Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. By now we’re probably all aware of the debacle that was the opening ceremonies of the Paris Olympics. I didn’t watch it (I’m honestly not that big of an Olympics fan). And I’m sure there were some nice parts to it. However, the story quickly became how the opening ceremonies mocked Christianity by mimicking da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” with drag queens, transitioning to a mostly-naked man depicting Dionysius, the pagan god of revelry and debauchery.
What struck me is how we really do live in pagan times. I’m sure I knew this subconsciously, but the opening ceremonies certainly cemented it in my mind. None of us lived during the first few centuries of Catholicism, before the Emperor Constantine legalized it in the early fourth century, but I doubt it was much different from what we saw on our screens (there’s just an easier way to share the depravity now with television and social media).
So what do we do? How do we live our lives in a post-christendom age? I would suggest our Gospel gives us a clue. The pagan world is like the man who was deaf and mute. It is a world that is alive, but is not as it is supposed to be. It lacks the ability to live up to its fullest potential. The Decapolis was a group of ten city-states not far from the Sea of Galilee that had some Jewish population, but was mostly pagan. The Lord, though his primary mission was to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, walked through a thoroughly pagan territory (this is one example; the other famous is His journey where He encountered the Gerasene demoniac). So Christ then, like us today, walked through pagan lands.
What did Christ do? He opened the deaf and mute man’s ears and loosened his tongue. In this way, the man could then hear the Gospel and share it. Now, at this point, I do have to address the admonition that Christ gave the man who He healed to tell no one. Mark’s Gospel is full of these warnings not to speak about what the Redeemer had done. Why? Part of St. Mark’s point, I believe, is that the Lord wants belief through faith. The miracles He works demonstrates who He is, but they cannot take the place of faith. And so He wants to draw the people to true and abiding faith in Himself as the Son of God, not just amazement and the miracles.
But back to the man, who, in some sense, represents paganism. He needs someone to open his ears and to allow him to speak. And not just speak anything, but speak the truth. Paganism, a rejection of the true God, struggles to hear what is true and speak what is true. It has some truth (think of Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, for example), but that truth is muddled in with so much error. Only when Christ come can the truth that the pagan world recognized be purified so that it doesn’t lead others astray (think of the Christianization of Plato and Aristotle by St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, respectively, for example).
So, our role, as little christs, little anointed ones, sealed with the Holy Spirit to proclaim the Gospel, is to go to paganism and open their ears to the truth so that their lips can proclaim the Gospels. Our mission is to take the water of baptism and apply it to paganism as we cry out to God and say Ephpheta, that is, be opened. This is done, not by force, but by the witness of a life lived in fidelity to what Christ has taught, and sharing the reason for our hope. That is how the Christians of the first few centuries secretly and very successfully converted much of Roman society, which was itself marked by polarization between the rich and poor, the increased stretching of the Roman military apparatus across the known world, and the licentiousness of those who had power and money (sound familiar?).
The early Catholics were known for not discriminating between Jew and non-Jew (Gentile was the word used, also sometimes Greek). They didn’t practice enslavement. They didn’t consider women and children property, but equal sharers in the new life that Christ won by His Passion, Death, and Resurrection. This is what St. Paul meant when he wrote to the Galatians, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” He wasn’t talking about gender identity or power struggles. He was talking about how everyone was welcome to follow Christ, on Christ’s terms, and that the most important identity was that of a disciple. In our invitations to others, we should have the same approach–invite everyone, regardless of race, religion, gender, socio-economic status, etc.–to follow Christ as He instructs us.
Early Catholics drew people in by the way that they were happier because they didn’t worry about the power struggles, and the never-ending pursuit of riches. An ancient Christian apologetic letter called The Epistle of Diognetus, showing how Catholics were not subversive but followed a higher law, wrote that Catholics “share their food by not their wives.” They care for the poor, they exercise hospitality, but they do not share the perverse Roman sexual mores. We, too, can live in such a way that we care for the poor, we show kindness to others, and exercise chastity and modesty in our relationships with others.
This was the way that pagan Rome became Christendom (albeit over centuries). This was the way that the Church moved from being a bunch of small communities of maybe 30-50 people to metropolises of Catholic life and culture. It worked then, and I believe it will work now. We may not have the power we used to; we may not be able to keep public debauchery and indecency at bay anymore; but we can witness to Christ and the freedom and joy that come from living the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit, live and reign for ever and ever. Amen.