(Fourth Sunday of the Year (B):
This homily was given on January 29, 2012 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly
[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Fourth Sunday 2012]
It was direct and it was dramatic.
VERY DRAMATIC!
I’m talking about the manner in
which Jesus confronted evil in today’s gospel story. There we were told that, as he entered the
synagogue in Capernaum one day, he encountered a man who was possessed by an
unclean spirit. Jesus immediately said
to the spirit, “Quiet! Come out of him!”—and
the spirit was compelled to obey (although it’s clear from the details of the
story that the spirit did not want to obey!).
Jesus didn’t waste any time. He faced this evil directly—head on—and he disposed
of it in dramatic fashion.
Every day we encounter evil in
various forms: lies; vulgarity; immodesty; greed; impurity; anger;
unforgiveness—the list goes on and on.
And very often God wants us to confront these manifestations of evil in
the very same way that Jesus confronted evil here; that is to say, directly. (He certainly wants us to do that whenever we
find any of these evil realities within ourselves.)
But I would say that at other
times God wants us to deal with evil in a more indirect way. And we have a
precedent for this in Scripture, because this was also the approach that Jesus
took on certain occasions. For example, remember
the story of the woman caught in adultery, which we read in John, chapter 8? The scribes and the Pharisees brought this
woman to Jesus; they told him that she had been caught in the act of adultery (so
there was no doubt whatsoever about her guilt!), and they reminded him that the
Law of Moses stated that such women should be stoned to death. Then they asked him for his opinion on the
matter.
Now Jesus could have confronted
them directly about their own sinful motives—their hatred of him and their
desire for this woman’s blood. But he
didn’t. He simply bent down and started
writing in the sand. Then, when they
persisted in their questioning, he stood up and said, “Let the one among you
who is without sin cast the first stone at her.” Then he went back to writing in the sand
(perhaps at that point writing the sins of the scribes and the Pharisees who
were questioning him).
And that solved the problem,
because, one by one, they all left.
Then Jesus also took the indirect
approach with the woman herself. Instead
of reprimanding her directly, he simply said, “I do not condemn you. You may go—but from now on avoid this sin.”
This indirect approach to dealing with evil has been something that’s
been on my mind for the last couple of weeks—ever since I read the book, Unplanned.
Some of you have heard of it, I’m
sure. It’s been on a number of best
seller lists for over a year. Unplanned is the autobiographical story of a woman named Abby Johnson,
who was once the director of the Planned Parenthood Clinic in Bryan, Texas. Abby wanted to help women in crisis
situations, and so she volunteered for the organization in 2001, while she was
still in college at Texas A&M University.
She started off as a volunteer escort (an escort at an abortion clinic
is the person who’s responsible for taking a woman from her car and into the
building—while at the same time keeping her from listening to the pro-life
volunteers outside the gate who are appealing to the woman not to kill her baby).
Abby, who ended up having two
abortions herself, believed the lie that Planned Parenthood really wants to
reduce the number of abortions by preventing unwanted pregnancies, so when she
graduated from college she became more deeply involved in the
organization—thinking that this was a way to show compassion and love for women
and to reduce the abortion rate at the same time. Her intentions, at least to some extent, were
good.
She rose through the ranks rather
quickly and eventually became the local clinic’s director. Of course, there were some things that
bothered her—like the pressure she was receiving from her superiors to do more
abortions and more late term abortions
so that the clinic would bring in more money.
But what finally opened her eyes to the truth of what she was involved
in occurred in late September of 2009, on the day she was asked to hold the
ultrasound probe on the abdomen of a woman during an abortion. She had never done that before, but they were
short staffed that particular day and doctor needed her assistance. And so, for the first time (through the
miracle of ultrasound) she was able to see what really happens to a baby in the
womb during an abortion procedure.
Needless to say, it wasn’t pretty.
Actually, it was horrific—so much so that when it was over Abby dropped
the probe because she was so upset.
She then left the clinic in
tears.
And where did she go? Where did she go in her anguish and in her distress?
Well, believe it or not, she went
immediately to the nearby office of the Coalition for Life—and to the people of
that organization who had been opposing her for years; to the people who had
been protesting and praying in front of her clinic!
You might say, “Why did she go to
them? Why did she seek help from these men and women
who had been her enemies for so long?”
It’s because they had been nice
to her! It’s because they had prayed for
her! It’s because they had gotten to
know her over the years and had treated her with kindness and respect! Sure, they had had some conflicts with Abby
during the 8 years she had been associated with Planned Parenthood, but
basically their relationship with her was a good one.
Let me explain that a little
further . . .
On the first day that Abby served
as a volunteer escort, she noticed two kinds of protesters outside the clinic:
those who were confrontational, and those who were prayerful. And what struck her about the prayerful
protesters was that they showed concern not only for the babies who were about
to be aborted and their mothers, but also for the workers and volunteers at the
clinic! Well, as time went on, the
confrontational protestors became fewer and fewer in number, while the
peaceful, prayerful protestors became more and more numerous. And Abby actually became friendly with some
of them.
In her book, Abby said this in
the chapter where she wrote about her very first day as a Planned Parenthood volunteer:
In the years to come, though I didn’t have a clue at this point, I
would actually come to value some of these pro-lifers as friends. I would witness a careful and hard-won shift
in the techniques, tone, and character of the pro-life advocates outside the
Planned Parenthood fence. By my first
shift at the fence in September 2001, the Bryan clinic had been providing
abortions for about two years, and the pro-life movement of the area was in its
infancy. Though I didn’t know it then,
I’d already met one of the courageous and prayerful leaders who would go on to
shape the Coalition for Life: Marilisa.
And one of the young college-age guys praying that day, Shawn Carney,
would soon marry Marilisa and assume leadership of the organization. Together with David Bereit, they would help
transform the efforts here in Bryan into a powerfully positive pro-life force
whose influence would reach across the country and other continents as
well. These pioneers would replace the
shouting with gentle conversation, the waving of ugly signs with prayerful vigils,
and the hostility with a peaceful presence.
They would also change my life.
But all of that was yet to come.
(Unplanned, pp. 39-40)
Marilisa, Shawn, David and their
pro-life friends confronted the evil of abortion using an indirect approach. They
discerned—rightly—that this was what God wanted them to do outside that Texas
clinic. And because they had taken that
indirect approach and had reached out to Abby Johnson in kindness and in love, Abby
was confident that she would be accepted, and helped, and forgiven if she went to
them in her desperation (the desperation she was experiencing after assisting
in that abortion).
And that’s exactly what
happened. The members of the Coalition
for Life welcomed her that day with open arms!
The rest, as they say, is
history. If you want to know more about that
history, buy the book Unplanned and
read it.
I can almost guarantee you’ll be
glad you did.
The direct approach or the
indirect approach?
When it comes to dealing with a particular evil, the first step is to
ask God to help us to see which of those two approaches he wants us to use.
And the next step is to act on the insight God gives us—like
those pro-lifers did in Bryan, Texas.
The bad news, my brothers and
sisters, is that evil will always be there; it will be around until Jesus comes
again at the end of time. But the good
news is that we can do something about it, directly
and indirectly, if we choose to.
And we must choose to, because, as Edmund Burke said many years ago,
“All that it takes for evil to triumph in the world is for good people to do
nothing.”