Homily 8 C 250302

In a moment of exasperation, Hamlet cries out, “Words! Words! Words!” This is something of the message we hear in our liturgy this morning. Human speech can deceive as well as enlighten. Human speech rarely captures all that is within us. The hash reality is that we will be judged as we have judged!

The first reading from Sirach, who wrote his book as a meditation on a good life, offers the reflection that the speech of a person reveals the character of the person.  He says, “Like a sieve, a man’s faults appear when he speaks; or the potter tests his creation in the furnace so a conversation tests a man; as fruit of a tree shows its care, a man’s speech shows his mind”. The conclusion being, “Praise no man before he speaks for it is then that he is tested.”

Is there not a saying in American folklore, that it is better to remain silent and let people think that you are dumb than to speak and prove that their judgment was right! It was said the Dom Edmund Obright urged the monks to be silent so that people would not witness their poor learning.

In the conclusion to Jesus’ mission-teaching in St. Luke’s Gospel, that we just he heard, Jesus uses images in speaking to the disciples. There is the often-used example of the blind person acting as a guide to another blind person with the result that they both fall; and the even more common example of seeing the speck in your brother’s eye while at the same time there is a beam in your eye. Jesus is a bit irate with this example and calls the person a hypocrite who tries to correct another’s faults when his own principles are completely skewed. Then there is the tree that produces good fruit compared to the person who produces good fruit from the good in his heart and the evil hearted who produces evil fruit. And Jesus concludes “Each man speaks from his heart’s abundance”. The novelist Flanery O’Conner puts a little twist on the saying, of Jesus. She says, “Conviction without experience makes for harshness”.  

The presentation of Jesus offers a simple lesson; actions must flow from a certain character or certain “heart”; actions not speech must define convictions for teaching and learning and the matter for guidance and mutual correction. Those actions are defined by the personal relation with our gracious Father who always takes human freedom into account. The prohibitions of judging and condemning are not based on the excellence of character or prudence of the person but rather by the reality that the personal criteria we use to judge will be used when we are being judged.

We hear this message of Jesus in the context of our Eucharist. The Eucharist is Jesus giving Himself to each of us. And Jesus is calling us to give an example of life lived for others – not judging but encouraging by example.