I have to make a confession, perhaps ruining my career and drawing the condemnation of many: I don\u2019t wear any holy symbol around my neck; I don\u2019t have a crucifix or a prayer card in my car; I haven\u2019t put any holy pictures on the walls in my house. When I look around I can see that my surroundings and environment are pretty bare of so-called religious elements. I hardly ever use \u2018pious greetings\u2019 when contacting people. Honestly, I\u2019m rather reluctant to use \u2018holy\u2019 words unless absolutely necessary. Now you can see that despite being a Catholic priest – God\u2019s ground personnel \u2013 I\u2019m not a witness to our Lord.<\/p>\n
\u2018You are witnesses to this\u2019.<\/em> These are the closing words of today\u2019s gospel \u2013 the words pointing out the mission that Jesus leaves to his disciples. Who are they? The gospel gives us some clues. Certainly they are the apostles, chosen previously by Jesus. But the gospel also mentions two disciples who met the Christ on the road to Emmaus \u2013 neither of them was an apostle in its strict meaning. We can justifiably suppose that there are more of Jesus\u2019 followers in the room. We also cannot with certainty rule out the presence of women, many times mentioned in the gospels as those following and helping Jesus. He speaks openly to all gathered in the room, excluding no-one among those present. We can say that the mission is universal regarding its bearers.<\/p>\n \u2018You are witnesses to this\u2019.<\/em> There\u2019s another question: witnesses to what? The words defining the mission seem to be clear and simple: \u2018in his [Christ\u2019s] name repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all the nations\u2019.<\/em> This is it. This is the mission. Frankly, it sounds pretty unattractive and seemingly hardly relevant to our modern world. One of many reasons that many people have abandoned Christianity is its moral teaching perceived as old-fashioned, irrelevant, troublesome, inconvenient, and just making people\u2019s lives dull. Christian morality seems to treat suspiciously any human activity as a potential spiritual or moral threat. I think that\u2019s a widespread perception of it, regardless of whether it is true or not.<\/p>\n I\u2019m afraid that in many aspects we have chosen one of two options: unbearable and irritating nagging or keeping a convenient silence. Interestingly, in the original Greek, the word translated as \u2018witness\u2019 is \u2018martyr\u2019. I think it changes the whole perspective. A \u2018witness\u2019 is a reporter, not necessarily personally attached to a particular case or situation he or she witnesses. A \u2018martyr\u2019 is someone deeply convinced and attached to his or her cause. Jesus\u2019 message contains one \u2013 in my opinion \u2013 crucial expression: \u2018would be preached\u2019.<\/em> The message has to be presented as an offer. In common with any other offer, it can be accepted or rejected. Even the most attractive offer can be presented in a repellent and unattractive way so that nobody is interested in taking it up.<\/p>\n Personally I\u2019m not convinced that militant Christianity has a future; personally I don\u2019t believe that outward signs of my faith would attract anybody \u2013 though I\u2019m not against those who use them. I do believe that my lifestyle, my approach to others, my dialogue-open attitude and general openness can win someone for Jesus \u2013 as a by-product of being human.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have to make a confession, perhaps ruining my career and drawing the condemnation of many: I don\u2019t wear any holy symbol around my neck; I don\u2019t have a crucifix or a prayer card in my car; I haven\u2019t put any holy pictures on the walls in my house. When I look around I can see that my surroundings and environment are pretty bare of so-called religious elements. I hardly ever use \u2018pious greetings\u2019 when contacting people. Honestly, I\u2019m rather reluctant to use \u2018holy\u2019 words unless absolutely necessary. Now you can see that despite being a Catholic priest – God\u2019s ground personnel \u2013 I\u2019m not a witness to our Lord. \u2018You are witnesses to this\u2019. These are the closing words of today\u2019s gospel \u2013 the words pointing out the mission that Jesus leaves to his disciples. Who are they? The gospel gives us some clues. Certainly they are the apostles, chosen previously by Jesus. But the gospel also mentions two disciples who met the Christ on the road to Emmaus \u2013 neither of them was an apostle in its strict meaning. We can justifiably suppose that there are more of Jesus\u2019 followers in the room. We also cannot with certainty rule out the presence of women, many times mentioned in the gospels as those following and helping Jesus. He speaks openly to all gathered in the room, excluding no-one among those present. We can say that the mission is universal regarding its bearers. \u2018You are witnesses to this\u2019. There\u2019s another question: witnesses to what? The words defining the mission seem to be clear and simple: \u2018in his [Christ\u2019s] name repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all the nations\u2019. This is it. This is the mission. Frankly, it sounds pretty unattractive and seemingly hardly relevant to our modern world. One of many reasons that many people have abandoned Christianity is its moral teaching perceived as old-fashioned, irrelevant, troublesome, inconvenient, and just making people\u2019s lives dull. Christian morality seems to treat suspiciously any human activity as a potential spiritual or moral threat. I think that\u2019s a widespread perception of it, regardless of whether it is true or not. I\u2019m afraid that in many aspects we have chosen one of two options: unbearable and irritating nagging or keeping a convenient silence. Interestingly, in the original Greek, the word translated as \u2018witness\u2019 is \u2018martyr\u2019. I think it changes the whole perspective. A \u2018witness\u2019 is a reporter, not necessarily personally attached to a particular case or situation he or she witnesses. A \u2018martyr\u2019 is someone deeply convinced and attached to his or her cause. Jesus\u2019 message contains one \u2013 in my opinion \u2013 crucial expression: \u2018would be preached\u2019. The message has to be presented as an offer. In common with any other offer, it can be accepted or rejected. Even the most attractive offer can be presented in a repellent and unattractive way so that nobody is interested in taking it up. Personally I\u2019m not convinced that militant Christianity has a future; personally I don\u2019t believe that outward signs of my faith would attract anybody \u2013 though I\u2019m not against those who use them. I do believe that my lifestyle, my approach to others, my dialogue-open attitude and general openness can win someone for Jesus \u2013 as a by-product of being human.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermon","category-year-b"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}