13th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2021
The Russian journalist, Anna Politkovskaya, who was murdered in Moscow several years ago, wrote in her book Putin’s Russia, “There is a part of every society that wants nothing more than to be lulled into sleep.” [1]It was a striking statement about how there is a part of us which simply does not want to know too much.
It is sad but true observation that we cannot bear too much reality. We seek to shield ourselves from reality, not to take too close an interest in things, or simply overlay complex situations with our own prejudices and biases. The problems that swirl around us – from the threat of global economic instability, the questions surrounding climate change, the plight of those seeking asylum on our shores, the level of homelessness in our cities – can be all too complex, all too difficult, all too vexatious and it is easier for us to close off to them. Then we bury ourselves in pre-occupations about which we think we have some control. The popularity of lifestyle shows on TV from cooking to home renovations can be something of a social barometer which illustrates a tendency to shield ourselves from a more pervasive uncertainty and anxiety about where we find ourselves at this particular time in history which we find deeply disturbing.
More personally, we find ourselves leading a life that is asleep when we live bound by our own fears. We feel as if we are in a rut in our life, unable to move. We feel paralysed and become swamped with a pervasive inertia. We get caught in a role or job that is no longer leading us to growth, no longer challenging us constructively; we get trapped in a relationship in which we no longer experience a sense of freedom and movement; we become entombed in our own prejudices, our own habitual way of seeing things, and miss the opportunities and possibilities that present themselves to us as unrecognized. I think of that most remarkable stanza in the poem, “The Age of Anxiety” (1948) W. H. Auden:
“We would rather be ruined than changed; We would rather die in our dread; Than climb the cross of the moment; And let our illusions die.”
The outcome of living a life that is asleep, whether as persons or as societies, is that we close our eyes and our ears and hope in our imagination that things might be otherwise than they actually are. As the social researcher, Hugh Mackay points out there is a great danger, however, when we allow ourselves to be lulled into this kind of social inertia and passivity – particularly as societies.[2] Then we fall to the temptation as citizens “to leave politics just to politicians.” Sadly, the memory of 1933 Germany particularly comes to mind, when, according to the Nobel Prize winning writer Gunter Grass, “there were not enough citizens.”[3] It is far more comfortable for us to be observers rather than citizens, to fiddle while Rome burns as the ancient saying would have it.
“We would rather be ruined than changed; We would rather die in our dread; Than climb the cross of the moment; And let our illusions die.”
Yes, it is easier for us to turn off and turn away than to accept a social issue is not just the problem of politicians but that it my problem too. It is easier for us to entertain illusions about ourselves as a society than to face the fact that not everything might be as it should be, and that there may be systems and practices in place that could be contrary to the vision of life given us by Jesus, that vision which for us, as his disciples, must be the one considered framework through which we engage complex social issues.
It is easier to live our life asleep, rather than to live our life with eyes that see, and ears that hear. In the Gospel today Jesus, however, goes to the little girl who is inert. She has become so inert that her family fears she is dead. His touch, however, stirs her into life. The one who is asleep, surrounded by fear, is awoken. In the same way the Spirit comes into our life to break open the entombment created by our passivity, our inertia, our fear, our paralysis. The Spirit touches the parts of us which are asleep and transforms them into a renewed sense of responsibility. The Spirit touches our eye and touches our ear that we might see and hear. This is what Metz terms “the mysticism of opened eyes.” As he wrote:
“With all respect for Eastern mysticism and spirituality let me stress . . . In the end Jesus did not teach an ascending mysticism of closed eyes, but rather a God- mysticism with an increased readiness for perceiving, a mysticism of open eyes, which sees more and not less. It is a mysticism that especially makes visible all invisible and inconvenient suffering, and – convenient or not – pays attention to it and takes responsibility for it, for the sake of a God who is a friend to human beings.”[4]
This Sunday, let us pray that the spell of our passivity, the torpor of our inertia, the pall of our fears may be broken. Let us pray that, like Jairus’ daughter in today’s gospel, we might rise with maturity and the responsibility that comes with it.
[1] Cited in James Button, “A tough crusader falls,” The Sydney Morning Herald, 14-15 October 2006, 27.
[2] Hugh Mackay, “Sleepers awoke from slumber of indifference,” Sydney Morning Herald, (Tuesday 27 November, 2007), 15.
[3] Gunter Grass cited in Richard Eckersley, “As good as it gets,” in Spectrum, Sydney Morning Herald Weekend Edition, (31 January – 1 February, 2004), 4. See also Richard Eckersley, Well and Good: How We Feel and Why it Matters, (Sydney: Text, 2004).
[4] Metz, A Passion for God, 163. Metz is clear that he is not advocating a partisan politics: “The task of the Church is not a systematic social doctrine, but a social criticism. . . [Thus] the Church, defined as social-critical institution, does not become a political ideology. No political party can have this criticism as its sole plank. Moreover, no political party can embrace in its political activity the whole scope of the Church’s social criticism which covers the whole of history under God’s eschatological proviso, otherwise it would drift into either romanticism or totalitarianism.” Metz, “The Church’s Social Function in the Light of a ‘Political Theology,” 17-18. [Italics in the original].
