Fr Alan's Weekly Reflection

Expressing Views

Just this past couple of weeks we have heard about a backbencher from Western Australia express his concerns about Australia's trade relationships overseas. As I listened to the debate over the radio as to whether he should have said it or not what crossed my mind was did he have something to say about right relationships in the world regardless of which nations we are talking about? Quite often views can be too quickly dismissed for a whole range of reasons. Sometimes it is because of a person’s status or because the view was poorly expressed. 

The prophets suffered some of these struggles in their own time. They said things that were from ’left field.’ They thought differently from most of the people of their own society. Often, they had little or no standing in their communities. Therefore, whatever they had to say was quickly dismissed despite their efforts to draw people’s attention to what constituted ‘right relationships’ in the world. In this Sunday’s First Reading we hear that the people' s reaction to Jeremiah was to want to do away with him. And they eventually did do away with Jesus by putting him to death on a cross.

Anyone thinking that Jesus came simply to speak words of peace would be disappointed by our readings today. Jesus certainly wanted peace, but he knew that sometimes our hearts and minds needed to be disturbed by the realities of life before true peace in our lives was possible. Jesus did not want a superficial peace because that is a peace that cannot last. He was very family minded but was stating that the word of God can be so disturbing that it can even set family members at odds with one another. Jesus saw the world the way it was and preached a Gospel about how the way the world should be. I can only imagine that if there was talkback radio in Jesus’ time people would have come on and expressed a whole range views. Some would have congratulated him for having the courage to say it. Others would have come on saying he had no right to say what he did.

Our Readings today remind that as Christians we are called to have the courage to say what we believe. Certainly, care needs to be taken how views are expressed but the main point is our views need to tell the truth. The question always is does my expressed view stand in line with God’s vision of right relationships in our world?

Fr Alan Gibson