I had some brilliant ideas for this weekend\u2019s sermon. But when yesterday at six in the morning my alarm clock automatically turned on the radio I was petrified by the news from Norway. Since the attack on New York in 2001 somehow we\u2019ve got used to news about bombings. In some ways all those bomb attacks were dehumanised because of their sudden and instant effect. It is something similar to using remote or long-distance weapons to destroy a target: a tank, a ship or a building; somehow you forget the people inside. But looking into the eyes of a targeted person makes killing something completely different \u2013 I think more difficult. It seems that the killer in Norway was just walking about shooting unarmed people, methodically and in cold blood.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s first reading tells us part of the story of the young king Solomon at the very beginning of his reign. Asked by God about a gift for himself he pleaded for wisdom to govern the people. God was delighted that Solomon had neither asked for long life, nor riches, nor the lives of his enemies \u2013 in other words Solomon had not been selfish. His desire was to be a good, just king governing his kingdom properly. The Bible tells us that he was a wise man on a great scale. But it did not protect him from being less wise in his private life. Does it sound familiar to you? Religion aside many modern politicians or powerful people are all the same: they are wise and just leaders, but sometimes completely fail on the personal level. Perhaps this happens because they only regard the people they govern as numbers in statistics, in some ways dehumanised.<\/p>\n
As people with generally poor influence or power, governing our own families we might lack in political or managerial skills. We don\u2019t need them because we interact with individuals, not masses of people. And it makes everything different. Personal contact requires some specific skills: listening, understanding, empathy and sympathy; but also being assertive. All of these are necessary to deal with people without hurting them. It simply means that we also need wisdom: the ability to discern between good and evil. We naturally follow and look for good. If we do evil things this is because we falsely recognise them as good. Sometimes something appears to be good at the beginning but the result is tragically bad. We don\u2019t need any examples; we just know that it\u2019s true.<\/p>\n
The parable in today\u2019s gospel speaks about two people: one found hidden treasure and the other a pearl of great value. They needed some good luck; but more importantly they had made a great effort in seeking what they desired. They had developed the skills to discern between real and fake values. All their effort paid off. Similarly it depends on each one of us as to what skills we develop and what efforts we make. It depends on each one of us whether people are terrorised or pleased when they meet us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I had some brilliant ideas for this weekend\u2019s sermon. But when yesterday at six in the morning my alarm clock automatically turned on the radio I was petrified by the news from Norway. Since the attack on New York in 2001 somehow we\u2019ve got used to news about bombings. In some ways all those bomb attacks were dehumanised because of their sudden and instant effect. It is something similar to using remote or long-distance weapons to destroy a target: a tank, a ship or a building; somehow you forget the people inside. But looking into the eyes of a targeted person makes killing something completely different \u2013 I think more difficult. It seems that the killer in Norway was just walking about shooting unarmed people, methodically and in cold blood. Today\u2019s first reading tells us part of the story of the young king Solomon at the very beginning of his reign. Asked by God about a gift for himself he pleaded for wisdom to govern the people. God was delighted that Solomon had neither asked for long life, nor riches, nor the lives of his enemies \u2013 in other words Solomon had not been selfish. His desire was to be a good, just king governing his kingdom properly. The Bible tells us that he was a wise man on a great scale. But it did not protect him from being less wise in his private life. Does it sound familiar to you? Religion aside many modern politicians or powerful people are all the same: they are wise and just leaders, but sometimes completely fail on the personal level. Perhaps this happens because they only regard the people they govern as numbers in statistics, in some ways dehumanised. As people with generally poor influence or power, governing our own families we might lack in political or managerial skills. We don\u2019t need them because we interact with individuals, not masses of people. And it makes everything different. Personal contact requires some specific skills: listening, understanding, empathy and sympathy; but also being assertive. All of these are necessary to deal with people without hurting them. It simply means that we also need wisdom: the ability to discern between good and evil. We naturally follow and look for good. If we do evil things this is because we falsely recognise them as good. Sometimes something appears to be good at the beginning but the result is tragically bad. We don\u2019t need any examples; we just know that it\u2019s true. The parable in today\u2019s gospel speaks about two people: one found hidden treasure and the other a pearl of great value. They needed some good luck; but more importantly they had made a great effort in seeking what they desired. They had developed the skills to discern between real and fake values. All their effort paid off. Similarly it depends on each one of us as to what skills we develop and what efforts we make. It depends on each one of us whether people are terrorised or pleased when they meet us.<\/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":[5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermon","category-year-a"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1274","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=1274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1274\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}