The Unauthorized Homily

By Bill Dunn

A commentary on the Scripture readings from the Sunday Lectionary

(Scripture readings for Sunday, October 29th: Jeremiah 31:7-9; Hebrews 5:1-6; Mark 10:46-52)

THE ‘J’ WORD CAN GET YOU IN TROUBLE

In this week’s gospel reading, we read about a Catholic priest in Manhasset, NY, who gave a blessing during a Christmas tree lighting ceremony, and during the blessing he mentioned the word “Jesus.” Immediately, a local politician jumped up and angrily interrupted the priest. The politician grabbed the microphone and, as a stunned crowd looked on, declared, “This is inappropriate!”

Next in the gospel, we read about a chaplain in the U.S. Navy who offered up a prayer during a White House ceremony, and during the prayer he mentioned the word “Jesus.” Soon after, this chaplain, an ordained minister in the Evangelical Episcopal Church, was court-martialed for violating Navy guidelines that allow chaplains to have freedom of speech, but only for one hour on Sunday morning during official worship services. At all other times they must be non-sectarian and non-offensive.

Finally, the gospel reading this week tells us about a senior class valedictorian in Nevada who spoke from the podium during her high school graduation ceremony. When she mentioned that faith in Jesus Christ is very important in her life, the microphone was immediately shut off and the audience was not allowed to hear the rest of her speech.

Oops, wait a minute. My mistake. We don’t read about these events in this week’s gospel reading. These events occurred in the United States of America during the past year. It seems that just mentioning the word “Jesus” in public is very offensive, and doing so can get you in a lot of trouble.

No wait, that’s not quite right. It’s perfectly OK to mention the word “Jesus” in public, as long as you do it as part of an angry invective, for example, when you stub your toe or lose your cell phone signal. When these type of things occur you can forcefully declare, “Jesus f---ing Christ!!” and it is perfectly acceptable. It doesn’t matter if someone is offended by your statement. In this context the word “Jesus,” along with any vulgarities, constitute freedom of speech.

You get into trouble only when you say the word “Jesus” in public as part of the concept that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Savior of the world, the founder of Christianity, and—here’s the real offense—in the process imply that you personally believe what the Bible says about Jesus is really true.

Oh sure, there’s stuff in the U.S. Constitution about freedom of speech and freedom of religion, blah, blah, blah. But in our sophisticated modern culture we all understand that the clearly written freedoms of speech and religion in the Constitution take a back seat to the unwritten freedom FROM religion, which is based on the also unwritten constitutional right never to be offended.

In this week’s REAL gospel reading it is interesting to notice that many people 2,000 years ago were also part of a sophisticated modern culture—that is, they too were offended when someone said the word “Jesus” in public.

A blind man named Bartimaeus sat by the roadside begging. When he heard that Jesus was passing by, he called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me!”

The next verse in the gospel is the key verse: “And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent.”

That’s pretty much what happened to the Catholic priest in New York, the Navy chaplain, and the high school valedictorian in Nevada. As soon as they mentioned the word “Jesus” many people rebuked them, telling them to be silent. Thankfully, these courageous people are not wimps who cower when secularists get their noses out of joint.

Neither was Bartimaeus. When the crowd told him to be silent, he did not beg their pardon and mumble, “Oh, please forgive me for imposing my intolerant values on you.” Instead, he shouted out all the louder, “Son of David, have pity on me!”

In our country, all believers in Christ have the constitutionally-guaranteed rights both to exercise our faith freely and speak our minds publicly. We all should be more like Bartimaeus and our three modern-day heroes. We should take our cue from St. Peter who also was told by people in authority to stop talking about Jesus. Peter said, “We must obey God rather than men!” (Act 5:29).

I have an idea. Let’s stop using safe, generic figures of speech. For example, when someone sneezes, instead of saying, “God bless you” (which is usually a mumbled “G’blessya” anyway), say firmly and loudly, “Jesus bless you!” I bet you’ll get some very surprised looks.

Here are a few other ones:

Instead of, “Oh my God!” say, “Oh my Jesus!”

Instead of, “Only God knows,” say, “Only Jesus knows.”

Instead of, “For God’s sake,” say, “For Jesus’ sake.”

As Christians who believe in the Trinity, substituting the word “Jesus” for “God” doesn’t change the meaning of these common phrases at all. But it does tell folks where we stand about our faith.

Our country needs more people like Bartimaeus—and, of course, the New York priest, the Navy chaplain, and the valedictorian. We need more people who refuse to be scolded into silence by the anti-God nannies that are trying to remove all religious expressions from public life. We need to look these ACLU-loving whiners right in the eye and say, “C’mon, get a life!”

And when they sneeze, we need to say very sincerely, “Jesus bless you,” and really mean it.

©2006