Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time • Year C

For many of us who are called to preach the Word of God, we often resist bearing the prophetic witness that is echoed in our readings this weekend. Jeremiah came close to death due to his message as did many of the other prophets who spoke the truth inspired by the Holy Spirit. Like the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures, we fear not being liked, we fear rejection, and we fear being attacked by those who might disagree with what we have to say about certain issues. Yet courage is the capacity to do what is right and good in the face of fear. The Gospel for this weekend calls us as preachers to take a giant step toward moving beyond fear to faith, while embracing the whole Gospel God has entrusted to us.

This weekend’s readings encourage us to consider Jesus’ guidance for our time, especially regarding the relationship between church and state. Religion and politics are often said to be incompatible. This statement is very true when you take the words of Jesus to heart. He understood how complicated life can be when we only allow one or the other to dominate the way that we think.

Recently, those of us preaching the Word of God have faced increasing challenges due to tensions between government and gospel values. Our Gospel from Luke offers justification for addressing these issues when government mandates conflict with the message of Christ, requiring us to speak out. Recently, this dilemma has become a tug of war where neither side will win unless we learn how to listen respectfully to one another and stay firm in what we actually believe.

As a Catholic/Christian community, we cannot ignore reality when it affects our core beliefs. When unjust laws endanger God’s people, we must proclaim the truth to oppose this injustice. When the people of God are placed in harm’s way due to laws that have been imposed on our nation, we must find a way to proclaim the truth so that this unjust reality can be dismantled.

This gospel passage highlights the need to connect Church and State, even if some find it controversial. Jesus warns that his teachings may cause conflict, but we cannot ignore societal issues that harm vulnerable people by denying them food or essential medical care. We cannot sit on the sidelines of the world we live in as we watch thousands of people suffer from laws that will diminish care for the common good while others benefit from their suffering. When the common Good is no longer a goal on which we fix our attention then we, as a nation, must follow the words of Christ and begin to set the world ablaze as we attempt to overcome the injustice that is presented to us as benefit to only the very rich, while the very poor suffer the consequences.

Jesus reminds us that even at the cost of being alienated by family and friends we are called to stand firm when laws are created not only contrary to our Declaration of Independence and Constitution, but to our faith as well. If we do nothing to help those in need then we are avoiding the very call of our own baptism, which is an immersion into the ministry of Christ as his disciples. Our prophetic stance is one of justice, peace, and compassion calling upon our legislators to remain faithful to the very essence of what our nation proclaims, that we are “one nation under God.”

If we compare this dilemma to a tug of war, then we must grab the rope of justice even at the risk of alienating one another due to political differences. We must struggle to win the battle over injustice so that all people can be treated with dignity. Jesus’s commitment to his message led to his death, yet his resurrection calls us to spread love and rebuild a just world from the ashes of wrongdoing.

So, as we gather around the Lord’s table to digest the challenging words of Jesus in today’s gospel, let us find nourishment in the Eucharistic celebration, which will give us the spiritual strength we need to live faithfully as Christians who believe in what the Scriptures teach. We must never lose our prophetic vision that comes from being ultimately connected to our God, to our world and to God’s people.