Memorial of Saint Teresa of Jesus, Virgin and Doctor of the Church

Lectionary: 470

Therefore, the wisdom of God said,
‘I will send to them prophets and Apostles;
some of them they will kill and persecute’
in order that this generation might be charged with the blood of all the prophets
shed since the foundation of the world,
from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who died between the altar and the temple building. Yes, I tell you, this generation will be charged with their blood!

 

Suddenly American monuments are scrutinized, assessed, and destroyed. That quiet roost for pigeons in the park where kids skateboarded, and old men warmed their bones in the morning sun has attracted opprobrium, protests, and destruction. In some cases, the despised monuments commemorated Civil War generals who led rebel soldiers; in other cases, they recall beloved saints who planted the Catholic faith in mission territory.

If nothing else their destruction – just or unjust -- signals a dawning awareness in the United States that, “The past is never dead, it’s not even passed.”

Jesus’s warning is more savage, “Yes, I tell you, this generation will be charged with the blood of prophets!” His judgement recalls God’s fatal word to Cain, “Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground!”

A racist strain of American thought refuses any responsibility for the sins of the fathers. They are happy to inherit whatever privileges their ancestors have won for them even when these advantages were wrested cruelly from conquered people. If challenged, they argue that God bestowed these blessings on them and God’s will is just.

But in the rush to further conquests, their children might never hear who stands triumphantly on top of that pillar; nor will they hear Native American or African American parents whispering another story to their children. If history is written by the victors, it is remembered by the losers. 

By a singular grace, much of the Bible was written by losers. While some of the psalms gloat about King David's conquests of even smaller kingdoms, the Hebrew prophets recognized manifest injustices against the poor, widows, orphans, and aliens; and in God's name they protested. For their trouble they were persecuted and killed. Jesus invoked their memory in today’s reading from Saint Luke.

Today's Black LIves Matter protests should remind us that God cannot overlook, nor history forget, evil. It's damage must be repaired; its wounds, healed. Like the blood of Abel, it cries to heaven for justice, atonement, and reconciliation. 

So the LORD passed before [Moses] and proclaimed: The LORD, the LORD, a God gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in love and fidelity, continuing his love for a thousand generations, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin; yet not declaring the guilty guiltless, but bringing punishment for their parents’ wickedness on children and children’s children to the third and fourth generation!

The tragic histories of slavery, the killing of Native Americans, and despoiling our environment does not make us the worse nation in history. It means only that we are a nation like all other nations, destined for judgement like the rest. So long as God is good we may begin to sacrifice, atone, integrate, reconcile, and include --so that others may prosper. In God's world there are neither winners nor losers, there are only the blessed who hunger and thirst for justice.