Bishops to this issue.)

August 6th, 1945, is a date to remember, when allied forces dropped
the atomic bomb on the combatants and non-combatants alike with the
loss of 50,000 people immediately and 200,000 in the aftermath. When
the bomb was dropped the message or subtext that was sent to the
world was: Our American lives are worth more than your lives. We can
take any action we deem necessary. We can have any weapon we wish,
but you can have only those we approve. We have many thousands of nuclear
weapons pointing out at the world….This is forty years after we
signed treaties banning the use of them. The arrogance of power
about weapons that are outlawed carries over to the right we bestow
on ourselves to burn energy until all the ice melts and the oceans
rise, carries to our exemption from international laws on torture
that we want other nations to observe. On and on. But we are inside
this experience and it is hard to see us as Christians putting one
value on our lives and lesser or dehumanizing value on the rest of
the world.

This critique is directed at a moral question about the use of power
and does not take away for all those who have fought bravely against
powers of evil or who are fighting in various theatres in the world.
This is not about supporting the troops! Nor is about not loving
this great country!
(At the earlier celebrations of the Eucharist for the 18th Sunday in
Ordinary time I suggested that we were lied to by our government on
the issue of W.M.D. This seemed too emotive for some and so I
reversed the order of the homily with regards to Iraq in the last
three celebrations of the Eucharist.)

On July 31st 2007 the British Army ended “Operation Motorman”. After
forty years of conflict they ended their presence leaving a peacetime
garrison of 5,000 troops. How was this moment arrived at?
Dialogue! At the end of the day neither group was going to get what
they wanted. The mostly Catholic Irish Nationalists were not at this
time going to achieve their goal of a United Ireland and the British
were not going win the war against the so called “terrorists,”
usually meaning the IRA. So in secret initially and then with full
blown talks they sat down and hammered out an agreement. Each
treated the other with dignity and respect, listening to the
legitimate concerns of the other and a compromise was reached. In
this moment there is a government of unity operating in northern
Ireland that is attempting to recognize the equality of all of its
citizens not just one faith. What makes this fact more dramatic, in
my opinion, is that those involved in the negotiations’ represented
the most extreme of the two sides. Yet they came together and
arrived at a peaceful agreement. (This process would never have come
to fruition without the help of the United States of America!)
Could not this be a model of how we move forward with the war in
Iraq? Would the resources of the war be much better used in the US
and around the world to end hunger, offer health care, etc. etc.?

Finally, for me, Bishop Oscar Romero represents a man who took the
gospel of Christ to heart, one who stood up to the forces that would
dehumanize. At 59 years old, he came to recognize that the
government of El Salvador was murdering, arresting and abusing the
poor of his country. Seventy thousand people were to die or
disappear. Earlier this year I stood at his grave in the cathedral
in San Salvador along with 20 other American priests and deacons,
after listening to the eye witness accounts of his death and the
deaths of many other priests, nuns and lay leaders, the martyrs…And
all I could do was weep for their loss, and pray for, in faith, and
hope to receive some of the strength that they possessed. Bishop
Oscar Romero felt that any action on the part of government or any
entity with power over others, that dehumanizes should be challenged
in the light of the gospel of Christ. It is what we are called to as
baptized Christians. His life was always under threat from the
authorities and others who disagreed with his challenge of the status
quo. When asked about this by a journalist a few days before his
assassination….he replied:

“I have frequently been threatened with death. I must
say that, as a Christian, I do not believe in death but in
resurrection. If they kill me, I will rise again in the people of El
Salvador. I am not boasting; I say it with the greatest humility. As
a pastor, I am bound by a divine command to give my life for those
whom I love, and that includes all Salvadorians, even those who are
going to kill me. If they manage to carry out their threats, I shall
be offering my blood for the redemption and resurrection of El
Salvador. Martyrdom is a grace from God that I do not helieve I have
earned. But if God accepts the sacrifice of my life, then may my
blood be the seed of liberty and a sign of hope that will soon become
a reality. May my death, if it is accepted by God, be for the
liberation of my people, and a witness of hope in what is to come.
You can tell them, if they succeed in killing me, that I pardon them,
and I bless those who may carry out the killing.But I wish that they
could realize that they are wasting their time. A bishop will die,
but the church of God – the people – will never die.”

My brothers and sisters, when we treat one another with dignity,
respect, justice and love then we are advancing the kingdom of God.
When we act with greed and wield power over others, sending them the
message they are less then we, we are dehumanizing our brothers and
sisters.

When we listen to the urgent challenge of the Gospel and gather
around the table to receive the Eucharist we recognize that we are
all brothers and sisters around the one table of the Lord. We then
take that strength, unity and love out to the community and the world
to make it a better place for all God’s people.