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| Chadwick Boseman as Jackie Robinson and Harrison Ford as Branch Rickey in the movie, "42". |
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| The real Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey in 1950. |
(Fourteenth Sunday of the Year
(C): This homily was given on July 7, 2013 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I.
by Fr. Raymond Suriani. Read Isaiah 66:
10-14c; Galatians 6: 14-18; Luke 10: 1-12, 17-20.)
[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Fourteenth Sunday 2013]
I came across a great article
recently about the movie, “42”. I’ll
begin my homily today by reading to you a portion of that article. It was written by Eric Metaxas, and it begins
with these words:
A new film about Jackie Robinson, titled
“42”—the number he wore during his historic career—tells the triumphant story
of how the Civil Rights icon integrated professional baseball by playing for
the Brooklyn Dodgers. But there's a
mysterious hole at the center of this otherwise worthy film.
The man who chose Robinson for his role, and
masterminded the whole affair, was Dodgers General Manager Branch Rickey,
played by Harrison Ford. In their
initial meeting, the cigar-chomping Rickey makes it clear that whoever will be
the first African American in major league baseball will be viciously attacked,
verbally and physically. So Rickey
famously says he's looking for a man "with guts enough not to fight
back." He needs someone who will resist
the temptation to retaliate. Robinson
agrees to go along with it.
But where did Rickey get that crazy idea and
why did Robinson agree? The film doesn't
tell us, but the answers to these questions lie in the devout Christian faith
of both men.
Then Eric
Metaxas gets specific as to why Jackie Robinson was chosen. He writes:
For starters, Rickey himself was a
"Bible-thumping Methodist" who refused to attend games on
Sunday. He sincerely believed it was
God's will that he integrate baseball and saw it as an opportunity to intervene
in the moral history of the nation, as Lincoln had done.
And Rickey chose Robinson because of the
young man's faith and moral character.
There were numerous other Negro Leagues players to consider, but Rickey
knew integrating the racist world of professional sports would take more than
athletic ability. The attacks would be ugly, and the press would fuel the
fire. If the player chosen were goaded
into retaliating, the grand experiment would be set back a decade or more.
Rickey knew he must find someone whose
behavior on and off the field would be exemplary, and who believed
"turning the other cheek" was not just the practical thing to do but
the right thing. In their historic
meeting, to underscore the spiritual dimension of the undertaking, Rickey
pulled out a book by Giovanni Papini, titled 'Life of Christ.' He opened to the passage about the Sermon on
the Mount and read it aloud.
We know that Robinson's passionate sense of
justice had gotten him into trouble earlier in life. But the patient mentoring of pastor Karl
Downs convinced him that Christ's command to "resist not evil" wasn't
a cowardly way out but a profoundly heroic stance.
When he met Rickey, Robinson was prepared
for what lay ahead and agreed. But it
was a brutally difficult undertaking.
Robinson got down on his knees many nights during those first two years,
asking God for the strength to continue resisting the temptation to fight back,
or to say something he would regret.
Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey
both experienced power in and
through their Christian faith: the POWER to do the right thing; the POWER to
deal with and to overcome hatred, racism and bigotry. That’s a historical fact! Unfortunately, that fact is largely ignored
or glossed over in this otherwise excellent movie—with the exception of certain
references to Rickey’s religious beliefs.
As Eric Metaxas put it, the makers of “42” decided to “pitch around” the
issue, in the process doing a “disservice to history—and to the memories of
Robinson and Rickey.”
I mention all this in my homily this
morning because our readings today remind us that the very same power that Branch Rickey and Jackie
Robinson experienced in their lives is also available to us—and even more so to
us, because as Catholics we have the sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist!
Isaiah said to us in today’s
first reading, “The Lord’s power
shall be known to his servants.” Do we
believe that? In today’s second reading
from Galatians 6 St. Paul said, “May I never boast except in the cross of Jesus
Christ!” Paul said those words precisely
because he had experienced the power
of God in his life most profoundly through the cross! By the power
of the cross he had been forgiven for his sin of being an accomplice in the
murder of St. Stephen; by the power
of the cross he had been forgiven for all the other sins in his life that he
had repented of. By the POWER of the cross
he had just finished writing a very challenging message to the Galatians: he
had told them some hard truths that many of them did not want to hear! He definitely needed POWER to do that! Then he ends the letter by praying that these
Galatians will experience the Lord’s “grace”.
Grace, in a very real sense, is a synonym for God’s power.
And then we have this gospel
story from Luke 10, where Jesus sends out 72 disciples to every town he intends
to visit. He tells them that their job is
to prepare the people in those places for his arrival. They’re to do that by preaching the kingdom
and by healing the sick. Now an
interesting question is, “Did these 72 disciples really expect to be successful
in their mission? Did they really expect
to be able to do the things that Jesus was asking them to do?” I wonder about that because we are told in
the passage that, when they came back to Jesus at the end of the mission, they
said to him, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!”
From the way that line is worded,
it seems like these 72 disciples were surprised. It seems like they really didn’t expect that to
happen. They did not expect to
experience such power!
So what about us?
Do we experience power in our Catholic faith? Do we believe in the power of prayer to draw down the blessings of God into our
own lives and into our world? Do we
believe in the power of the
sacrament of Confession to bring us forgiveness for our sins? Do we believe in the power of the Mass? Do
we really believe that when we hear the word of God proclaimed to us in the
Scriptures at Mass, and then receive the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in the
Holy Eucharist—do we really believe that when we do those things we receive power: the POWER to live the gospel message
faithfully, and to witness to our Catholic faith out there in the world?
Hopefully we do—hopefully we
believe all those things.
And hopefully we always will.