Impossible Not to Speak

March 29, 2008

Saturday in the Octave of Easter

Peter and John, however, said to them in reply, “Whether it is right in the sight of God for us to obey you rather than God, you be the judges. It is impossible for us not to speak about what we have seen and heard.” Acts 4:19-20

(But) later, as the eleven were at table, he appeared to them and rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart because they had not believed those who saw him after he had been raised. He said to them, “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.” Mark 16:14-15

Piety

Jesus, we hear you calling and we want to say, “Not yet.” “Leave a message.” “Call someone else.” Won’t they do just as well as I can? Like St. Augustine, we want to keep living our comfortable lives. O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet.

Yet, Jesus my friend, you will not direct your pleas to anyone else but me. If I close my eyes, I can’t see you. But you know that I can never close my ears, and I certainly can not stop my heart from beating. Your loving words fall on my ears and seep into my heart. Help me in all humility to say “Yes” to your will, not mine. Not the government will. Not the Wall Street Way. Not Broadway or Hollywood. Not later, but now. Put me where you want me and surround me with your angels of mercy and assistance. Amen.

Study

http://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/032908.shtml

When Henry David Thoreau was jailed for refusing to pay a tax imposed to fund the Mexican-American War, fellow author Ralph Waldo Emerson is said to have visited him in jail and asked, “What are you doing in there?” Thoreau, true to his convictions, replied, “What are you doing out there?”

Going to jail to oppose government rules is not something to be taken lightly. Opposing government rules for behavior in favor of “a higher order” is not a tradition which began with Thoreau and his essay on Civil Disobedience. The behavior is rooted in today’s reading from Acts of the Apostles. When told not to speak of Jesus, Peter and John told their jailers and judges that they could NOT NOT (double negative) speak.

Our modern society takes obedience rather lightly. People make vows all the time and then back out. Just consider the divorce rate. People who track statistics tell us that about 41 percent of all people who have ever been married have subsequently been divorced. ("Divorce Rate: It's Not as High as You Think," by Dan Hurley, The New York Times, April 19, 2005). Politicians of all parties promise one thing to get elected and never deliver on those commitments. Even our church continues to feel the effects of leaders who broke their vows and abused children who were in their care and others who did not act swiftly enough at that time to intervene.

Jesus is asking us to make a vow to him...a vow to proclaim the Good News to everyone, everywhere -- to those people whom He loves. Peter and John provide us with a model based on their conversion as witnesses to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. They refuse to not obey Jesus. They refuse to obey governmental decrees which run against their religious convictions even if it means jail, torture or death. Like the watchman in Ezekiel, they know that they must carry forth the message of the Lord or face the consequences of silence.

You, son of man, I have appointed watchman for the house of Israel; when you hear me say anything, you shall warn them for me. If I tell the wicked man that he shall surely die, and you do not speak out to dissuade the wicked man from his way, he (the wicked man) shall die for his guilt, but I will hold you responsible for his death. But if you warn the wicked man, trying to turn him from his way, and he refuses to turn from his way, he shall die for his guilt, but you shall save yourself. Ezekiel 33:7-9

This is a message passed down in history through Christianity. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in his autobiography “became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.” That spirit lives on in the civil rights movement struggle for freedom – supported by the churches throughout the South and the nation; in the Polish trade union Solidarity in their struggle against communism – supported by Cardinal Karol Jozef Wojtyla (who became Pope John Paul II); in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa – also supported by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the churches of the world; and in the work of the Plowshares activists around the world who oppose nuclear weapons and those in favor of supporting life in all its beauty. Today, we have the Catholic Worker movement as one example of Christians living and acting according to the Consistent Ethic of Life envisioned when the late Cardinal Bernardin coined the term “seamless garment” of life.

When Jesus commissioned the apostles to proclaim the Gospel to all creatures, after all the disciples had witnessed, their personal convictions and beliefs required them to fulfill that instruction. There was no option for the comfortable. There were no thirty pieces of silver. There was no college deferment. There was no alternative community service, no Peace Corps, no Teach for America, no Jesuit Volunteer Corps. There was no Door Number Two. There was only the Cross.

Action

God put His only son on the line for us. Jesus put his life on the line to save us. Is there anything for which you would put your freedom on the line? What is it?